Amnesty Deal Would Be a Huge Win for Trump Foes, by Chris Buskirk.
If President Trump reverses his campaign promises and supports a DACA amnesty then within the span of a few days he would do to himself what the combined efforts of the Democratic National Committee, the Republican establishment, the Clinton campaign, and an openly hostile media couldn’t do: knee-cap his presidency and separate himself from his base.
Amnesty is where Republican careers go to die. Just ask Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) whose own 2016 presidential run was stillborn because he backed the 2012 “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill after promising voters in 2010 he would do no such thing.
Guess who offered Marco the apple back in 2012? Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). The same Chuck Schumer who is in the process of leading another electorally successful Republican to break faith with his base. But this time it’s the president. …
DACA will be seen as part of a growing pattern of departures from his own campaign promises. Many Trump supporters were willing to give the president a pass on the missile strikes in Syria. They were a reversal of Trump’s promise to extricate our country from taking sides in a winless civil war in the Middle East where there are neither any easily identifiable “good guys” nor a clear national security interest. In isolation, the strikes could be swallowed. Then he expanded the war in Afghanistan and it started to look like a rejection of his own stated policy. It is the nation’s longest war, has cost over $750 billion, 2,500 lives, and what do we have to show for it? The United Nations estimates the Taliban controls more of Afghanistan than they did on 9/11. …
Like many a Republican before him, Trump may be seduced by the temptation of a few days of muted praise from the mainstream media. But if Democrats and open-borders Republicans get what they want — amnesty — it will be back to the status quo ante. And if that happens, Trump won’t be able to rely on his base, on the people who believed him, who worked for him, who defended him, and who voted for him. Because they will be gone.
