I'll start by stating my axioms for political analysis right now.
1) Nancy Pelosi is a brilliant strategist who understands the nuances of the political process.
2) Donald Trump is a fuckin' idiot.
3) Chuck Schumer is... irrelevant. There's an old joke in D.C. The most dangerous place to stand is between Chuck Schumer and a camera. That "hot mic" moment of him saying that Trump likes him? Um... remember this? No, Chuckie. Trump doesn't like you. Those two idiots deserve each other, though. That dinner the other night included two goldfish-brained, narcissistic morons, plus Nancy Pelosi.
Yes, I take these statements as axiomatically true.
What else do we know about immigration policy right now? If Donald Trump works out a deal with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, like he was trying to do the other night, Paul Ryan cannot let it get a floor vote. As I explained yesterday, the majority party operates as a "cartel," blocking consideration of motions in order to maintain procedural control of the legislative process. If Trump works out any deal with Pelosi, the Freedom Caucus will consider that deal to be so tainted as to be the very definition of "amnesty," no matter the contents of the deal. They will be unable to accept the deal, or anything like it. If Paul Ryan allows that deal, or anything like it, to receive a floor vote, he will be Boehnered. The Speakership is an elected position. It requires an absolute majority of the chamber. If Ryan loses the support of the Freedom Caucus... that's it. He's toast.
In conventional game theory, we make the assumption of "common knowledge of rationality." Everyone is rational, everyone knows that everyone is rational, everyone knows that everyone knows that everyone is rational, and so on, ad infinitum. With Donald Trump in the mix, that doesn't quite hold. Why? See Axiom 2. I have written about the problem this creates before. So... to apply...
Nancy Pelosi must understand that any "deal" (note the quote marks, now) that she works out with Trump won't receive a floor vote in the House. Why? See Axiom 1. So, why bother participating in any "negotiation?" Because Trump may not understand the futility of trying to negotiate just with Pelosi and Schumer. He may not understand why it is different with DACA as opposed to the debt ceiling. All Trump does by trying to negotiate with Pelosi and Schumer sans congressional GOP is piss off the GOP even more. Pelosi should understand this. Again, see Axiom 1. All that comes of this, then, is to increase tension within the GOP because Trump is too stupid to understand that DACA negotiations can't play out the way debt ceiling negotiations did. That is all Pelosi gets by participating in these negotiations. By Axiom 1, she should have known that, and perhaps counting on Trump's stupidity, that was her goal anyway.
Once again, the only reason the debt ceiling deal received a vote in either chamber was because both Ryan and McConnell knew they needed to pass something, and their caucuses actually wanted to pass something to avoid the economic calamity for which they would have been blamed. Ryan is now on thin ice, because he is a leader and therefore a sell-out as far as the Freedom Caucus is concerned, because of how that deal was worked out, and because of the fact that he needed to let it get a vote with primarily Democratic support. With DACA, there's no global financial panic at risk if we revert to a pre-DACA system, and the immigration hard-liners in the GOP hated not just the process but the substance of the policy. I can't see how a DACA deal between Pelosi and Trump can get a floor vote in the House when that means Ryan facing a revolt by the Freedom Caucus. Pelosi has to know that. So why bother? Just to fuck with the GOP. She's fucking with them. And Trump? Maybe he's falling for it, and maybe he's just fucking with Ryan too. Who knows? Pelosi, though? I think she may be just fucking with the Republicans now.
Admission time. I am coming dangerously close to the teleological fallacy here, if not falling right off the edge. But hey, it's a morning blog post.
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