Sessions’ work, of course, as Attorney General—not Sessions as a person.
This has become crystal clear in the eight days since Trump started attacking Sessions and trying to get him to quit—trying to get him to quit so that the coward Trump wouldn’t have to fire him. Because if the coward Trump fired Sessions, the entire world would see that most of Trump’s so-called base wants nothing to do with a Trump who fires their REAL hero: Jeff Sessions.
We can see this is so via two useful windows on right-wing thinking:
[ul] [li]the reaction of the GOP politicians and the conservative pundits to Trump’s attacks on Sessions; [/li][li]the almost-universal responses of Trump voters to interviewers’ questions on why they still support Trump. [/ul][/li]First, the ‘establishment’ response:
Though there have been more and more conservative pundits willing to speak out against Trump as time has gone by, this last week has seen a marked uptick in critical remarks.
None of this will be pleasing to Trump. It’s true that these conservatives are refraining from outright insults to Trump, but they aren’t being shy about supporting the guy Trump is attacking…and that’s the sort of thing that Trump apparently sees as “disloyalty.” (Trump has a recent history of threatening the seats of members of Congress who displease him–links in a later post, to keep this one less long.)
The second useful window on the dependency of Trump’s “popularity” on the continued presence and work of Jeff Sessions: the way Trump voters answer when asked why they support their President. Time and time again, those voters will offer variations on the following:
When pressed, the only “kept promise” these interviewees seem willing to specify is the successful Supreme Court nomination of a conservative–which is, undeniably, a kept promise. But the rest is vague: “strength;” “someone with balls;” “what he’s doing is right.” What is he doing?
Well, not much. But someone who IS doing something is Jeff Sessions: hammer of the non-whites, hammer of the gays (news out today), and quite possibly soon to be known as hammer of the non-Christians. It’s all good to Trump voters: it’s what they like about “what Trump’s doing.” Trump isn’t doing it. Sessions is doing it:
Deporting non-violent immigrants:
And today news broke that Sessions was going after the gays:
Two days ago, Trump held a rally that filled a 6000-seat venue in Youngstown, Ohio (and boasted that it was a “record”–!). But if he fires Sessions, Trump won’t even be able to fill a meeting room at a Holiday Inn.
Trump knows it. He knows that 99% of his popularity is in actuality the popularity of what Sessions is doing. He knows that if he fires Sessions—no matter how much he hates Sessions or is frustrated by Sessions or feels Sessions is disloyal—Trump knows that if he gives in to his impulses and fires Sessions, his presidency will be over. He will have no base. He will be just a guy waiting for the impeachment process to run its course.
Why is it that none of your quotes from average folks mentioned Session’s name? If 99% of Trump’s popularity was tied to Sessions, wouldn’t that show up in at least one of the anecdotes you are using to defend your claim? Frankly, I’d be surprised if even 20% of the country could name who the AG was, if asked.
As for Senators, Sessions was one of their colleagues for decades. The Senate is a collegial group, so it’s not at all surprising that they would want to protect one of their own. I don’t think it’s Sessions, per se, but “a Senator from among us”. Would be just about the same for any long-serving, Republican Senator.
You misunderstood the point, John Mace. The ‘average folks’ were citing as their reason for continuing to support Trump, ‘what he’s DOING.’ And he isn’t doing it. Sessions is.
That they didn’t specify ‘I like what the Department of Justice is doing with regard to deporting Dreamers, sticking it to sanctuary cities, increasing the numbers of people going to prison for drug possession’ etc. is meaningless. When they say they ‘like what he’s doing’ they do NOT mean his frequent trips to his properties or his dancing with a sword in Saudi Arabia. They mean what Sessions is doing.
Your “as for Senators” point ignores the many popular/well-respected/well-compensated pundits on the right who are also speaking up for Sessions. Did they work with him? Where?
If Trump fires Sessions his replacement will probably hold similar views. When Trump supporters describe him as having balls and so on it’s more likely a reference to his rejection of PC norms and making libs mad. Anecdotally, many Trump supporters I know stopped following the news after the election and couldn’t name any specific policies. They just know Trump is winning and anything contrary is fake news.
The replacement issue is interesting, too: to my surprise apparently the Dems may have a way of preventing Trump from making a recess appointment. Which, if true, would mean that Trump would have to get a nominee through Senate approval. And unless there’s another sub-rosa racist Senator who’s well-liked despite being a sub-rosa racist, there won’t be a replacement for Sessions who would BOTH get through a Senate vote AND be a Hammer of the Non-Whites etc.
