Will Trump's Deportation Betrayal be his Waterloo?

I wrote this yesterday... submitted it about 2:00 PM and it was set for publication today... Sometime last night the administration reversed this insane policy.  Sadly, as it's now moot the piece is not being published so it's here nonetheless!

Just south of Paris is the royal chateau of Fontainebleau. Housed within its walls is a museum which chronicles exploits of one of the greatest military minds in human history, Napoleon Bonaparte.  One of the most fascinating elements of the museum is a hall that features busts and paintings of his various siblings and their spouses. The hall is more than just a 3D family portrait, it’s a timeline. 

Over the course of just over a decade, Napoleon would expand French power across Europe, creating an empire that stretched from Spain to the borders of Russia. Seeking to leave people he could trust to in control of the places he conquered, Napoleon would appoint one of his many siblings as the king or ruler.  He made his older brother Joseph the King of Naples and then of Spain while he made his stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais, the Viceroy of Italy.  These and others are in the museum.

Napoleon took power in 1799 and crowned himself Emperor in 1804 and by 1811, after almost nonstop war, Napoleon had most of Europe under his control. But it wouldn’t last.

Why? Hubris. With Europe essentially at his feet, rather than regrouping and reinforcing his gains, Napoleon instead chose to annex the Duchy of Oldenburg, an area in today’s Germany. That annexation was the proximate cause of a new conflict with Russia and in late 1812 Napoleon would head to Moscow at the head of 600,000 troops.

To say it would go badly is something of an understatement.  The Russians, understanding history and Russian winters, would implement a tactical retreat strategy coupled with a scorched earth policy that would see them set fire to Moscow once Napoleon arrived.  This strategy made it impossible for Napoleon’s men to survive off the land as they pursued their prey. 

As such, tired, hungry, frozen and demoralized, Napoleon’s troops would retreat after only six weeks. Eventually Napoleon would abandon his 75,000 remaining troops and return to Paris.  As his enemies gained momentum the French empire crumbled over the next 18 months and a defeated Napoleon would abdicate on April 6, 1814. 

He was imprisoned on Elba Island, off the coast of Italy.  Undeterred, he would escape and as soon as he landed back in France he would quickly win over the regiment sent to arrest him. The new king, Louis XVIII, fled Paris and Napoleon took control of the government and immediately raised an army.

It would all be for naught as Napoleon would misread the retreat of his Prussian enemy early in the battle at Waterloo and as a result the British Duke of Wellington would go down in history as the man who finally defeated Napoleon. 

While Waterloo was the final nail in his coffin, the reality is it was Moscow where Napoleon wasted the lives of half a million of his own men and set the course of his destruction. He had Europe in his grip, and rather than strengthen his position, he let hubris get the best of him and it destroyed him. 

Sound like anyone we know?

I’m of course talking about Donald Trump.  He came into office the second time with a strong wind at his back. Having endured 8 years of abuse at the hands of the anti-American Democrats and their swamp weasel comrades, he persevered and won a third election to the White House.  The GOP took back the Senate and held on to the House.  For the first time in four years the average Joe felt like they had a patriot in the White House, someone who was going to look out for them, was going to put the interests of Americans and American taxpayers ahead of the swamp and the rest of the world, was going to deport all those who crossed our border illegally and hold accountable the tyrants who had used the government as a jackboot over the previous four years. 

And to make things even better, in two months DOGE validated many people’s hunches that our government was funding the very entities who were doing so much damage to our country.

But a funny thing happened on the way to fixing the country…

President Trump allowed the swamp weasels in the Democrat party and the GOP leadership to write a treasonous spending bill that’s largely indistinguishable from one the Democrats would have written themselves. 

Then the GOP decides to basically disappear the DOGE recommendations for ending the trillion dollar waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government. 

We see judges across the country using unconstitutional tactics to throw roadblocks in front of virtually every administration policy and the president plays by the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, which is exactly what the swamp wants because it allows them to run out the clock on any reforms.

And of course we can’t forget that fully five months into this administration and no one has been held accountable for the persecution of the J6ers, the Russia Hoax, the COVID tyranny or the stolen election of 2020.  Not a one.

As bad as all of those things are, President Trump’s supporters have been willing to endure them for a while because he was busy focusing on the single most important issue:  Deporting illegal aliens.  With 30 million illegals in the country, there’s no greater threat today, and President Trump promised to deport them.

But last week he backtracked on mass deportations and is going to ease up on enforcement against illegals working in the hospitality industry and on farms to focus on “criminals”.  Well, the reality is, that’s how we got here in the first place, with illegals taking jobs on farms and in hotels. 

