by CHQ Staff
President Donald Trump vowed again Tuesday to shut down the federal government in September if the Democrats don’t give him the $25 billion for his border wall, declaring “I don’t care what the political ramifications are.”
“Our immigration laws and border security have been a complete and total disaster for decades — and there is no way that the Democrats will allow it to be fixed without a government shutdown,” the president said in a pair of tweets reported by our friend Todd Beaman of NewsMax:
“A government shutdown is a very small price to pay for a safe and Prosperous America,” Trump said.
As we reported in our article Jim Jordan Gets It: Build The Wall Or Lose The GOP Majority the president first threatened a shutdown on Sunday, saying that Democrats needed to back his immigration reform package, which included the wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.
But as we explained, it is not the Democrats that are the problem; it’s the Senate’s Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.
According to reporting by The Hill’s Scott Wong and Juliegrace Brufke, Speaker Ryan and Senate Majority Leader McConnell want Republicans seeking reelection to focus on the booming economy and the GOP’s tax-cut package passed last December. House GOP leaders are also touting a new campaign slogan for the midterms, asking Americans if they are “Better Off Now.”
Wong and Brufke say Trump’s message is consistent with the one being made by Rep. Jim Jordan, the former Freedom Caucus chairman running for Speaker who said Monday that “heck yes” conservatives would fight tooth and nail to stop GOP leaders from punting a fight over funding the border wall and other Trump priorities until after Election Day.
“How is that being consistent with what we promised the American people? I think actually just the opposite is what we should be doing,” Jordan said in an interview with the Conservative Review.
“Do we want to nationalize these elections and fire up Republican and Trump voters to come out and vote for us?” Jordan asked. “Then we better just not kick the can past the elections; we better actually do the things we said we were going to do.”
A truism in American politics is that Republicans never win elections unless they are nationalized. Nationalizing an election doesn’t guarantee a GOP victory, Goldwater lost in 1964 in an election defined largely by national issues, but never in modern times have Republicans won a national campaign fought on local issues.
Democrats like elections that are fought state-by-state and deal with local issues because they are deliverers of services. If you want a pothole fixed, food stamps increased or federal grants for your local parks and museum, Democrats are only too happy to oblige.
The political brains driving the Democratic Party’s 2018 midterm election effort aren’t Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer; it is hard Left Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez. Perez’s plan is simple – go hard Left, promise free stuff for everyone and don’t allow Republicans to nationalize the election.
In opposition to Perez’s plan the GOP establishment strategy seems to be a “prevent defense” designed to “first do no harm.”
Football fans will recognize that the team that sits on the ball and engages in a “prevent defense” often loses. Politically, the content-free “first do no harm” campaign may retain a weakened Republican majority in office, but it will be a majority with no mandate to fulfill President Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda.
The continued threat of a shutdown over border security, or better yet an actual shutdown, can only help Republicans nationalize the election of the issue of border security.
You can start nationalizing the election by demanding that your local, congressional district and state Republican leaders commit the candidates in their jurisdiction to campaign on border security, and especially building the wall on our southern border, a strong national defense, particularly against the threat posed by radical Islam, and continuing President Trump’s economic growth policies.
You can increase the impact of that effort by focusing your conservative organization, if you’re part of one, on one or more of these three issues: border security, national security and economic growth. You can write op-eds, letters to the editor, blog posts and social media posts. You can exercise the First Amendment rights guaranteed in the Constitution and preserved by the Supreme Court and take out an ad calling out the candidates on these issues, and most effectively you can tell your friends and acquaintances where you stand, why this election is so important and why they should support only candidates who commit to the conservative position on these issues.
