It’s a setup, they said: President Donald Trump, an accomplished demagogue with his finger on the pulse of America’s most reactionary voters, wanted Democrats to make a big fuss about his lawless deportations and extraordinary renditions — to show how out of touch they are with the majority of Americans who say they want fewer people to step foot in their country.

“Look, what Donald Trump did was set up a trap for Democrats to run into,” Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., told a newspaper in Tucson last month. He was talking about the hundreds of Venezuelan men expelled from the country without due process and sent to a prison in El Salvador, where, according to the administration, they should remain until they die. “Of the 500 they sent there, I’m sure 200 of them are actually hardcore criminals,” Gallego said (reporting suggests that more than 90% have no criminal conviction anywhere in the world). “Now, are we going to go run to the podium and defend and try to get those people back? No, absolutely not.”

That, again, would be taking the bait.

“This is the debate they want,” Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., chimed in earlier this month, describing the Trump administration’s defiance of a Supreme Court order to “facilitate” the return of one man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, as “the distraction of the day.” That, he argued, is in part because court orders should not be the subject of a public back-and-forth between politicians — “When a judge adjudicates, it’s not in question. How in the hell are we even debating that?” — but he also suggested it’s bad politics. “It’s exactly the debate they........

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