Greg Abbott vs. Joe Biden: ¿Quién es más macho?

Greg Abbott loves the fight he’s picked with the federal government over his “border security” excesses. But does he have any plan for all the things that could happen?

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         But first, your moment of Zen … Ace Big Bend photographer Mark Cunningham captures “what is called astronomical twilight, where the camera can capture the last glow of the setting sun and the Milky Way at the same time” in this superb photo taken at the Terlingua Cemetery.

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Tuesday, January 30, 2024, 12:00 p.m.

         Whoooo-weee! We’re fixin’ to have some good, old-fashioned chingazos down here in the Loon Star State. Our Governor, Greg Abbott, has decided he’s had enough of being ignored by national MAGA influencers. Or, being ignored by the Biden Admoinistration, whose immigration policies he blames for what seems to be the entire population of Central America showing up on the Texas border. Or, being ignored by the actual migrant swarms, who insist on coming here to press their claims of asylum just because U.S. and international law say they can.

         Well, hell, I can’t tell you what he’s pissed about. Maybe it’s the cooking at the Governor’s Mansion. Maybe it’s his inability to bludgeon the Lege into passing a vouchers bill for his rich, ideologically batshit friends. Maybe it’s that his name is never mentioned in any discussion of who the GOP vice presidential candidate will be.

         (SIDEBAR: Greg Abbott will never, ever be a vice presidential candidate on any ticket with Donald Trump. Here’s what Trump thinks of people with disabilities:

         Trump prefers people who did not rebuild their lives after a tragic accident left them paralyzed below the waist. My guess is, Abbott is auditioning for Secretary of Honeland Security, where Trump eventually will blame him for the immigration mess. )

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         Your Humble Correspondent has tried mightily over the last week or so to figure out how to talk about the border situation in an intelligent, analytical, articulate way. But I’ve given up on that, so here we go:

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         Your Humble Correspondent has tried mightily over the last week or so to figure out how to talk about the border situation in an intelligent, analytical, articulate way. But I’ve given up on that, so here we go:

         First of all, we do have a genuine crisis at the border. The number of migrants arriving on a daily/weekly basis is enough to overwhelm whatever strategies and resources we have to handle it.

         For starters, the Customs and Border Patrol agents cannot process this many arrivals, much less keep them safe, which some of us conveniently forget is part of their mission.

         Add to that Greg Abbott and his preposterous, wasteful Operation Lone Star. Abbott & Co. originally pledged that they were backstopping the Border Patrol, but that did not generate as many headlines as he wanted.  So, last fall Greg had his soldados string a bunch of concertina wire all along the border, no doubt pleasing the concertina wire lobby and earning himself a nice campaign contribution. He even strung some wire between Texas and New Mexico, concerned that some of his MAGA followers were unclear on the sovereignty of the 47^th state. He also blocked the Rio Grande in a couple places with floating buoy barriers, with the added enhancement of saw blades between the buoys to maim anyone who tried to clamber over them.

         Ground Zero for all this performative cruelty was in Eagle Pass, where Abbott ordered the DPS/National Guard to take over and close the city’s Shelby Park, which the Border Patrol had been using to process migrants flowing across the river from Ciudad Acuña and points south. Things got a little testy when the Mexican border authorities informed their CBP counterparts that some people were drowning near the Shelby Park waterfront, and the Texas officials refused to let the CBP come into the park to rescue them. The requisite blame game followed.

         Anyway, Abbott’s orders had the effect of reducing the flow of immigrants by approximately zero while making it harder and more dangerous for the CBP to do its job. So the CBP filed a lawsuit to clarify that border security was a federal responsibility and that CBP could cut through or remove the ubiquitous and iniquitous razor wire as necessary to do its job. The Supreme Court agreed (barely, which is a story for another day).

         Greg Abbott seized on this as a golden opportunity. If he defied the spirit, if not the letter, of the SCOTUS ruling, he could:

1)   Demonstrate anew his toughness of immigration

2)   Cast himself as a rebel against the big, overweening, villainous federal government; and

3)   Advance the authoritarian project of sowing disrespect for the rule of law, and for legal processes (which, ironically, he’d pledged himself to back when he became a lawyer 40+ years ago).

         And so he kept stringing up more razor wire, sometimes in the same places CBP had removed it the day before. He quibbled that the SCOTUS ruling said CBP could cut wire but said nothing about whether he could string more up.

         He also concocted a novel theory: that Texas had the right to do what it did under the “invasion” clause of Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution:

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay. (emphasis added)

         Abbott’s argument is that Texas is suffering an invasion and, owing to the inaction of the Biden Administration federal government, must defend itself as best it can. Most legal scholars consider it to be unserious piffle, of the same force and effect as this:

         Of course, just because it is piffle does not mean 25 Republican governors haven’t written a letter of support expressing their solidarity with Texas and pledging to do … well, nothing in support of its neo-secessionist babble, although South Dakota Governor and MAGA attention whore Kristi Noem did offer to transport a bale or two of razor wire down to Texas in her pickup truck if Abbott needed it.  

