On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks argued that Hurricane Harvey gives Republicans a reason to not build a border wall or crack down on immigration.
Brooks said, “I’ve decided to take the most willfully confident, or least optimistic point of view just maybe post-flood, that the dove comes bearing the olive branch, and things’ll get better. I do think there’s potential for things to get better. The Republicans were headed toward dysfunction this fall, with the budget showdowns, with this fight over the wall, possible government shutdown. And now they at least have a pretext, all the while knowing they look dysfunctional and they have to get something done. Now they have a pretext to change the subject, to put some budget relief in there for the flood, without doing offsets, without trying to rip the money out from other programs.”
He continued, “And they could say, ‘Hey, we can’t do the wall right now. We got to rebuild Texas. And, by the way, on the background, a lot of — we’re going to need a lot of construction workers in Texas. And this is a country with a construction worker shortage. So, maybe this isn’t the time to crack down on immigration.’ And so, I think there’s a possibility, if they want to look functional, to seize this moment, whether they will or not, but I’m going for maximal optimistic unrealism.”
Brooks later stated, “To me, the two biggest things that happened was, first, Houston came together. And that’s significant. Because Houston is the most ethnically diverse city in this country. And there’s an argument that is sometimes made, oh, it — we’ll never have solidarity as a nation if we’re so ethnically diverse. Well, Houston does it. And so, if they can do it, I think that argument against making our country diverse or opening up more immigration falls down.”
He concluded that while the response to Harvey has gone well, “The second thing is, I think, as Washington becomes more dysfunctional, power is going to the cities and states. And I thought the basic efficacy of the Houston government this week is further sign that that may have to happen even more.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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