Because they are weak. Here they are about to control both Houses of Congress for the first time in 10 years, and what do we hear?
President Obama is
Charles I, a
caudillo, a
coward, a liar, a bad sport, and a Charles de Gaulle, some kind of avatar of the
Hegelian tide, and, yes, he’s a Nazi, or perhaps more accurately,
all liberals are Nazis:
This is the liberal gleichschaltung; get with the program or be flattened by it.
Oh, such
talk!
But what happened in reality? Brave Sir Robin ran away — Knowing the President was to announce this great usurpation of their power, Congress went out of session (again) Thursday, 11/20/14, before the President’s evening speech. And they won’t be back until December 1, when they will begin a staggering 8 days of work before the end of the year.
The GOP leadership is only interested in the immigration issue to the extent it can stir up votes in their favor, and, much like marriage equality, when it comes to pass and they are defeated, they will drop it like a temperature-elevated potato.
And defeated is what they are. Under the Obama deferred action program, several millions of people will receive work permits valid for three years, along with valid social security numbers and driver's licenses. Now, in theory, President Cruz/Bush/Romney/Mussolini could revoke every one of these work permits on January 21, 2017. But they won't.
Imagine the news stories. Early in 2017, President Walker has ordered that 4 million people, who have lawful work permits and jobs, be ordered into deportation proceedings, and every one of these persons, by definition, will have a child who is a citizen or a lawful permanent resident of the United States.
I don’t think that’s going to happen. Optics are going to be pretty bad on that one. The Republicans know this and that is why they curse the President. The fear of the other, the xenophobia and racism that the Republicans have cynically manipulated, will be stricken from their hand.
Some lawyer named Jonathan Keim has written in the National Review has written:
… we can expect the Democrats to make the following cynical argument for the next two years: Vote Democrat or your friends and family will be deported.
Except for the “cynical” part, which is standard lawyer bad-mouthing, I agree. The Republicans need to come up with some alternative to deporting 4 million parents.
Unfortunately for them, the crazy caucus among them won’t permit this. Any Republican trying to win the nomination in 2016 will have to proclaim his willingness to rescind the President’s order granting deferred action to these 4 million people. Of course, they will have to proclaim that they are not against immigrants, but just against the horrible, nasty UNconstitutional way the order was implemented. No one will be fooled by this.