This (From The Ever Cogent Keyboard Of EmptyWheel!) Is An Excellent "Sum Up" -- Of Just The First Three Weeks -- Of Tangerine 2.0's "Failure Tours / Scorch Trials."

The irrepressible EmptyWheel, writing this morning our time, from across the pond (in Ireland), has Tangerine's malign brand of idiocy pickled -- in a granny jar. Stowed; flawlessly and hermetically sealed, too! It will still be crisp and fresh, many years from this morning. This is, in sum, the telling that will appear in history books -- decades from now -- as a cautionary tale for sixth graders studying civics and politics.

Do go read it all -- it is. . . devastating -- but here's just some of the purely salty. . . brine:

. . .Thus far, Trump’s biggest success on immigration in his second term has been to claim credit — twice! — for things that [Mr.] Biden did, in one case years ago.

He threatened sanctions on Colombia, only to agree to let Colombian President Gustavo Petro send planes to fetch deportees, sometimes in Colombian military planes, rather than receive them in US military planes.

He threatened sanctions on Mexico, only to boast after Claudia Sheinbaum committed to put 5,000 fewer Mexican troops on the border than are already there, the same 10,000 that Biden obtained years ago.

He threatened sanctions on Canada, only to boast that Justin Trudeau agreed to the same $1.3 billion in investments to counter fentanyl trafficking he put in place in December.

As for his efforts to round up and deport migrants in the US?

Almost two weeks ago, I noted that the quotas ICE introduced to try to boost the deportation numbers fell wildly short of delivering the deportations Trump had promised his rubes, to say nothing of the way those quotas will lead to deportation of non-criminal migrants instead of the violent criminals Trump claims to be targeting.

Almost two weeks ago, Trump’s flunkies confessed they would never be able to meet his promises for mass deportation.

The fate of a highly publicized raid in Aurora [Colorado] last week is a spectacular case in point. . . .

Of course Trump is pissed that his biggest immigration success so far was stolen from [Mr.] Biden.

Of course Tom Homan is pissed that he can’t deliver what he promised.

Of course ICE is squirmy because even if they could meet their quotas -- even if those migrants in Aurora, CO against whom ICE had no probable cause of a crime willingly opened their doors so ICE could arrest and deport them -- the number of deportees would still fall far short of Trump’s goal.

But this all arises from the false expectations set during the election — from the lies Stephen Miller told, over and over and over and over and over, about the number of criminal migrants. . . .

Trump is furious that his thugs can’t fulfill his promises. But those failures arise not through want of trying. Rather, those failures stem from the fact that reality in no way matches the hellhole Miller pitched for Trump, the imaginary hellhole Miller used to get voters afraid enough to vote for Trump.

Trump has redirected virtually all instruments of US national security to chase Stephen Miller’s lies. Not only is it going to lead to ongoing fury from the Boss, because reality will never match the propaganda Miller spun. But by neglecting the things that really do pose much more urgent threats — by destaffing investigations into real terrorists or operations to counter real ransomware attacks — Trump leaves America vulnerable in myriad ways. . . .

Precisely. Exactly.

To. A. Tee.

नमस्ते