Laken Riley Act and The Politics of Credibility
When Dems lose voter trust, it's painful to get back
Imagine a couple: one night the husband comes home from work an hour late. His wife asks him why he’s late, and he explains that he was held up at a meeting. She thinks nothing of it.
But imagine the same scenario a month after she’d discovered he’d had an affair. She would likely want more detail, and perhaps some receipts. She’s been betrayed, and her husband has lost credibility. He may need to go above and beyond to prove he gets it.
When you lose credibility, extra effort is required to get it back. In a trusting relationship, your word is enough. But when trust is lost, you have to take extra steps to prove your story.
The same is true in politics - when you lose credibility, voters may need to see extraordinary effort to believe you again.
The first big immigration showdown under Trump is currently taking shape, and Democrats are divided on how to proceed. Forty-eight House Democrats voted in favor of the Laken Riley Act, which would require ICE to take into custody any undocumented immigrant arrested or charged with some crimes. The Senate voted yesterday 84-9 to proceed with debate, just a year after Democrats refused to even take it up.
While many centrist Democrats have supported the bill in the House, other Democrats have raised objections about due process. The bill is a blunt instrument and contains a number of provisions that might make even the most moderate Democratic Member queasy. Jim McGovern has a good thread on the objections - the bill could have cruel and unfair consequences.
But for many Democrats, particularly those in swing districts, in addition to an honest commitment to creating solutions on immigration, I imagine they might feel compelled to vote for the bill largely because of the massive loss of credibility Democrats have on the issue of immigration. There’s an old saying, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Many voters frankly don’t trust that Democrats have their best interests in mind when it comes to immigration. Sahil Kapur shares the views of one Democratic aide,
“I think for a long time Democrats have let the advocacy groups push them to the left on immigration and border security issues: pushing them to oppose even popular immigration/border security reforms because it could lead to any deportation,” the aide, who spoke candidly about the sensitive topic on condition of anonymity, wrote in a text message. “This past election showed that’s not where a majority of Americans are at, and that Dems need to be clear they are against criminals — even if that means deporting an undocumented immigrant who committed a crime.”
The Democratic Party’s fling with progressives has made voters question whether Democrats actually care about issues like border security and crime. And like a husband who has to share his GPS coordinates, Democrats will have to take a lot of uncomfortable positions to restore trust. As Republicans squeeze them vote after vote, Democrats must question, was the dalliance worth it? Did losing credibility among voters produce any actual gains for undocumented immigrants?
Third Way found that voters trusted Trump more than Harris on border security by a whopping 60% to 39% margin. In an environment like that, voters will be skeptical of Democrats’ claims that they want to secure the border but have concerns about due process. Voters would be justified in believing that position is merely a smokescreen to justify toeing the progressive party line.
There will be many more votes like the Laken Riley Act.
Democrats must not forget what precipitated painful votes like these: there is a cost to taking positions so out-of-step with the public that credibility is lost.
The Laken Riley Act is the inverse of the 2020 presidential primary stance of decriminalizing the border and a natural reaction to the associated leftist slogans like “Abolish ICE” and “Defund the Police” that have been weaponized effectively by conservatives ever since.
From 2015-2024, leftists called for a revolution they couldn’t deliver on without being prepared for the inevitable counter-revolution from the right. But it is now here, in the form of strategic opposition rather than revolution.
The votes of dozens of Democrats is evidence that many have fully internalized Trump’s victory and where the electorate stands in the post-progressive era. There is a lot of trust to rebuild.
A pretty sharp guy walking up the MA State House once explained to me why Charlie Baker was struggling to win over voters on the charter school referendum up for a vote at the time. He explained that voters didn't trust Republicans on issues impacting public schools in the same way that voters didn't trust Democrats on cutting government waste and it was very hard to regain credibility when you were playing to type. I always wonder what happened to that guy.
Exactly, not only did, as you noted, voters favor the GOP 60-40 on immigration, but it was the strongest margin they had on any issue, being also ahead on crime and economy by lesser degrees, where the Dems were favored on environment, abortion, and healthcare.
The idea that you can violate the law and because you succeeded on entry, nothing should be done is just a denial of rule and law. And to the extent that I dont favor mass roundups or inhumane treatment the Dems have dug themselves in a hole on this issue.
One of the reasons for Harris' loss is she refused to even address it. The administration did close the border in June 2024 by implementing a remain in Mexico policy. If that was a wise choice then how can they defend the prior policy that admitted record numbers of illegal border crossings. The driver for that was the pretext of asylum, as if anybody would not ask for asylum if it meant gaining entry, as opposed to swimming rivers and crossing desert, or being deported.