History recently repeated itself. Politics again trumped responsible government.

Rather than taking immediate steps to address the illegal immigrant crisis at the U.S. southern border by allowing a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on the recently proposed bipartisan Senate immigration legislation, House Speaker and Republican Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana decided to squash it, fearing it may pass. This decision was at the bequest of presidential candidate Donald Trump. Trump wants to be able to use the border crisis as a political club over the next eight months, and once in the White House, he wants to be the one to get credit for taking action on the problem.

This is reminiscent of when 1968 Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon sought to delay the Vietnam War peace talks until he won election and was in office. Through intermediaries, Nixon, in the fall of 1968, asked President Thieu of South Vietnam not to attend the peace talks in Paris until Nixon took office. His motivation was similar to Trump’s — to use the increasingly unpopular war as political ammo in the election, and to take credit for the hoped-for peace treaty.

Like Nixon, Trump put his personal interests ahead of those of the nation. The opportunity to make progress addressing the illegal immigration problem without further delay was squandered. Even if Trump does win election, realistically, his immigration proposals will probably not be successful in the highly divided Congress. Despite illegal immigration being the greatest threat to national security according to Trump’s election rally speeches, addressing it is not as important to Trump as his personal political ambitions.

 

George Seel

Belgrade

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