The pattern holds.

1. Trump (and for that matter conservatives in general going back to Bush), asserts something that plays directly to something their malinformed base believes;
2. Democrats, liberals, progressives, hell, anybody who actually has expertise about the subject says “that’s unproductive at best and dangerous at worst”;
3. History shows the latter was right, again; and
4. The former do not concede, but keep irrationally fighting on to prove points long since decided.
5. [corollary point: decades later conservatives finally concede point but assert that a. they were wrong for the right reasons, or b. they were the ones who fought the initial idea which was actually a liberal idea. i.e. The Gaslight Corollary.]

Best historical examples of the literal phenomenon are Vietnam, Iraq, but there are literally hundreds of examples of fights for and against things like Social Security, child labor laws, etc. There is the complication that some conservatives never go to points 4 or the corollary and keep fighting on against things like unions, environmental protections, a minimum wage, etc. playing the long con.

Today we have the Muslim ban that actually only encompassed 7 majority Muslim nations (that Trump had no business in) that have statistically posed no threat to Americans. The ban itself was shoddy as hell, couldn’t hold up to legal scrutiny and by the way wouldn’t have achieved anything anyway. Which is the main point of the report his own DHS issued. A nation based strategy makes little sense as “…citizenship is an unnreliable threat indicator.”

This Trump administration is all in on an extreme base strategy, no compromise, no reaching out, no moving center. Which makes it all the more problematic for them when say his Defense Secretary says we’re not interested in Iraqi oil. Or his new National Security Advisor contradicts everyone in Trumpworld on the use of the term “radical Islamic terrorism”.

Thank goodness there are rational people in important national security positions. But how long can that hold when the rest of the admin. is hung ho on ONLY reaching that malinformed base and stoking their victimhood and nationalist anger?