This is simply insane. We’re seeing the result of this betrayal on our streets right now:  The fires looting, riots and attacking of police officers. And what’s most stunning (but not surprising) is that across the country, people who don’t want to go back to Mexico are actually here in America flying Mexican flags while burning American flags and attacking American law enforcement. Guaranteed many of those in the streets are taking time from farms and restaurants to “protest”. Appeasement simply doesn’t work. It didn’t work for Reagan in 1986 and it won’t work today.

Much like the soldiers who flocked to Napoleon’s banner as he offered them a path out of the chaos and misery following the Revolution or upon his return from Elba, Trump’s supporters have been willing to take the slings and arrows of abuse because they believed in him and the promises of giving them back their country.

Napoleon betrayed his men by leaving more than a half a million of them laying bloody and dying on battlefields from Moscow to Waterloo. And in the end Napoleon’s hubris left behind a France that was economically broken, fiscally insolvent, occupied by her enemies and wracked with internal strife.

Donald Trump earned a 2^nd chance in the White House by promising to deport the millions of illegal aliens in our country. If he maintains this betrayal on deportations, the single most important issue to almost every one of his supporters, he might just find that they’re not willing to be cannon fodder just to indulge his hubris.  And that doesn’t bode well for 2026.

Angry GOP Voters and Donald Trump - The Enemy of My Enemy is Not My Friend

I’m angry. I’m actually damn angry. I’m angry that Americans have twice voted into the highest office in the land a man who is demonstrably anti-American, who sows racial tension, who has sought to destroy free markets, who has turned much of the nation into a welfare state and who has crippled the American military and destroyed American influence around the world. To me, Barack Obama is a cancer on the American body politic and the nation.

But I’m not angry at Obama… well, I really am, but he’s not who has animated me the most in the last six years. It’s actually the GOP establishment. I’ve gone to Tea Party rallies near and far. I’ve voted for candidates who claimed they were conservatives. I’ve donated money, I’ve manned phone lines, I’ve put up signs along the highway. I even gave lectures on the constitution and started writing a blog. All for what?

We have Obamacare, lock stock and barrel, and its numerous exceptions, extensions and a plethora of executive orders. We have a NLRB that thinks it can tell companies where they can invest and who they must hire. We have an IRS that’s become a thug enforcement arm of the Democrat party. And of course we have trillions more dollars of debt than we did eight years ago.

Needless to say, I’m angry at the betrayal. In 2010 we were told that the GOP couldn’t do anything because they were a minority in the House. So we voted them into power. Then we were told that we needed the White House, and somehow the GOP was able to screw up an election that should have been theirs on a silver platter. Then in 2014 we were told that they still couldn’t do anything because Harry Reid ran the Senate. By 2015 he was on the sidelines. But now we’re told that they can’t do anything because Democrats control the White House.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 4 times shame on me. Exit poll after exit poll shows that Republican voters are livid with the GOP and want to burn it and Washington to the ground… hence the attraction of Donald Trump. Millions of people across the country who are disgusted with the GOP are flocking to the banner of a guy who will definitely not be held hostage to political correctness. A guy who doesn’t care about sucking up to minority voters. A guy who says what’s on his mind. Indeed, Donald Trump with his big business billions and his big mouth make many Americans stand up and say “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!” He makes them feel like an NFL receiver spiking the football right in front of a safety who blew his coverage. In a word, they want a winner who will destroy the liars in Washington.

The problem however is something that was revealed in a 2013 study by Washington State University. The first line of the piece says it all “Being confident and loud is the best way to win an argument - even if you are wrong”. The study basically suggests that people are more drawn to someone who sounds confident and is loud – even obnoxious – than they are to someone who’s right. And with Donald Trump that’s exactly what we have. GOP voters want someone who’s unabashedly pro-American. That’s Trump. They want someone who says he’s going to seal the border. That’s Trump. They want someone who’s immune to political correctness. That’s Trump.

Unfortunately, in this case the ancient adage “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is simply wrong. Donald Trump may indeed be anti-establishment, but that’s different than being pro freedom, pro prosperity and pro limited government.

Those are the things necessary to change Washington, the things that are necessary to rein in the leviathan of government, the things that are necessary to restore the freedom of the American people and unleash the prosperity that comes with it. Those are the things that Ted Cruz offers, but may not get the opportunity to execute because voters are too busy focusing on the bombastic guy at the other side of the bar.

That of course is Ted Cruz’s challenge over the next month: Demonstrate to GOP voters that trash talking will not fix what’s wrong with the county. Convince them that braggadocio will not dislodge an entrenched bureaucratic borg that seeks to control virtually every aspect of a citizen’s life. Articulate why his constitutional principles make him the correct vehicle for their anger, and not Donald Trump. If he can do this, there is some hope for redemption for the party as it’s redefined by conservative principals. If not, not only will the party be gone, but much of what made America great in the first place. Ideas like free markets and individual liberty are already on the ropes. Let’s hope they don’t go down for the count.