So that might mean that the stories of graduating seniors and mothers of three being deported despite having no criminal history (other than the border-crossing, sometimes when they were minors) will just stop cold. The stories of increased enforcement of laws against possession of drugs abused most often by non-white people will just stop cold. The stories of new policies making it clear that discrimination against gay people is a-okay will just stop cold.
I think you have the number right, just applied wrong. 1% of Trump’s popularity is Sessions.
The base gives solid support to Trump because he hates the people they hate. Nothing else matters. Sessions happens to have the same hates. Big deal. So do half the Republicans in Washington. The base doesn’t care what the Senate says. This is the same Senate that approved every Trump nominee. They’ll approve the hater Trump names to be A.G. when Sessions quits.
This is a nothingburger. (I heard the word somewhere.)
Trump no longer cares about anything except stopping Mueller from digging into his financial dealings. Sessions is currently in the way of the only long shot in accomplishing that. Popularity be damned, Trump is fighting for his money now.
Cite, for any of this? What is the Dems “way of preventing Trump from making a recess appointment”? And what makes you think that the same Senate that confirmed Betsy DeVos and Rick Perry would hesitate to confirm some other anti-illegal-immigration hard-liner? And in 2018, the Republican majority in the Senate is very likely to grow.
While there’s some cross departmental involvement from Justice in immigration enforcement you are mostly pointing out the actions of a department Session is not in charge of. ICE falls under the Department of Homeland Security. Aside from political fluff (how “awful” Obama was and how Trump is “fixing” it…or reverse the descriptions ) I have yet to see solid evidence that there’s been a significant change in deportations. Obama quietly was pretty aggressive in some ways, although the record is more nuanced than immigration rights groups who labeled him “the deporter in chief” would have you believe. We’ve seen an uptick in anecdotal reporting of internal enforcement against non-violent individuals. If you have hard numbers showing a short term trend line that would be great. I haven’t seen anything like that. Your links are all anecdotal data. Have a cite for that piece?
Till then a major plank of your argument is that Sessions popularity is the result of Secretary Kelly’s Department showing anecdotal signs of being more aggressive in some parts of it’s enforcement of federal law. That’s pretty weak.
That is some weak ass stuff. But you missed something: please explain why Trump is publicly denigrating the man responsible for 99% of his popularity. If you say “cuz he’s so dumb!” I think we can put a fork in this little thesis. Not because Trump is smart. It would merely mean you haven’t actually come up with a reason.
So they like Trump because of Sessions, but they just don’t know that why they like Trump. Yeah, that makes sense. They liked Trump during the campaign (where Sessions was, at best, in the background) because he thumbed his nose at the the establishment, told them what they wanted to hear, and they like him now because he’s doing the same thing. And at least as important, they like him because he’s NOT a Democrat.
Yes, I ignored that point. But to address it, Sessions is a true, hard-core Conservative. If you are a true, hard-core Conservative pundit, then yes, you are going to like Sessions. That still does not mean you are going to like Trump. Many don’t. So yeah, if you are a DC insider, and a conservative, you like or tolerate Trump (even though you may not LIKE him) because he nominated someone like Sessions, but also someone like Gorsuch. Don’t forget Gorsuch as the source of a lot of Trump’s popularity. Probably even more so than Sessions. But that’s more than your average American is aware of.
Trump could fire Sessions and nobody would give a shit. You think liberals and moderates would weep over Sessions’ shit-canning? Maybe some Senators would but the House wouldn’t care. Sessions gave Trump some political legitimacy. Now he’s just another unpaid contractor.
Basically they prevent the Senate from going into recess by filibustering that resolution. Then they’d have to hold “pro forma” session every few days - this could just be a couple of Senators meeting for a few minutes.
Republicans did it all the time to prevent Obama from making recess appointments.
Some Guy on TV says that he can’t, that they thought of that, and put it in that only the guy who hired the Special Pros can fire him. If the President fires those guys, the new guy doesn’t have the power to get rid of Mueller. Then, only Congress can and only for direct malfeasance and/or misdeeds.
) I have yet to see solid evidence that there’s been a significant change in deportations. Obama quietly was pretty aggressive in some ways, although