Don’t Try To Sell Us On The Idea That Trump’s Loyal MAGA Base Doesn’t Care About The DACA Amnesty
Posted at 10:30 pm on September 14, 2017 by Caleb Howe
[ This article argues Trumpsters will be angry over being betrayed . I think some will. But many will rationalize it away and will stay loyal no matter what. It is a personality cult after all. If Trumpov declared him a Democrat tomorrow, they'd follow him into the Democratic party. If he announces he's working with Dems to give America Trumpcare which is just putting everyone on Medicaid, Trumpsters will go along. It Trumpov shot THEM personally on Fifth Avenue and they survived, they'd argue Trumpov wasn't really to blame. He was just frustrated by Paul Ryan or something. ]
This is borderline perfidious. A growing sentiment promoted by the Trump-friendly or MAGA- sympathetic pundit and reporter class that Trump’s loyal immigration base don’t actually care about amnesty for DREAMers is sweeping across social media.
Wrong.
This is absolutely something Trump’s voters cared and care about. This morning, when President Trump tweeted philosophically and incredulously about this supposedly surprising notion that people might want to deport illegal immigrants who are productive and law-abiding, he was met with immediate resistance. And rightly so.
[ Maybe they DID care about amnesty in the past but now that they've pledged loyalty to Trumpov, TRUMP! will have to come first. Donald Trumpov doesn't care about anything but TRUMP! His agenda is TRUMP! Any loyal Trumpov supporter will have to reconcile with not caring about anything but TRUMP! ]
Look, it doesn’t matter if you think deporting DREAMers is bad, or ending DACA isn’t feasible, or whatever you may think. The question boils down to two things: What did Trump promise to do about it, and what did Trump’s immigration base vote for?
In both cases, the answer is “no amnesty, even for those covered under DACA.” This is simply indisputable. Let us revisit a key quote:
"We will immediately terminate President Obama’s two illegal executive amnesties in which he defied federal law and the Constitution to give amnesty to approximately five million illegal immigrants, five million."
There is so much more here. That he was specific about DACA, that he said it would be immediate and uncompromised, there is zero doubt. This was something he repeated many times, always to roars and cheers.
Yet today, even good reporters are buying into and repeating the romantic notion that, well gosh, no decent, real, hard-working Trump voters actually wanted these promises they cheered for to come to fruition.
If we’re going to compare anecdotes (for some reason), I too have met many dozens of Trump supporters. I live in southern North Carolina. I travel in conservative and evangelical circles. I went to many rallies as part of RedState’s coverage of the election. I can’t think of a Trump voter that I met who would notreject Trump’s reasoning. Not one who would be indifferent to cutting a deal on DACA with Pelosi and Schumer. Zero.
But it’s not mere anecdote. The premise for a lot of “from the heartland” coverage was that there was a natural, grassroots, organic and genuine movement that elected Donald Trump. In evidence of that inevitably is offered the many rallies he held to over-capacity crowds, the MAGA hats that one saw in public, even the signs in people’s yards. Yes, those were all cited as legitimate proof. But it was those very rallies and public shows of support where Trump spoke the most frequently and vehemently about illegal immigration and amnesty. It was that very populist, native political force endlessly described to us which cheered the loudest when he did. It was they who held the signs. They who wore the hats and buttons. They cheered it. They believed it.
And besides that proof, there is the evidence of one’s own eyes today. Sites that have long been in the tank for Trump, mainly on immigration grounds, sites like Breitbart.com, for example, are calling him Amnesty Don today. His supporters are tweeting their frustration and anger at him for trusting the Democrats, for making no progress on the promised wall, and yes, absolutely, for DACA amnesty
Take a look. Look here. Or here. Or here.
Not to mention this doesn’t even get into the issue of the wall.
They care. And moreover, they should care. As I have repeated a dozen times today, his argument this morning in support of his deal cut directly to the heart of the philosophical positions for and against amnesty as a concept, and he came in on the same side as amnesty. There is no question about it. Whether the deal is changed in a hasty course correction, the reality is now apparent with regard to his belief and understanding. And that belief and understanding are in direct contradiction of all that he promised, and all that his fervent supporters believed.
MAGA cares about this. They may not act on it, they may rationalize it, but don’t pretend it’s utterly trivial to them. It’s not.
They are betrayed. There is no interview from Peoria that will change that.
] They did care and they were betrayed and they should care. But they have to stay loyal to the cult of TRUMP! so they'll have to swallow anything they feel. ]
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