Biden is to blame for the border bill failing???
Greg Sargent discusses one of the most disturbing poll results I’ve seen yet. It’s completely inexplicable:
You’ve probably heard that Donald Trump has “tightened his grip on the Republican Party,” or that he’s “bent the party to his will.” Pundits repeat such formulations constantly, because, well, it’s true: Trump is exerting a level of influence over his party in a way that’s unprecedented in a former president.
But what if voters aren’t aware of it?
That’s one possible takeaway from a new ABC News-Ipsos survey, which has a maddening finding: Trump gets substantially less blame for killing the bipartisan border security deal last week than any other major actor in that drama:
Americans find there is blame to go around on Congress’ failure to pass legislation intended to decrease the number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border—with about the same number blaming the Republicans in Congress (53%), the Democrats (51%) and Biden (49%). Fewer, 39%, blame Trump.
Biden strongly supported the deal, while Trump explicitly and repeatedly called on Republicans to kill it. He expressly asked for the blame for its death to be directed at him. As the measure appeared to be dying, numerous Republicans said openly that Trump was the reason for it, even suggesting that he demanded its demise to give himself an issue against President Biden. Trump himself didn’t bother trying to hide this motive.
What’s more, Democrats get almost identical blame to Republicans, even though virtually all Senate Democrats voted for the deal, while virtually all Republicans opposed it. That’s after Democrats made the bulk of the concessions required to broker the compromise, which would have made it much harder to apply for asylum, channeled vast expenditures into fortifying the border, expanded detention of migrants, and expedited processing of asylum-seekers, including faster removal of those who don’t qualify.
What??? It’s insane. But as Sargent goes on to discuss, the president often gets blamed for immigration problems even when it’s the congress that fails to make the laws that would give him the tools to make the system better.
As for the poll, it may be an outlier or be skewed because of Trump cultists blindly following their Dear Leader and understanding the game is to blame Biden.
Sargent wonders whether swing voters are understand how Trump ordered the GOP to tank the bill. I don’t know but I suspect they don’t know much. I’ve heard several of my civilian friends in the last few days say they barely follow the news because it’s so depressing. But they are aware of the drumbeat that Biden is old and think most of the problems stem from that.
Sargent has some advice for the Democrats:
The border deal’s demise shows yet again that for a former president, Trump wields unprecedented influence over his party. Yet how aware are swing voters of this level of influence?
Democrats must do more to communicate that Republicans are sabotaging the country because Trump told them to. Democrats spent a few days pointing out that Republicans themselves admitted they iced the deal to help Trump politically. But they mustn’t let this drop. Keep saying it. What if Biden did more in coming days to highlight the fact that the Border Patrol—which endorsed Trump—supported the deal that Trump killed?
The party could also be making far better use of a stable of young, energetic Democrats from southwestern and border states, who could act as surrogates. Now is the time to do exactly that.
Right now, Trump may be enjoying the best of two worlds—he can get Republicans to do his political bidding without getting the blame for the result. Sure, it’s infuriating. But Democrats must channel that anger into action, so the public places the blame for this debacle exactly where it belongs.
All that sounds good. But in the end I think the people are going to have to be forced to see both Biden and Trump in action, with all that that entails, in order to truly understand the dynamics at play. It’s going to take all hands on deck.