Deep in his dull, blinkered brain, Trump could feel the moral and political hazard of a harshly framed reversal of DACA. Even Trump, a man never known for intellect, introspection, or the consideration of anything other than the immediate gratification of his needs knew this was a stinker. His nerve broke, and he dispatched Jeff Sessions to take point on the DACA reversal. The cult noticed they’d been played, and the wailing and lamentations have been biblical. Trump set out to do just enough to avoid a livid Steve Bannon from having a full-blown meltdown on the pages of his alt-right fanfic site… and failed.

Trump’s fans should have seen this coming. Just as the wall is nothing but an empty pitch for more Trump vaporware, so too was his DACA and deportation posturing. Coulter, Mark Krikorian, and the rest of the usual suspects in the immigration fearmongering business didn’t get their fantasy of door-kicking ICE raids, mass roundups, and weeping kids dragged before the camera and frog-marched to the border. His executive order was full of exceptions, delays, codicils, and soft-landings for people his base hate with the fire of a thousand suns… and he still managed to look like a child-deporting monster in the eyes of three-quarters of the country not familiar with the details of DACA. Bravo, Don. Bra-vo.