Illegal Alien Wife Beaters First is a hell of a brand, but it’s the one Dems are adopting.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s baffling expedition to El Salvador on behalf of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien MS-13 gang member from El Salvador whose wife accused him of beating her, suspected of human trafficking, isn’t exactly a hit.
The surreal farce got worse when El Salvador’s Bukele staged a meeting with Van Hollen and Garcia over margaritas.
Not all Democrats were happy with Van Hollen’s social media video trip. And while Team MS-13 has been mostly winning the legal battle, the political battle doesn’t look as good. Democrats had been focused on an economic argument along with jabs at social security to make headway, but keep getting tripped up by advocating for foreign Hamas supporters and illegal aliens (most of whom aren’t nearly the saints the media tries to pretend that they are) whom the public doesn’t really like or care about.
Smarter Dems are trying to stay away.
As California Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled out a lawsuit Wednesday challenging Trump’s sweeping tariffs, he had little to say about the Abrego Garcia case when asked about it.
“This is the distraction of the day. The art of distraction,” Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential contender, said of Trump invoking MS-13 to justify his actions. “And here, we zig and zag. This is the debate they want. This is their 80-20 issue, as they’ve described it.”
While noting that the government needs to abide by court orders and the rule of law, Newsom added, “It’s exactly the debate they want, because they don’t want this debate on the tariffs; they don’t want to be accountable to markets today.”
“I think it’s a mistake to focus Democratic opposition on border and immigration because that’s playing on Trump’s turf and on an issue where people continue to support how he’s handling,” said one Democratic operative, who spoke candidly about the sensitive topic on condition of anonymity. “And it’s an issue where most voters see Democrats being particularly weak on, and focusing all the opposition on the issue plays into that perception.”
But staying away requires party discipline and that doesn’t exist anymore.
James Carville bafflingly decided to urge Dems to double down on Abrego Garcia.
The Dems: totally connecting with the concerns of ordinary MS-13 gang members https://t.co/y7ZvidA7jt
— Daniel Greenfield – “Hang Together or Separately” (@Sultanknish) April 17, 2025
Why? Who knows.
But the Dems are winning at connecting with the concerns of ordinary MS-13 gang members and Hamas supporters.
Not so much the concerns of ordinary Americans.
