And he’s going to make the Republicans pay for it. We’ve seen enough off-the-cuff discussion of immigration from Trump to show he understands at least some of the problems with his policy, and yet, given the opportunity to attempt a real, earnest reset, he chose to stay where he is. He continues to hold up his broken immigration policy proposal as the cornerstone of his campaign.
He even bothered to bring up global warming during his speech, to mock it. An issue that will cost the generation known as Millennials $8.8 trillion by one estimate, versus an issue that, managed correctly, actually generates revenue (so could climate mitigation, of course, if action were taken).
Likewise, on the issue of Colin Kaepernick’s protest, he missed a key opportunity to appeal to minorities. All he had to do was disavow the protest itself, while being sympathetic to the issues it represents. Instead it was something like, ‘go find a new country.’
He’s bad at this, folks. He seems to believe he can win with white men alone. He largely did that during the primaries, but the last primary was three months ago. Nobody told Trump, apparently.
He keeps hiring people to fix it, but they’re all on the outside of his wall. Inside? Probably just him, realistically. His kids, he pays attention to the kids. But as I’ve said before, they probably agree with him no matter what, as it’s their inheritance on the line. They can’t really be the changemakers. As the new staff gets frustrated, they try to breach that wall, only to find themselves resigning or fired because the Trumps like their wall right where it is.
The best that they can hope for is that they can get Trump to leave the wall, since they’re not going to get in there. Leave some KFC buckets outside, and set up some big fans to blow the scent in there. Or maybe try to smoke him out. Something.
In all probability, he just doesn’t understand how it works. He thinks leaders are elected by their staff. If only he hires the right people, it’ll all work out. He doesn’t understand that it’s up to him to do the work, and the Republican leaders haven’t impressed upon him that the damage he is doing will leave scars. But they can’t, because he’s not a politician anyway. He has no real skin in the game. He can always go back to being a two-bit billionaire, which he’s already said he’ll gladly do.
That’s good for the country, at least. The Republicans are left with another bout of obstructionism ahead as their only real strategy beyond actually changing some of their policies. It will take more electoral defeat to convince them to change, something that will only occur over the next few decades, unfortunately.