Trump’s Trump?

I’m not one to go in for the “Trump is playing six-dimensional chess” theories of his transcendent political brilliance, and while I think he is willy-nilly gesturing toward Bill Clinton’s famous “triangulation” strategy with yesterday’s debt ceiling deal with the Democrats (which may work very well for Trump politically), I wonder whether Trump may be setting up to turn on the Democrats on a compromise over DACA. It is pretty clear, from his past remarks and head-scratching Tweet that Paul noted, that Trump is conflicted about the so-called “dreamers.”

In fact, if you look closely, I don’t think Trump is all that strongly anti-immigration at all. His famous wall is, to borrow Pat Moynihan’s line about Bill Clinton’s line on welfare, “boob-bait for bubba.” But the Democratic base has become so intransigently in favor of open borders that the Democratic leadership will not want to make any kind of compromise deal over DACA at all, thinking Trump will fold and re-adopt Obama’s executive action. Maybe Trump will surprise us and turn as viciously on the Democrats as he has on congressional Republicans. “Hey—we made a deal on the debt ceiling; why not this?”

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