Frank Brunimkgggg, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with Nicole Hemmer, a history professor at Vanderbilt and the author of “Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s,” and Tim Miller, the author of “Why We Did It: A Travelogue From the Republican Road to Hell,” to discuss President Trump’s stunt politics and how Republicans leverage emotionally charged issues over a long horizon.

Frank Bruni: When President Trump issued that executive order on birthright citizenship on Day 1 — right out of the gate — I thought: Here we go again. Here’s another emotionally charged gambit that is not meant to lead to any real change because it’s patently unconstitutional and sure to be blocked by the courts but that gets gobs of attention and generates oodles of commentary. I also thought about the way Republicans used abortion in the past, about the party’s particular genius for anger-juicing issues that are sure to go unresolved for years and about Trump’s M.O. as the apotheosis of that. Tim, Nicole, am I onto something, or do I need more coffee?

Nicole Hemmer: I always recommend more coffee, but I do think there’s something to that. Overturning birthright citizenship is an issue that serves as a kind of vice signaling,66jogo a way of indicating who the shared enemies are and how the president would hurt them if he had unchecked power.

Tim Miller: In this case I think this is a sincere policy goal they would like to effectuate. Yes, it is also a brazen P.R. stunt. But ending birthright citizenship has deep support among the MAGA intellectual set. And most MAGA voters would be for it.

Bruni: Damn you, Tim. I had the word “stunt” in my shoulder bag and was all ready to yank it out with a great flourish and much self-congratulation, and now you’ve ruined that. I hear both of you on the fact that MAGA voters feel about an end to birthright citizenship the way sharks do about chum: They’re all over it.

patins

But I’m wondering if on some level Trump and Republicans like it that the proposal to end birthright citizenship, like the efforts to overturn Roe, might stick around for a very long and profitable while, might be a sustained source of anger and funds rather than a quick fix.

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Two days later, a separate embarrassment emerged: Mr. Adams’s police commissioner, Edward A. Caban, resigned under duress. Mr. Caban and his twin brother are under federal investigation, one of four federal inquiries circling the highest levels of the Adams administration.

So I was ready to put my mental fighting gloves on as I approached a building superintendent who was blasting the sidewalk ahead of me with a hose.mkgggg