Soon after his patron left the White House amid record-low approval ratings, Rove became a weekly columnist at the Wall Street Journal. Although I've almost never read any of the many hundreds of op-eds he subsequently published, I've usually glanced at the titles.

So his most recent piece "Is Trump Trying to Lose the Midterms?" caught my eye, and not only did I read it all the way through but I actually agreed with almost every word.

He opened his column by declaring that he found Trump's behavior "mystifying."

A year ago Tuesday, Donald Trump was sworn in for a second time as president. It's been a year of rapid movement, controversy and upheaval. It's also been utterly mystifying.

Why does the president keep doing things that are against his political self-interest?

He went on to note that the immigration issue had been a central reason for Trump's 2024 victory, but the president seemed to be snatching a huge political defeat out of the jaws of victory:

On the lost-opportunity front, look no further than the president's extraordinary achievement in securing the Southern border. He stopped the flood of illegal migrants. He was right. We didn't need a new law, only a different president.

Yet Mr. Trump didn't take a victory lap to publicize the success. If he had gone to the border, Hispanic and Democratic local officials would have thanked him for removing the tremendous burden on their hospitals, food pantries, social services and public safety. That image would have been powerful and lingered.

Instead, the White House has turned a major win into a major drag on the president's approval: 58% of Americans and 66% of independents disapproved of Mr. Trump's handling of immigration in a Jan. 12 CNN/SRRS survey. The administration's pledge to focus on expelling violent criminal aliens—"the worst of the worst"—was widely popular. But Team Trump misplayed its hand by going a good deal further. Dispatching Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Home Depots to grab day laborers, or to other places where otherwise law-abiding illegal aliens congregate, is unpopular. These expanded ICE sweeps are turning voters against Mr. Trump. In a Jan. 12 Quinnipiac University poll, 57% of all voters and 64% of independents disapproved of how ICE is enforcing immigration laws.