Republican Sen. James Lankford, who spent months negotiating the border provisions the GOP demanded, said he may vote against his own bill this week.
Senate Republicans on Monday signaled their plan to filibuster bipartisan legislation that paired tougher border policy with more U.S. aid to Ukraine, a stunning reversal less than 24 hours after the legislation had been unveiled.
With ex-president Donald Trump urging them to kill it, and many on the right up in arms about the proposal, top Senate Republicans emerged from a heated closed-door meeting and said they needed more time to review the agreement, suggesting that a scheduled Wednesday vote to advance the bill is all but doomed to fail.
Its an effective campaign strategy. Lay out what you want. Force Dems to compromise down their own position. Kill the bill. Win the next election cycle. Then pass all the things you said you wanted while haranguing Dems (now in the minority) into taking an even worse compromise.
Dems will compromise because they ALWAYS compromise. Republicans will never actually be happy with the results, because there’s always more money and power to be had throwing money towards their patrons doing Border Security Theater. And the public will get another earful about how “MIGRANT CARAVAN HEADED TO TEXAS!!!” means the last ten billion we threw at the problem wasn’t enough.
This is just the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, and the War on Crime all over again. Dems spinelessly collapse in the face of Republican fearmongering. Voters only get to choose between the Republican Heavy and the Republican Lite. Any attempt to mobilize a popular opposition gets curb-stomped by party insiders while national media figures complain about how these insurgent political activists are undermining national security.
And then we get another year of rivers full of dead babies, while one side cheers and the other side blames Ralph Nader for not voting hard enough.