You Said It, So I Will Too

Andrew Sullivan has a response to his widely derided “build that wall” column that starts off badly and gets much worse. First, we get a rehash of the same terrible political analysis:

• First of all, it’s hilarious from him to pretend to know all along that Democrats already offered Trump the deal he urged them to offer. Why didn’t he mention it, given that it basically torpedoes his argument?
• Having hand-waved at this inconvenient fact, he proceeds to ignore it and keep asserting that there’s a deal to be made, when in fact it is abundantly clear that House Republicans (let alone Trump) don’t want to make a deal with Democrats and can’t reach a consensus about what to do themselves.  
• What we have here, then, is a particularly egregious example of Murc’s Law — Democrats are being blamed for not offering a deal they’ve repeatedly offered, and Republicans magically escape blame although they control the government.

This is merely inept. Then we get the quiet parts loud:

Well, that gives away the show, don’t it? As Adam says:

Anyway, fine, let’s say reducing “demographic change” as an end it itself represents “conservatism,” at least as practiced by the Republican Party. Fair enough — glad we agree! It used to be considered the height of incivility to point this out.

It’s also worth noting that the first part, while less white nationalist, still misses the point. It’s not inherently fascist to enforce immigration laws. “Zero tolerance” enforcement — not found in any other area of the law — is another matter (and that goes triple when dealing with a president, cabinet and associates who largely treat the U.S. Code as a polite suggestion.) Trump is not being criticized not for “enforcing anti-immigration laws” per se but for the arbitrary, capricious, cruel, and discriminatory enforcement of these laws. That’s the issue, and attempts to put the Democratic Party just compounds the problem.