After Minnesota
The objectives must be: Free Minneapolis, no more invasions, and insurance against election sabotage.
Recording Politix on Tuesday, I began thinking aloud about the kinds of conditions under which Democrats might agree to fund the Department of Homeland Security without betraying their voters and the broader democracy.
What if Republicans, worn down by backlash, were to hold this line: We can’t agree to legislative concessions amid a government shutdown, but we can agree to staffing changes. No more Kristi Noem, no more Stephen Miller, DHS will be overseen by a more normal, humane, and independent Republican, who would commit to ending the most glaring abuses: quotas, masks, roving patrols, and Kavanaugh stops. Would that be enough?
The allure there is Stephen Miller, the sociopath who orchestrated the attack on Minneapolis. He should not be in government, and his comeuppance would be cathartic. But as of Tuesday, I hadn’t quite convinced myself this would be enough.
Later the same day, Ruben Gallego, the ambitious Arizona Democrat, proposed a similar idea, and my sense is it has been well-received within the pro-democracy community.
I of course would welcome Miller’s firing and humiliation. But after sitting on it for 24 hours, my more considered view is that it wouldn’t accomplish enough. Or, rather, the goals it would advance are a bit hazy relative to more concrete and critical objectives.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that, with enough coordination, Democrats at the state and federal level may be able to exert enough power on their own to pocket a major staffing concession, and still feel reasonably satisfied that they’ve hemmed in Trump’s worst abuses.
But back to the bad news: Before they reach any settlement, they need much more clarity about the purpose of their intervention. What evils are they trying to prevent?
In my mind, at this juncture there are two: No more Minneapolises, and no misuse of federal personnel to subvert the midterm elections, or any other elections. They will not be able to defund ICE or tear it down until they win significantly more power. But they have enough power now to achieve this much. They need to start with these imperatives in mind and work backwards.
How might Dems end the occupation of Minneapolis, and ensure that nothing of the sort happens in any other jurisdiction?
I have a few ideas, though it’d admittedly be tricky.