The present view of many liberals seems to be that restrictionists can eventually be steamrolled — that the same ethnic transformations that have made white anxiety acute will eventually bury white-identity politics with sheer multiethnic numbers.
.. Especially since last week, Trump and Miller actually made an interesting offer: an amnesty and even a path to citizenship for DACA recipients and other Dreamers, more generous than what many restrictionists favor and with no promise of the new E-Verify enforcements conservatives often seek, in return for a shift (over many years) to a skills-based policy and a somewhat lower immigration rate.
If you’re committed to the view that restrictionists can and must be steamrolled, you’ll respond to this offer the way many Democrats have — call it a “white supremacist ransom note,” punt on policy, and use the issue to rally your base in 2018.
But if you think that lasting deals are forged when all sides are represented, you might consider making a counteroffer: for instance, the same rough blueprint but with more green cards for skilled immigrants, so that Miller gets his cuts to low-skilled immigration but the overall rate stays closer to the status quo.
.. But a bargain that actually reflects the shape of public opinion, not just the elite consensus, can only happen with someone like Stephen Miller at the table.
Clueless Versus Trump
Apple will not be the only multinational that will soon bring back gigantic profits to take advantage of new low repatriation rates. Microsoft holds $146 billion in overseas earnings, Pfizer $178 billion, General Electric $82 billion, Alphabet $78 billion, and Cisco $71 billion, according to estimates from the Zion Research Group. The total stash is about $3 trillion — by one measure nearly three times what it was just a decade ago.
.. the damage their hubris does to the anti-Trump case.
.. But how can the critics who previously assured us that Trump’s election would cause certain calamity now explain that he’s nothing but a lucky bystander to forces beyond his control?.. The truth is that it’s hard to account exactly for why the economy does well or poorly from one year to the next. But it’s also true that the president has been nothing if not aggressive in his efforts to remove regulations, cut taxes and promote American business (not least his own), and animal spirits on Wall Street have responded accordingly... Democrats are placing a large bet that it’s a political showdown they can win. But what they are mainly doing is wrecking their chances of retaking the House or Senate by appearing to put the interests of DACA’s immigrant “Dreamers” ahead of the rest of America... Donald Trump is a profoundly defective person who nearly every morning does grave political self-harm with no assistance from his opponents. But he is also president, and normal Americans — that is, those who hold the outcome of the next election in their hands — do not want him to fail.. Wouldn’t it be smart of all of Trump’s opponents to show they are superior to him in the former? And wouldn’t a good way of doing that be to abjure the latter, even if it sometimes means giving him some credit?
Stephen Miller, the Young Man With Trump’s Ear
President Trump’s 32-year-old senior adviser has gained attention for his hard-line stances in support of the president. Glenn Thrush takes a look at Mr. Miller, from his days as a young conservative to his current role in the White House.
Trump Gives Conservatives Their Just Comeuppance
I enjoy the self-abasement of Jeff Sessions, who endured private harangues and public humiliation from his boss because the attorney general saw a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use his office to get tough on illegal immigration.
And then there’s the joy of watching Sean Hannity trying desperately to pin the blame for the president’s border wall betrayal on congressional Republicans. The Fox News host seems to be drawing moral inspiration from Samuel Beckett, who is said to have mused: “When you’re in the sh— up to your neck, there’s nothing left to do but sing.”
.. But now it’s the president who is doing exactly that, making the case for DACA beneficiaries in terms his base most condemns: as “good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military” and who don’t deserve to be thrown out of the country simply because their parents brought them to the United States as children. It’s the kind of thing Nancy Pelosi — or, worse, John McCain — might say.
.. He feels about as much loyalty toward them and their convictions as he’s felt toward his several wives. Remember that, as recently as 2012, he denounced Mitt Romney for an excessively harsh attitude toward immigrants, calling the Massachusetts governor’s policy of self-deportation “crazy” and a turnoff to “everybody who is inspired to come into this country.”
.. at heart he was a destructive opportunist with no core convictions beyond his own immediate advantage.