This is an opinion column

In my 45 years in governance and politics, I’ve never seen any politician more effective than President Donald Trump at both (1) self-promotion and (2) destroying opponents’ reputations.

Time and again, the Left throws Trump into briar patches only to see Trump come out smelling like roses while Democrats end up smelling even worse.

Trump’s effectiveness is based, in part, on his laser focus on issues the public likes him on and hates the Left on.

Border Security fight is such an issue.

If you understand it then you better understand why Trump got elected president twice, helped saddle Democrats with their worst polling ratings ever, and cost Democrats the White House and Congress in 2024.

I share two poignant Border Security examples manipulated to enhance Trump and tarnish the Left: El Salvadoran illegal alien Abrego Garcia and Obama-appointed, D.C. U.S. District Court Jeb Boasberg.

Garcia was admittedly an illegal alien who entered America without permission. He was then deported to El Salvador, his home country. He is a past spouse abuser and arguably a member of the violent MS-13 cartel. The White House has also raised questions about whether he was a transporter of persons engaged in nefarious activities.

Maryland U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis (and later the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals) attack the Trump Administration by claiming a lack of due process . . . not on whether Garcia was an illegal alien while in America (an undisputed fact) but on whether Garcia was both an illegal alien and “a member of the gang MS–13, a designated foreign terrorist organization, and that his return to the United States would pose a threat to the public”.

The Abrego Garcia case’s judicial mental gymnastics (VERY expensive judicial mental gymnastics, I might add, all at the tax expense of legal immigrants and American citizens) causes voters to wonder when being an illegal alien was not enough, standing alone, to be deported.

Jumping into the Border Security fray in D.C. is yet another liberal Democrat: District Court Judge Jeb Boasberg. Judge Boasberg ordered the Trump Administration to stop deporting vicious, criminal illegal aliens without judicial review and, even worse, ordered them returned to America even though they were mid-flight to Central America.

In so doing, Judge Boasberg and Abrego Garcia threw Trump and the GOP into the briar patch while throwing Democrat 2026 candidates out the window.

How so?

Deportation of vicious illegal alien gang members is an overwhelmingly lopsided issue with American voters. Polling reveals that 82% of Americans support deporting all illegal aliens who commit violent crimes and 68% support deporting all legal immigrants who commit violent crimes!

Hence, by highlighting judicial decrees generally, and Abrego Garcia specifically, the Left gives Trump and the GOP a huge gift by focusing the national spotlight on an issue of great importance to average voters that has a lopsided 68% and 82% of Americans siding with Trump and the GOP, and against the Left.

These lop-sided polling numbers are political gold and arm Trump and Republicans with maces with which to bludgeon Leftists into oblivion in future elections.

Worse yet for Leftists, Trump set a political trap by not just publicizing and deporting any old illegal alien with a questionable past (the Abrego Garcias of the world).

Trump deports and highlights the very worst illegal aliens in America: members of Venezuela’s extraordinarily dangerous Tren de Aragua gang, which the Department of Homeland Security describes as “a plague upon our communities that rely on fear and violence to reign terror on hardworking and law-abiding residents.”

The Trump White House hammers Tren de Aragua as “a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization with thousands of members, many of whom have unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States (and is an) Nicolas Maduro regime-sponsored, narco-terrorism enterprise based in Venezuela, and commits brutal crimes, including murders, kidnappings, extortions, and human, drug, and weapons trafficking.”

Even though Judge Boasberg, Judge Xinis and other federal judges may have legitimate due process reservations about whether a deportee should be deported, that does not change the underlying political dynamics nor the political gold Trump and the GOP are empowered to mine.

As a point of emphasis, many Americans do not understand the Constitution’s due process nuances. But they most certainly understand the growing threat of “narco-terrorists” who “commit brutal crimes, including murders, kidnappings, extortions, and human, drug, and weapons trafficking”!

Worse yet for the Left, many American voters who do understand due process nuances question why horribly expensive due process rights should be extended to illegal aliens who should not even be in America in the first place.

To this group of citizens, an illegal alien status determination, without more, is adequate due process that justifies deporting illegal aliens back to their native countries.

But Trump does not stop with just a few political slam dunks. Trump focuses even more attention on the Border Security contrast between the GOP and Leftists.

Trump posts: “This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President – He didn’t WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn’t WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!”

The adage of moths and flames immediately comes to mind.

Trump’s post is purposely inflammatory to ensure yet another knee-jerk Leftist reaction that fuels yet another round of media coverage on an issue Trump and the GOP win by a lopsided 82% to 18% margin!

Like the moth, the Left can’t resist going down in flames.

Trump understands he and Republicans don’t have to be perfect or loved. They just have to be less unpopular than Democrats.

That was Trump’s winning formula in 2016 and 2024, and how Trump and the GOP will win future elections if the Left persists in fighting for the 18% while thumbing their noses at the 82%.

Mo Brooks served on the House Armed Services Committee for 12 years and the Foreign Affairs Committee for 6 years. Brooks graduated from Duke University in 3 years with a double major in political science and economics (highest honors in economics).