Upon reading Border Wars: Inside [45's] Assault on Immigration, by New York Times reporters Julie Hirschfeld David and Michael D. Shear, one comes away with one strong thought: If not for the Democrats, all would be chaos and domination by fools.
The book has a remarkable amount of inside information. It details meetings inside the White House and Oval Office as if we were all there. On the other hand, we already know that plenty of people have wanted to be sure that everyone knew just what we were dealing with, so often without attribution, they're happy to do so.
45, at times, is the least of it. The real rogue is Stephen Miller, obsessed as he is with taking away every opportunity for Hispanic immigrants to come into the United States. He is omnipresent, insidious, and manipulative. His personality, domineering and boisterous, takes care of the rest: everyone knows he has the president's ear. He creates policy groups where there are none to get where he wants to go: On a path for gradually preventing anyone from coming into the Southern border. He creates false statistics and waves them at people to fall into line with his boss, who doesn't know what he's saying outside of his own gut, which will steer him wrong almost everywhere.
But even then, he cannot be everywhere, and he cannot control everything. The country is too large and it has preceded him. The laws that shackle 45's wishes are there, and some people are actually trying to follow them, albeit far more strictly than before.
Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security, is one. She comes off as no wallflower, yet she, too, is helpless in the wake of 45's temper tantrums. Why can't you just close the border? 45 asks. She knows she can't, and knows as well that the draconian policies 45 wants can't just happen by themselves--they'll be sued immediately and probably lose. Congress has to act, she keeps saying. It doesn't matter. He won't listen.
All the nonsense that 45 has said and done are well-documented here, and the book serves as a nice reminder of how close he has come to shutting down the border. Indeed, it's that fear that Nielsen and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo drive home to the Mexican government to get it to agree to try harder to detain immigrants and asylum-seekers (one case of which Davis and Shear expose brilliantly) to slow down the surges, in exchange for a bushel of money. That hardly matters; they keep coming. Besides, once that deal comes out, the right-wingers that have 45's ear pound away at him: We thought Mexico was supposed to pay for this. Now we have? It's a great plan, one of the best pieces of negotiation in the entire book, one that could make 45 look like a really strong president and get some genuine policy accomplished. But he refuses it.
Even some fellow Republicans won't budge. Mitch McConnell, otherwise one of the notorious, won't do the otherwise suicidal "nuclear" pledge to end the 60-vote requirement to get legislation passed through the Senate. Indeed, he has to wait for the right moments to get things done, before "the beast" is awakened, as one Republican staffer says, and 45, certainly not savvy in any legislative sense, learns that Mitch has pulled a fast one on him.
The fire-branders say they want something, but the leadership really doesn't. While Paul Ryan is Speaker, he wants better limitations on immigration, sure, but nothing so terrible as what 45 wants. So he tries to put him off, saying that the much-vaunted wall will have to wait for a better time. But Ryan, too, is compromised by the House Freedom Caucus, and we have seen what trouble they have made for everyone.
The picture that emerges is one of chaos. Who enters to try to set things straight? Why, Jared Kushner, of course. He comes off as the knight errant, saying himself that he isn't tied to previous legislative commitments and workings. But Republican insiders have no respect for him: He, Vice-President Mike Pence, and future Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney are referred to sardonically as the "Three Wise Men."
Enter Nancy Pelosi with new power, due to mid-term elections of 2018. 45 tries, and badly, to compromise her, but as usual, he has no idea who he's dealing with. We already know her efforts to turn the tables and destroy him didn't work--and won't, as long as the Republican Party has the numbers. But in the meantime, she will insist that people matter.
Very little is said about the shutdown of early 2019, which is kind of a disappointment. But 45's wall is the centerpiece of this thinking--and will be, once the coronavirus pandemic has passed, in my view; it's all he has to throw back at the American people. While we were getting ourselves through this, he will say, in a classic of attention diversion, the wall is being built. That will be another of his long list of lies. Count on it, though.
Throughout, Davis and Shear make sure to be factual and meticulously chronological, giving the reader a path through which screw-up after screw-up are derived. That we have forgotten all about the kids--the kids--who were taken from their parents and put in foster homes is a tribute to first, time passing and other priorities taking place; and second, the sheer size of the country and the ability of bureaucracy to hide its mistakes. Journalism must respond and return to that story.
Border Wars is, in the final analysis, a tribute to the two-party system, and its ability, even with this monster in charge, to attain a rough balance between interests. It's the reason why today, especially, Democrats must come out, risk their health, and vote out Republicans who, in the meanest sense, hold them hostage. It's why Amy Klobuchar, in a masterful piece of foresight, has sponsored legislation to put a stronger engine behind voting by mail.
It's also a tribute to the so-called Deep State, where outrageous orders are slow-walked back and delayed by government bureaucrats because eventually, as people start to figure him out, 45 will forget about them or think of something else. His mind has no order; it is a grab-bag of ideas, mostly with no connection to governance whatsoever. They were cute to start with, but become tired and annoying because they simply can't be operable and, after a while, he should know better. He should be the kind of person a decent president should be calling to get possible policy options, throwing in a brainstorm or two. Instead, we have calls to Alex Rodriguez and appearances by Mr. My Pillow, that somehow are supposed to represent ingenuity, but fall flat as pointless.
You'll remember that you forgot all this stuff, especially now that so much irresponsibility has been demonstrated by 45 in the wake of the coronavirus; you'll face the ceiling, roll your eyes, and say to yourself, I forgot about that. But the book's contribution to the literature that depicts this cravenness is not only well-contrived, but necessary so that we remember it all. We cannot repeat this disaster.
This is a book which, because the authors don't appear on CNN or MSNBC (at least, I've never seen them), will probably go to the half-price shelves faster than other exposes that demonstrate someone who's used to having his way, but can't, by better-known writers. If and when it does (and when bookstores re-open), pick it up. It opens a window into a world where people who are supposed to have a handle on reality intentionally don't--and the results are an awful demonstration of what happens when the wrong people are put in charge by an electorate that isn't looking nearly well enough.
Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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