Trump’s Ban Has Republican Fingerprints All Over It

On a mild Monday in November, 2015, Mike Pence, then a Republican governor, abruptly banned Syrian refugees from Indiana.

“Indiana has a long tradition of opening our arms and homes to refugees from around the world but, as governor, my first responsibility is to ensure the safety and security of all Hoosiers,” Pence said in a statement.

He said he was directing all state agencies to stop resettling Syrian refugees in Indiana until the federal government can provide assurances that “proper security measures are in place.”

There was a mad scramble after this announcement, and a Syrian refugee family initially slated for settlement in Indiana—Abdullah, Fatema, and their 5-year-old son—had to be rerouted to Connecticut when they arrived the following Wednesday. The family had already learned about Indiana and made contacts there; all of the arrangements had been made. Being rejected by Pence and having their plans appended was difficult for the family. “It broke our hearts,” Fatema said later.

By the end of the week, nearly every other Republican governor had also made statements barring Syrian refugees from their states, twenty-nine in all. Only one Democratic governor did the same. That same week, the House passed a bill blocking Syrian refugees. This bill was proposed by Republican leaders, and received near-unanimous support from Republicans in Congress.

I bring this all up because I’m concerned that Trump’s executive order of last Friday—banning Syrian refugees and barring individuals from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.—is being seen as a Trump thing rather than as the thoroughly Republican thing that it is. I’ve seen numerous people in my extended friend circles suggest that the Republicans should be speaking up, opposing Trump, as though this was Trump’s idea and Trump’s alone. I’ve even seen self-identified Republicans saying this. I feel the need to set the record straight.

When Trump first called for barring all Muslims from traveling to the U.S. in December 2015, it’s absolutely true that Pence spoke up against the suggestion:

Text of tweet by @GovPenceIN: Calls to ben Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional. 

By opposing a proposed ban on Muslims Pence could look like the good guy, the reasonable person, less than a month after banning Syrian immigrants from his own state. He was so successful in pulling this off, in fact, that some newspapers are scrambling to understand how Pence could go from that tweet to nodding and clapping as Trump signed his executive order on Friday. It’s not hard to understand, though, when you look at the wording Pence used in his tweet and bear in mind his own executive action barring Syrian refugees from Indiana a month before.

Ever since Friday, conservatives have been arguing that the immigration restrictions Trump signed on Friday are not a “Muslim ban.” After all, non-Muslims from the seven targeted countries are also barred from entering the U.S., and Muslims from countries not on the list are not banned. This is extremely convenient for Republicans. It is why Paul Ryan was able to look noble and heroic in speaking out against Trump’s call for a Muslim ban last year, while supporting Trump’s executive order today.

Text of tweet by @SpeakerRyan: A religious test for entering our country is not reflective of America’s fundamental values. I reject it.

Today, Ryan’s office is telling reporters that this is not a Muslim ban.

Speaker Paul Ryan‘s (R-Wis.) office said Saturday that President Trump’s executive order limiting immigration from several Muslim-majority countries does not target Muslims.

“This is not a religious test and it is not a ban on people of any religion,” AshLee Strong told The Washington Post.

In calling for a ban on all Muslim immigration to the U.S., Trump handed the Republicans a gift. He gave even individuals like Pence, who had just barred Syrian refugees from their own jurisdictions, the opportunity to look fair, just, and open-minded by speaking out against the proposal. And then, today, Trump signing into action a less-extreme restriction allows Republicans to both argue that this is not a Muslim ban and deflect criticism onto Trump—after all, the whole Muslim ban thing was his idea to begin with, so this, too, must be on him.

Let’s be clear here: Trump’s executive order is a Republican thing. In fact, it may be more a Republican thing than it is a Trump thing—after all, his initial proposal was to ban all Muslims from entering the country; someone, perhaps even Pence himself, at some point suggested a way for him to design an executive order such that it would pass constitutional muster. Furthermore, top Republican politicians who decried Trump’s call for a Muslim ban are now supporting his executive order.

As much as I’d love to imagine there’s a Republican majority in Congress that’s going to step forward and stop Trump, we need to face the facts—there isn’t. For all their protestations over Trump’s candidacy last year, Trump’s positions tend to be standard Republican positions. And letting Trump enact policies that are widely unpopular so that they don’t have to do so themselves and take the blame directly?

It’s damned convenient, really.

It may be useful to think of the Republicans’ opposition to Trump’s candidacy last year as some combination of anger at an outsider for stepping on their turf, and concern that in advocating standard Republican policies without the softening language Republicans tend to cloak them in, Trump would turn people against the party as a whole. Sometimes Trump gets a little ahead of things—such as proposing that we ban all Muslims from entering the country—but the Republicans are there to help make adjustments, so helpful, as in the case of Friday’s executive order.

This ban? This is the Republican Party. This is who they are in 2017.

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