House Republicans Think Trump's Wall Is A Good Reason For Shutting Down The Government But Almost No One Else Does

South Florida Republican Carlos Curbelo was defeated last month by a weak Democratic opponent, 119,761 (50.9%) to 115,663 (49.1%). He blames Trump, rather than his own unwillingness to break with Trump over the last two years. Yesterday he tweeted bitterly: "Still with the benefit (or curse) of an inside perspective, I must say that the instability and chaos in our government the past few days has been particularly pronounced — worse than at any point during my service in Congress, and really, my lifetime. Things are not well in the USA." Too late to save himself, Curbelo was one of only 8 Republicans-- Justin Amash, Ken Buck, Carlos Curbelo, Will Hurd, Erik Paulsen, Ileana Kos-Lehtinen, Fred Upton and David Valadao-- voting against Trump's border wall Thursday. Yesterday, Mike Allen, noted at Axios that Trump's Christmas shutdown over the wall is spooking the GOP and that it "has left Republicans with a debacle as their last act in control of the House. And now the party is even more worried about the outlook beginning Jan. 3, when Democrats take over. 'It's a showdown, but one side has already lost,' said one outside adviser in close touch with the West Wing... With his eye on 2020, he's all about the base, with no apparent plans to co-opt the center."

Yesterday hedge fund manager Mark Dow, likely losing his ass because of Trump's stock market meltdown, tweeted, a sentiment that is commonly felt in financial circles:

In a post for America's Voice, Frank Sharry remarked that "If the GOP is so worked up about border security, they should step in and protect the American people from a president at the border of insanity." Short of impeachment, it might be too late. That border wall government shut down turns out to be a real stinker. Sharry:

The Trump/Republican plan to shut down the government over an unpopular, ineffective and insulting border wall is a sad reflection of the state of our politics. The President is increasingly unhinged and, instead of checking him, the GOP Congress is enabling him.

That may help to explain why they are embarking on one of the stupidest political moves in recent history: shuttering the federal government over a rally chant and an impossible promise (“Mexico will pay for the wall!”) just weeks after the nation’s voters soundly rejected the Trump/GOP embrace of racism and xenophobia as the closing argument in the midterm elections.

The consensus view from operatives and analysts right and left is that Trump’s reliance on xenophobia in the midterms backfired, badly:  

• David Drucker of the conservative Washington Examiner noted, “Why are Dems so confident in position on border wall? 1) ‘In reviewing polling/data, GOP strategists discovered Trump’s immigration rhetoric was more damaging to House GOP during final 7-10 days of midterm campaign than they realized at the time.” Drucker also wrote, “2nd reason Dems so confident in oppo to Trump’s wall: Per GOP review of midterms: ‘POTUS’ near-singular focus on caravan/wall repelled Hispanics, indies, soft Rs, turning a race for House control that leaned Dem into a late-breaking GOP bloodbath.”
• Republican pollster David Winston on how Republican immigration fear-mongering in the midterm homestretch backfired: “The people who made their decision over the last few days voted Democratic by a 12-point margin.” Winston’s analysis showed that late-deciding voters were 59 percent less likely to back Republicans after hearing from them on immigration, and 63 percent less likely to vote for Republicans after hearing from the GOP on border security and the migrant caravan.
• In a post-election New York Times op-ed, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg wrote, “Democrats made big gains because Mr. Trump declared war on immigrants-- and on multicultural America-- and lost … Mr. Trump got more than half of Republicans to believe immigrants were a burden, but three quarters of Democrats and a large majority of independents concluded that America gains from immigration.”
• A recent USA Today op-ed by Tyler Moran, managing director of The Immigration Hub and Nick Gourevitch, a Democratic pollster at Global Strategy Group, recapped midterm polling in Pennsylvania and Colorado: “the Trump strategy backfired with some of the exact people he tried to motivate-- women and independents … aligning with Trump on immigration pushed more people away from voting Republican than attracted them-- by 9 points in Pennsylvania and 16 points in Colorado. Among a key bloc of voters who supported Democrat Bob Casey in 2018 and voted for Trump in 2016, just 26 percent said Barletta’s alignment with Trump on immigration was a reason to vote for him, and a plurality believed it was a reason to vote against him. In Colorado, 65 percent of independents said Trump and Republicans are moving away from them on immigration.”
• National Journal political columnist Josh Kraushaar tweeted regarding immigration in the midterms, “Late deciders broke decisively against the GOP. Immigration rhetoric a major factor. You’d think Rs would have learned from Gillespie 2017.” Kraushaar added “forcing a shutdown over border security such a political loser for Trump/GOP,” pointing to post-election analysis by the DCCC and summarizing, “Late deciders identified as Republicans by 16 points, but GOP lost them in the final stretch. All about immigration.”

