Ann Coulter plays a valuable role vis-à-vis Trump: She keeps him honest on immigration. It’s good to have people on your side who always remember to keep the pressure on in the right direction.
But.
Coulter’s latest Goes Too Far.
She has believed the hysterical worst-case interpretations of the recently signed budget deal without reading what it actually says. I understand the reaction because that was my reaction at first too. But check out the links below that actually get into the details. The upshot is that while it has some bad features, it’s not the disaster that some on the right believe. Read the actual text, and listen to what actual LEOs say, people!
(1) At Fox News, a DHS official provides a per contrarum on the poison pill alarm:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dhs-official-border-security-bill-does-not-contain-amnesty-poison-pills
(2) Your humble blog proprietor: Wall Good, Budget Bill Bad, But Maybe Not as Bad as Feared:
https://neurotoxinweb.wordpress.com/2019/02/15/wall-good-budget-bill-bad-but-maybe-not-as-bad-as-feared/
The second problem with Coulter’s piece is that she simply ignores that Trump has gotten funding for the wall, and has declared an emergency to free up more funding!
She says,
“Trump also promised an executive order on anchor babies. As with the wall, we’re still waiting.”
President Trump has declared a state of emergency, you silly goose! He’s doing it! Coulter, you don’t have to worry that he might not declare a state of emergency to build more wall: He did it! He. Has. Done. It. It has been done!
You can relax about that! Yes, we on the right have been burned many times over the decades. Yes, we must always stay vigilant for betrayal; we can never let our guard down. But it’s counterproductive, and bad for morale, when your vigilance is so extreme that you won’t let yourself perceive victories, but force yourself to hallucinate that they’re actually defeats.
It’s one thing to have a sensitive betrayal detection system. That’s appropriate, given how often we’ve been betrayed in the past.
But it’s another thing to have a betrayal detection system that always says “This is a betrayal!” no matter what happens. That’s not a “detection system.”
When your “detection system” looks like this:
Then something has gone wrong.
For fuck’s sake, Coulter, false negatives are a problem, but so are false positives! We’ve got to try to be accurate.
And when you shriek that everything is a poison pill, your warnings about the real poison pills – there are some in the bill – will be drowned out in the noise, or simply ignored.
Now get back on track, will you? Year in and year out, you’re one of the more valuable voices on the right. And a major reason for this is that you’re usually so fact-based and knowledgeable.
Stay vigilant, but please, cut out the hysteria.
Neurotoxin 