Donald Trump just lost Ann Coulter again – and this time it matters
This afternoon Donald Trump revealed just how weak his shutdown hand is. He offered to protect DACA in exchange for getting his border wall funded, a weak compromise that no one wants. DACA is already protected by the courts for at least another year, so he’s not really giving away anything. But even his symbolic cave on immigration is immediately causing him problems.
One of the reasons we’re in this mess is that after Donald Trump originally caved on his border wall, Ann Coulter and a few other racist pundits threw a fit. This prompted Trump to flip flop and cave to them instead, resulting in a government shutdown that’s lasted nearly a month. This seemed to be enough to get the likes of Coulter back on his team, if not enthusiastically so. But now that’s changed again – and this time it matters.
Coulter is now in the midst of a Twitter tirade against Donald Trump, because she’s offended that he would make any offer that involves any pro-immigrant concessions. Even though the Democrats are going to reject this offer because it’s disingenuous and unacceptable, Trump can’t simply undo the fact that he’s made the offer. He’s now the guy who caved, and it’s difficult to imagine he can get the anti-immigrant pundits back on his side.
Donald Trump must have decided that his only remaining play was to make a “reasonable” sounding offer and then slam the Democrats when they don’t take it. But Trump will gain zero new supporters with the offer he made today, just like he gained zero supporters with his prime time speech and his press conference at the border. Instead, it looks like his latest desperate and tepid move has cost him existing supporters – at a time when he can’t afford to lose a single one of them.
