Trump is not invincible: Democrats, immigrants and the politics of due process

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Trump is not invincible: Democrats, immigrants and the politics of due process
Polls suggest Trump is losing his appeal on immigration, suggesting his opponents can shape public opinion

By Charles R. Davis
News Editor
Published April 25, 2025 12:00PM (EDT)


(Salon) It’s a setup, they said: President Donald Trump, an accomplished demagogue with his finger on the pulse of America’s most reactionary voters, wanted Democrats to make a big fuss about his lawless deportations and extraordinary renditions — to show how out of touch they are with the majority of Americans who say they want fewer people to step foot in their country.

“Look, what Donald Trump did was set up a trap for Democrats to run into,” Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., told a newspaper in Tucson last month. He was talking about the hundreds of Venezuelan men expelled from the country without due process and sent to a prison in El Salvador, where, according to the administration, they should remain until they die. “Of the 500 they sent there, I’m sure 200 of them are actually hardcore criminals,” Gallego said (reporting suggests that more than 90% have no criminal conviction anywhere in the world). “Now, are we going to go run to the podium and defend and try to get those people back? No, absolutely not.”

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Democratic timidity is an understandable reaction to seeing former Vice President Kamala Harris lose to an already-disgraced man who campaigned on little more than the idea that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and, accordingly, responsible for all of its problems. It’s also craven and wrong; even if throwing foreigners into a volcano polled at upwards of 90%, opposition would be both justified and required for the simple fact that civilized, free societies do not incinerate their guests.

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For too long, many Democrats have treated public opinion as something they must respond to rather than shape. That has resulted in cliched language that tests well in a focus group but feels inauthentic to real voters who do not actually care, in practice, about Bipartisan Solutions to America’s Policy Challenges. In the case of immigrants, some Democrats decided to just do the right thing — to not just abandon an inconvenient category of human beings — while noting that the rule of law benefits all. .................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/04/25/is-not-invincible-democrats-and-the-of-due-process/