The White House knows the clock is ticking. With midterms looming and the GOP desperate to regain momentum, the administration is scrambling to recalibrate its immigration message before it’s too late. The stakes are high, that’s for sure. If Democrats win the House, they’ll impeach President Donald Trump. If they win the Senate, judicial nominations will come to a grinding halt. The White House thinks it has a plan to turn things around. Will it work?
For weeks, White House aides have worked to rebrand the administration’s deportation strategy. The broad “mass deportation” label apparently polls terribly, even though the actual enforcement policies remain largely intact. The goal now is to shift the focus from sweeping round-ups to going after the worst offenders. Which, correct me if I’m wrong, is what the administration was already doing?
“President Trump is seeking to lower the profile of his mass deportation effort, and has directed his top advisers to adopt a new approach on one of his central campaign promises,” reports the Wall Street Journal. According to the report, Trump has acknowledged to advisers and even to Melania that some parts of the early strategy “went too far.”
The fact is that Donald Trump’s approach to immigration is still popular with voters. He promised action; he delivered action. Sure, he didn’t play by the Beltway rulebook that demands Republicans apologize for wanting a secure border, but that’s not why voters reelected him. It’s true that the problem isn’t the policy, it’s the optics — especially after those two agitators were killed earlier this year.
Does it matter that Renee Good attempted to run over an ICE agent with her car? No. Does it matter that Alex Pretti assaulted Border Patrol agents with a loaded gun? I guess not. So, of course, Democrats, with the help of the media, pushed their preferred narrative before the facts even landed. They rode that wave straight into a congressional showdown, blocking DHS funding and forcing a partial shutdown.
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In other words, the White House wants fewer chaotic street scenes and more stories highlighting arrests of serious criminals. Call me crazy, but hasn’t that already happened? You don’t see chaos dominating the headlines anymore.
Still, the White House believes a softer tone will take the sting out of the poor publicity surrounding immigration enforcement. Maybe. But here’s the problem: Democrats won’t change their ways. They’ll hammer immigration no matter what the administration does, and block funding until they get their way.
Worse yet, any change in strategy by the White House will signal to the Democrat the pressure is working. This is why I’ve long believed that Trump’s strongest move is to own his policies outright. Voters respect clarity. They despise the political word games that Democrats hide behind. A rebrand could help, but it won’t stop the obstruction that has become the left’s default position on anything involving enforcement.
What will matter far more in November is the state of the economy. If voters feel squeezed, no amount of tactical repositioning from either party will override that. The GOP can still reclaim momentum, but it won’t be because of what phrase the White House uses to describe deportations. It will be based entirely on whether families believe they’re better off now than they were last year. And right now, that’s the battlefield that truly counts.
