Today the Republican party is at war with itself and with Donald Trump. In the past 24 hours, the president has gone squishy on immigration, and called into question his commitment to the signature issue of his presidency: building a wall along the US-Mexico border.

By giving Democrats and child migrants what they wanted on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program – and not getting a “beautiful” wall in return – Trump has further jeopardized his tenure in office.



In addition to the Democrats loathing Trump and special counsel Robert Mueller investigating him, Trump now faces a full-blown revolt from within his own party.

Already at a nadir for popularity, Trump must fend off attacks from his loudest supporters, and the prospects of a primary challenge in 2020. On Thursday Joel B Pollak, Breitbart’s senior editor, raised the specter of a contested nomination in less than three years. As Pollak put it, the Republican party could see “the emergence of a primary candidate from the right challenging Donald Trump”. It doesn’t get clearer than that.

At this juncture, Trump should take Pollak’s threat seriously, and ask George HW Bush what happened to him when he broke his one big campaign promise.

As the 1988 Republican presidential candidate, Bush had pledged that he would not raise taxes. As Bush accepted the Republican party’s presidential nomination, he told the assembled convention delegates and the country: “Read my lips. No new taxes.” By November 1990 the “pledge” was in tatters. To reach a budget deal and avoid across-the-board spending cuts, Bush had acceded to the Democrats’ demands for tax hikes.

Although Bush elder waged a successful war against Iraq and dislodged Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait, he had mortally wounded his re-election prospects. First, Bush was forced to do combat in the Republican primaries with Pat Buchanan, a paleo-conservative who had served in the both the Nixon and Reagan White Houses. Buchanan never won a single contest, but he bloodied Bush and left him vulnerable, thereby allowing Bill Clinton to ascend to the White House.

Fast forward, and this time it is Trump who looks like he’s way over his skis, dining with Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, and Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House minority leader – and then tweeting what appears to be the outline of a deal on child migrants. These days immigration is to the Republican base what taxes were to the party faithful back in the day.

At first blush, Trump’s position seems eminently reasonable, and a political winner. ‘Dreamers’, that is undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children, are widely popular with the American public. Nearly 60% believe that Dreamers should be given the opportunity to attain citizenship, while another 18% oppose granting Dreamers citizenship, but support affording them an opportunity to stay.



As for deportation, it looks like a political non-starter. Indeed, for all of Trump’s harrumphing about the wall and Mexico, Trump announced that he “loved” Dreamers – even as he was initially acknowledging Daca’s death sentence immediately after Labor Day.

Yet, that is not the whole story. A hard line on immigration is what got Trump elected, plain and simple. It was the wall that lured Jeff Sessions – then Alabama senator, now attorney general – into giving Trump his first senatorial endorsement in the run-up to the 11-state Super Tuesday primaries.

As Sessions framed things back in February 2016, “You have asked for 30 years and politicians have promised for 30 years to fix illegal immigration. Have they done it? Donald Trump will do it.” Indeed, it was attorney general Sessions who declared that Daca was unconstitutional earlier this month. So much for fixing things.

Adding to Trump’s woes, giving a quid without receiving a pro quo in return makes Trump’s reputation for negotiating a deal look like a farce. Less than a fortnight ago, Trump gave the store away to congressional Democrats on the budget and the debt ceiling, and now he is doing it again. A reminder: the people who cheer most loudly about Trump’s compromises are not his voters.

To be sure, Trump’s current predicament is of his own making. Like Trump’s initial travel ban, his Daca somersault evidences a lack of serious consideration and anticipation. Of course, America was going to be upset over the possibility of 800,000 people being deported. Of course, thsese Republican right would be infuriated by an abandonment of the wall. And yet Trump never seemed to notice or care until the damage was already done.

• Lloyd Green, an attorney in New York, was opposition research counsel to George HW Bush’s 1988 campaign, and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992

