The Congressional GOP is in full retreat and it has no one but itself to blame. The misguided effort to advance a much-ballyhooed “bipartisan border deal” within the GOP, and then kill it, seems almost deliberate political malpractice. Now the GOP has lost a critical special election in New York, itself an unforced error because of its utterly unnecessary expulsion of former Rep. George Santos. Congressional Republicans are announcing their retirements, clearly planning on cashing in for their prior service. Worst of all, the GOP may have given President Joe Biden an escape route on the immigration issue—the one issue where President Donald Trump has a decisive advantage in the upcoming election.

Of course, there was nothing good about the border bill, which raises the question of why it was brought up in the first place. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) gave the game away when he admitted that it allowed thousands of illegals to come a day, gave them “a brand new right to legal representation for all immigrants” (which even American citizens can’t expect anymore) and more legal immigration. This cut the legs out from under RINOs like Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who had tried to present this bill as a victory for immigration law enforcement.

In the end, even GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) abandoned it even as he said Sen. Lankford had done a “remarkable job” [Mitch McConnell admits bipartisan Senate border bill has ‘no real chance’ at passing, by Ryan King, New York Post, February 11, 2024].

This muddled messaging is indicative of McConnell’s incompetence: Why did he move it forward to begin with?  He now is arguing that the immigration issue will work against the Democrats in the 2024 election, but thanks to him that may no longer be true [McConnell: Border crisis is top issue in 2024, Biden made ‘major mistake,’ by Alexander Bolton, KTVX, February 16, 2024]

Three GOP chairmen of House committees have announced within the last week that they are retiring, suggesting that there is deep unrest within the House GOP [A chaotic US House is losing three Republican committee chairs to retirement in the span of a week, by Kevin Freking, Associated Press, February 17, 2024]. Many see this as a sign that the GOP is expecting to lose its thin majority in the next election [As Chaos Mounts in Congress, are House Republicans Throwing in the Towel?, by Alex Rouhandeh, Newsweek, February 17, 2024].

Which leads us to the recent disaster in New York. Democrat Tom Suozzi decisively defeated the GOP’s bizarre choice for the district, the Ethiopian-born Israeli-American dual citizen Mazi Pilip. He did so with a classic Democrat tactic—a head fake towards border security. He accused the Republicans of being weak for not passing the supposed “border security” bill and offered muted criticism of President Biden’s age.

These two factors combined with hammering away at abortion delivered him the easy victory [A longtime NY Democrat flipped a Republican seat. The nation took notice, by Nick Reisman, Politico, February 15, 2024].

While Mazi Pilip opposed the bill, Tom Suozzi was able to set himself up as a “moderate” and thus assure voters that he would do something about it [5 takeaways from Democrats flipping George Santos’s House seat in New York, by Domenico Montanaro, NPR, February 14, 2024].

President Biden is going to operate from the same playbook by hitting President Trump from the rhetorical right for not “solving” the border issue by backing the compromise, with outlets like the Washington Post carrying his water by calling it a “conservative” bill [Biden vows to make Trump attack on conservative border bill a campaign issue, by Cleve Wootson Jr., February 11, 2024].

Thanks to action from Texas and Mexico, border crossings also declined in January, helping President Biden because it appears to lessen the urgency of the crisis [Joe Biden gets respite from border crisis at the start of 2024, by Luis Pablo Beauregard, El Pais, February 16, 2024].

President Biden’s border policies are his number one issue that voters object to [Biden’s age, mental acuity not among top issues for voters—here’s what is, by Josh Christenson, New York Post, February 15, 2024]. More than 70 percent of Democrat voters are opposed to the Biden Administration’s border policies [Joe Biden Faces Growing Democrat Fury Over Border Crisis, by James Bickerton, Newsweek, February 17, 2024].

Yet this actually provides an opportunity for the president. He’s far down on this issue, but the New York special election shows his path back is muttering vaguely about border security and blaming the GOP for not giving him more money.

The White House is currently refusing to move forward with unliteral actions that it could take to stop illegal immigration, saying Congress needs to give it more money; but the GOP wants to stick to spending cuts [Biden and House Republicans are locked in a standoff over the border, by Julia Ainsley and Julie Tsirkin and Monica Alba, NBC News, February 16, 2024].

The Regime Media is also giving an assist to the Biden White House, playing up his tactical disputes with Treason Lobby open-borders immigration groups as a sort of a Sister Souljah moment [Biden’s rightward shift on immigration angers advocates. But it’s resonating with many Democrats, by Adriana Gomez Licon and Jonathan Cooper, Associated Press, February 17, 2024].

The danger is real. The Special Election defeat shows that a rhetorical head-fake towards enforcement could be enough to bring in some swing voters in key states to give President Biden another chance.

Voters in the suburbs, especially those who are pro-choice, also want to be convinced that President Biden deserves another chance. The GOP leadership’s decision to move forward with the Senate border bill at all allows the White House and its media allies to play deeply dishonest games, writing editorials like “Republicans Against Border Enforcement,” as the New York Times recently framed it [by David Leonhardt, February 7, 2024].

President Trump deserves much of the credit for defeating the bill. But now he has the responsibility for action. He must know now that if he does not win in 2024, the communists will not only destroy his business and strip him of assets but probably throw his entire family in jail for the crime of winning in 2016.

The immigration issue is his best hope. After the impeachment of Department of Homeland Security head Alejandro Mayorkas, Trump should take up the case against the Secretary, emphasizing that the Biden Regime alone is responsible for the current border crisis.

As he did in 2016, Trump needs to put the focus precisely on immigration, where he has the advantage and where President Biden is scrambling to conceal his record. If he doesn’t keep that focus, the media and the White House will be able to pull the wool over the public’s eyes as they did in NY-3.

There’s something deeply frustrating about being reduced to Donald Trump in 2024. After all, although he won the most unexpected campaign in American history in 2016, it led to relentless persecution for many American patriots, not least VDARE.com. He didn’t follow through on his agenda and they crushed him and his entire movement for it.

The sole consolation: There may simply have been no other way forward, that this persecution is necessary.

What we face is simply treason, much of the GOP is complicit in it, and if it continues for much longer America will cease to exist. The hard way out is the only way out. We can at least take heart that many Americans now have their eyes open. They know that our country is not what they told us it was.

We are not free now, but perhaps we can be again.  Crushing his opponents on immigration is the only possibility of survival for Trump, for us, and for America.

James Kirkpatrick [Email him | Tweet him @VDAREJamesK] is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from Conservatism Inc. His latest book is Conservatism Inc.: The Battle for the American Right. Read VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow’s Preface here.