(If you meet this Bubba on the road … )

         Abbott and his fellow performance artists can shake their fists at the dreaded Washington Monster-ment, secure in the knowledge that, unlike them, the Biden Administration has to act like grownups. This in spite of calls from Democratic lawmakersfor Biden to “pull an Eisenhower” and federalize the National Guard, putting the wire-stringers and buoy-floaters under the direct authority of the President.

         But that would be another rhetorical victory for Abbott, who could bemoan “the sons and daughters of Texas forced to comply with illegal orders from Joe Biden,” or somesuch noise. Which is why Biden probably won’t do it unless the situation deteriorates even further.

         Which might happen. It’s one thing to have a squabble between the President and half the nation’s governors; it’s another to reckon with the “Army of God,” which departed Virginia Beach yesterday and plans several stopovers across the Old South on its way to planned rallies on February 3 in Eagle Pass, Yuma, Arizona, and San Ysidro, California. Vicehas the story:

A trucker convoy of “patriots” is heading to the U.S. border with Mexico next week, as the standoff between Texas and the federal government intensifies.
The organizers of the “Take Our Border Back” convoy have called themselves “God’s army” and say they’re on a mission to stand up against the “globalists” who they claim are conspiring to keep U.S. borders open and destroy the country. 

“This is a biblical, monumental moment that’s been put together by God,” one convoy organizer said on a recent planning call. “We are besieged on all sides by dark forces of evil,” said another. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. It is time for the remnant to rise.” (The remnant, from the Book of Revelation, are the ones who remain faithful to Jesus Christ in times of crisis).

         Far be it from me to question their theological acumen, but in the Bible “the peacemakers” and “the remnant” are not the same people.

         Christian nationalist truckers converging on Eagle Pass. There’s nothing to worry about, right?

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         Unfortunately, the real victim of this performative, ahem, Mexican standoff may be the chances of passing an immigration reform bill at the Congress, and with it, funding so support Ukraine and Israel. For a generation now, Democrats and Republicans have fought each other, and among themselves, to reform the immigration system. The project seemed Sisyphean – Democrats said no to a wall, Republicans were against broad amnesty. And so on.

         But Republican intransigence on funding military support for Ukraine and Israel has brought the Biden Administration to the table. Over the past couple months, negotiators cobbled together a proposal that, to put it mildly, is hardly the stuff of DREAMers’ dreams. Jonathan V. Last of The Bulwark quotes a source on the details:  

[I]t contains a mix of asylum reforms, prohibitions on catch-and-release, a new Title-42-like authority for the border, and increases in enforcement money. It does not include any new pathways to citizenship for illegal aliens, the DREAM Act, or any other relief for undocumented migrants who are currently here—namely the main political priorities for Democrats. 

         There’s even a provision that creates “an expulsion power that would allow migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally to be rapidly returned to Mexico if migrant encounters surpassed 4,000 per day.” Over the weekend, Biden promised he would use that authority “right now” if Congress sends him the bill. In return, Congress would provide military funding for our allies Ukraine and Israel in their ongoing wars.

         You may recall that, once upon a time, the Republicans were committed to projecting American influence around the world by supporting our allies. Times have changed, though. House Speaker Mike Johnson, (R-Fundamentalist) said over the weekend that the deal is “dead on arrival” as it stands. Why? According to Forbes, “Former President Donald Trump has signaled he wants any immigration and border security deal tanked so that he can campaign on immigration in the upcoming Presidential elections.”

         Of course he does. The surprise is not that Trump, in all his pathological venality and narcissism, would sabotage the deal because 1) it deprives him of an election issue and 2) he will not get credit for the deal if it happens. The tragedy is that his every whim is treated as Holy Writ by what used to a great and honorable American political party.

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Concluding Thoughts

         I doubt if you remember, or have even heard of, Viva Max! It came out in 1969. It is a pretty forgettable movie. I only know of it because it was filmed in San Antonio while I was growing up and I somehow saw it.

         In the movie, Max, a Mexican general, eager to prove himself to his contemptuous girlfriend, takes a small detachment of troops north to San Antonio and reclaims the Alamo for Mexico. A comically inept cast of American police, National Guard and Army units trip over themselves to neutralize the threat, never succeeding in the face of Max’s blithe determination. In the end, Max surrenders the Alamo and he and his soldiers depart triumphantly to Mexico.

         I was reminded of Viva Max! while reading and thinking about the situation at the border. The movie is a comedy because it is clear that Max is not big enough for the role he wants to give himself as liberator of the Alamo. The fact that the main players in the current border situation are not big enough for their roles may lead to tragedy, not comedy. Let’s hope not.