“A border wall is immoral.” – Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
“I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck.” – President Trump to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)
If you are one of the middle-of-the-road Americans who constantly asks, a la Rodney King, “Why can’t we all just get along?” Nancy, Chuck and Don just showed you why. On national TV.
Because, like it or not, our political differences have achieved Seinfeld status: They’re real— and they are spectacular.
The “why can’t we compromise” crowd is right, for example, about DACA and the Wall. On paper, this should be a layup. Democrats cough up $20 billion (or as it’s known in Washington, D.C., “chump change”) for the Wall, while Trump and the Republicans make President Obama’s sketchy deal for DACA recipients legal and permanent.
Boom. Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill could have done this deal on a cocktail napkin.
But not today. Why? Because Nancy Pelosi dropped the “I” word.
“What blows me away is the word ‘immoral,’” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a moderate Republican from Illinois. “This (DACA deal) is an easy thing to do: Give him the money, build the wall, let’s fix immigration and move on to other issues to argue about,” Kinzinger told Fox News.
And that’s what a functioning political system should do. But once Pelosi declared the Wall “immoral,” we left politics behind for the realm of religion. And for progressives, politics is their religion. It’s their favored vehicle for virtue-signaling (along with overpriced coffee and subsidized electric cars).
When a political position is declared a sacred religious tenet, cutting a deal isn’t “compromise.” It’s a cardinal sin.
Sane people might reply “No, it’s a wall.” How is a wall (or any other inanimate object for that matter) “immoral”? Nancy Pelosi’s office is full of walls. Her gated-community mansion in San Francisco is surrounded by them.
A fixed border barrier isn’t good or bad. It’s just a policy. Is it the best way to enforcement immigration laws? No. Interior enforcement (aka “deportations”) and punishing businesses who hire illegals is better. Is it a good way to reduce illegal border crossings? Sure, in some places — like the 700-plus miles where we have some form of wall, fencing or physical barriers right now.
But “immoral”? No.
Agree? Disagree? Doesn’t matter. Because once you declare a border wall “immoral,” the compromises that the Jeff Flakes and CNN commentators of the world clamor for become impossible. A $5 billion buy-in to keep the government running — the sort of political skid-greasing long practiced in our democracy — becomes an immoral act.
And, once again, don’t blame Donald Trump. Or Pelosi or Schumer, for that matter. Blame the millions of their voters watching back home on TV … and cheering them on.
You know the #MAGA hat crowd loved it when Trump promised to “shut down the government for border security.” Do they care that, according to a new NPR/Marist poll, 57 percent of Americans want Trump to cut a deal? Of course not.
The same with the Pelosi progressives, who’ve embraced political disagreements with Donald Trump as a war waged against evil incarnate. The fact that a Gallup poll finds that 158 million people—including more than half the adult population of El Salvador — want to emigrate to America right now is meaningless to them. So too is the surge in the number of people apprehended crossing the border illegally (50,000 in October alone) or the spike in the number of almost-certainly false claims for asylum.
Bah! Democrats don’t have time for facts.
All of which adds up to…no deal. No compromise, no cooperation, and no politicians coming to the middle. Why?
Because there aren’t any voters there. When Massachusetts liberals throw out Mike Capuano for being too moderate, they can’t complain when there’s nobody left in Washington willing to compromise.