None of these dynamics have disappeared--the border wall is broadly unpopular and the public overwhelmingly doesn’t want to shut down the government over the wall:

• Ron Brownstein writes for CNN, in a piece entitled Trump is doubling down on his strategy that cost the GOP the House: In 10 Quinnipiac University national polls from April 2017 through August 2018, no more than 40% of Americans ever expressed support for the wall. Consistently, the share of Americans opposing construction of the wall has been much higher, from 57% to 64%. A CNN Poll conducted by SSRS that was released last week found 57% against a wall, compared with 38% in favor. Opposition to the wall is overwhelming among all the groups that moved decisively away from Trump and the GOP in last month’s election. In CNN’s poll, Trump’s border wall faced opposition from 76% of African-Americans, 66% of Latinos, 66% of adults younger than 35, 57% of independents, 66% of college-educated white voters and 56% of people aged 35 to 49.
• According to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll, “most Americans oppose risking a government shutdown over a wall, but more than two-thirds (69 percent) do not believe building a wall should even be an immediate priority for Congress. That includes half who do not believe it should be a priority at all. More than a quarter (28 percent) believe it should be an immediate priority, including 63 percent of Republicans. Immigration is a cultural touchstone issue that Trump used to fuel his campaign. It’s an issue that has energized his supporters…and helped move independents largely toward Democrats’ positions on the subject.
• A Politico/Morning Consult poll this week finds that voters would blame Trump and Congressional Republicans for a shutdown and that, by a 55-31% margin, reject the idea that a border wall would be worth shutting down the government for.

What a stunning and stupid ploy by Trump and the GOP. Republicans are enabling an unhinged President desperate to please conservative media barkers, all at the expense of the strongly-held majority will of the American people.

Perhaps they noticed that the nation’s voters had a chance to weigh in just weeks ago, and soundly rejected Trump’s xenophobia. Perhaps they have seen the polling that shows strong majorities of the public-- and a third of Republican voters-- are opposed to this shutdown move.

Will Hurd, a conservative Texas Republican, is a former undercover CIA agent who worked in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. He knows a little something about national security and serves on the Intelligence Committee and on the Homeland Security Committee where he is the vice-chair of the Border and Maritime Subcommittee. HIs district has the longest border with Mexico of any district in the country-- by far. Generally considered a Trump suck-up and enabler, Hurd voted against Trump's border wall last week. Perhaps some of his colleagues should ask him why. Hurd explained his position to CNN on Friday:

"Building a 30-foot high concrete structure from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security," Hurd said. "I represent 820 miles of border, more border than any other member of Congress. I spent almost a decade as an undercover officer in the CIA chasing bad guys all over the world. In places along the border, Border Patrol's response time is measured in hours to days. So a wall is actually not a physical barrier.

"We-- if we want to address root causes of illegal immigration we should be doing and working on those root causes in the northern triangle like Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. We should be talking about, how do we plus-up the State Department budget and USAID budget? How do we work with Mexico, who just announced $30 billion on doing-- on working on economic opportunities in Central America? There are the things that are going to address root causes of mass migration," Hurd said.

Last year he told CBS News why he opposes Trump's approach: