Erick Erickson has been given the assignment of keeping his herd together, so he’s trying to inspire loathing and disdain for President Biden:
Today, he will announce executive action to secure the southern border. It is something he could have done three years ago. He is only doing it now because he is being led by the polls instead of leading.
Immigration and border security are major issues. For the last few months, they have been the top issues for Americans. Biden, acting now, opens himself to criticism for not acting soon.
But Biden is acting at this particular moment because he does not want to secure the border. By waiting until this moment and by broadcasting what he will do, he has given progressive activists enough time to prepare their lawsuits and run to court to enjoin his actions. A progressive judge in California will probably halt the executive order. Biden will try to look tough while also ensuring he can blame the courts for not letting him have his way. Unlike student loans, he will not try to find his way around this injunction.
This is all theater.
And, yes, it is theater – but, as Senator Schumer (D-NY) has hammered home, of a different sort. President Biden requested support from Congress on the matter, and Senator Lankford (R-OK) took the lead on hammering out a bill that most agreed imposed some of the toughest immigration measures in decades, but eventually he had some bipartisan support. Enough, he and Minority Leader Senator McConnell (R-KY) thought, to send it through to the House.
Then Mr. Trump, thinking he scented an opportunity, ordered his Senate allies to kill the bill. Reportedly, he’ll be using the border issue in his Presidential campaign.
And so President Biden did not get the needed Congressional support. After sensibly waiting for it, he’s forced to use a possibly illegal executive order.
I think Mr. Trump has, once again, miscalculated. With careful messaging, the immigration issue, much like the Republican’s loss of the Rule of Law Party appellation with the convictions of Mr. Trump, and the consequent attacks on law enforcement and the judiciary by his minions both in and out of Congress – a major loss of prestige for the Republican Party, worthy of the label fiasco – can become a Democratic advantage, by contrasting President Biden’s efforts to keep within the law while protecting the Nation, vs Mr. Trump’s heedless use of the issue to his own ends.
Erickson supports someone whose conception of ethics and morality centers around how he can use them to manipulate others to his own end.
This is what Erickson has been reduced to. Toxic team culture, appropriated by an ethically and morally challenged individual who charms the base into supporting him, is a disaster for the nation and for Erickson.
