Democrats need to find their spines
Sen. Chuck Schumer is the worst negotiator in Washington — even worse than Donald Trump. Unfortunately he is also the leader of Senate Democrats.
In January, Sen. Schumer caved to the white supremacist base of Trump’s Republican Party and led Senate Democrats to a total surrender — during the heat of the Trump shutdown — that did nothing to protect Dreamers. As a result of Sen. Schumer’s sellout on the Senate floor, 33 Democrats gave away their leverage and helped embolden the nativist extremists who run Trump’s racist regime.
Donald Trump released his immigration priorities this week. They are a white supremacist wish list. And reports have recently emerged that Democrats are considering separating the DREAM Act from the negotiations for the Feb. 8 must-pass spending bill. We need to keep the pressure on to make sure that does not happen and force the entire Senate Democratic caucus to come together with one goal — using the next government funding deadline to protect Dreamers without compromising one bit with Republicans’ racist anti-immigrant agenda.
Tell Senate Democrats: Find your spines and use your power. No compromises with Trump’s racism.
Schumer justified his appalling decision to cave by saying he got a promise from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — a serial liar and unrepentant bigot — for a vote on a bipartisan bill to make permanent the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. But we know that even a career compromiser like Schumer would never have agreed to a deal if he thought he’d be alone — moderate, cowardly Democrats had his back.
That means that — despite months of passionate and intense organizing from our allies in the immigrants rights and progressive movements — 33 Democrats, in a misguided attempt to protect themselves electorally, decided to sacrifice Dreamers. Their craven calculus puts more immigrant families at risk of separation and exposes even more Dreamers to Trump’s racist deportation force. It also lays the groundwork for a DACA compromise that would include unacceptable capitulation to the extreme anti-immigrant wing of the Republican Party whose racist demands for extreme cuts to family and legal immigration were made clear in Trump’s wish list.
We need to put massive pressure on the Democrats who caved to make sure they stand with the Democrats who showed their solidarity with Dreamers when the next deadline arrives.
A year ago, and again last weekend, we were marching in the streets, rushing to the airports and gathering in our communities to stand up and speak out against Trump. When we said #NoBanNoWall and #ImmigrantsAreWelcomeHere, we meant it. And we thought Democrats, who were desperately trying to claim the mantle of the resistance, meant it as well.
But leading up to the shutdown, Schumer offered to give Trump all the funding he needs to build his racist border wall. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin has been working with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham on a bipartisan compromise that is rumored to not only fund border security and interior enforcement, but also help Republicans advance racist right-wing immigration reforms that would prevent immigrants from reuniting with their families and keep Black and Brown people out of the country. This week, reports surfaced that Senate Democrats might be willing to remove Dreamers completely from not only the next round of budget negotiations but from negotiations around a final, omnibus spending deal. Given the clarity of Republicans’ racist, anti-immigrant goals, it would be unconscionable for Senate Democrats to cave.
Some Democrats, and even some progressives, seem to think that the wall is no big deal, or that it’s OK to give in a little to Trump and Republicans in order to save Dreamers. But we cannot ever forget that Trump’s entire campaign — from calling Mexicans rapists to promising to build the wall — was a public expression of a white supremacist fantasy. That ugly fantasy has seeds in Trump’s challenge to President Obama’s citizenship and Republicans’ refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of the first Black president.
That white supremacy fuels Trump’s immigration agenda, which aims to make America whiter by walling off Black and Brown people from “shithole countries” in detention centers and at the borders. It drives the inhumane racism of Trump advisors, from Steve Bannon to Stephen Miller to Jeff Sessions, who see whiteness and white privilege under such threat that they are willing to use any means necessary to maintain white majorities and white power.
We can never accept, normalize or legitimize even a shred of this white supremacist fantasy. And right now, time is of the essence. If Sen. Schumer and the Democrats who voted with him last week do not face massive pressure from the progressive community, they will continue to compromise. Democrats’ inability to do anything but surrender will be a fatal sign of weakness to Trump and congressional Republicans who will look for even more opportunities to spiral our country further into racist xenophobia.
Originally published at act.credoaction.com.
