The Caravan, Trump, and the Politics of Fear

The Caravan, Trump, and the Politics of Fear

So just a quick note here, I actually started this blog two weeks ago, before the bombs were sent, before the shooting at the synagog, and before the racist shooting of african americans in Kentucky.  Since these things have happened, there has been much talk about how much responsibility Trump has with all of this. I don’t think it is fair to blame the crazy actions of any individual on someone else and my intent here is not to blame Trump for those specific attacks.  He is, of course, responsible for contributing to the division and hate in this country, as was the original point of this blog.

So when I first heard about the caravan of migrants coming from Central America, my heart went out to them.  Imagine being in such a hopeless place in your life, that the best option seems to be to leave your home, friends, family, culture, and travel (mostly walking) thousands of miles in the hopes of a better life.  I heard interviews with people in the caravan - people who saw their husbands or wives murdered by gangs, people who fear their children will be recruited or killed by gangs, people running from oppressive governments, people running from poverty and a lack of living wage jobs.  Central America is the most dangerous place on Earth outside of active war zones. And the US is seen as the land of opportunity. When Tony and I drove through Central America in 1993, we encountered many kids who asked if we would take them to the US. These were 10 year old kids who would have gotten in our car and gone to the US, leaving everything behind and without even saying goodbye.  That was how little hope they had for their future where they lived. And it is important to note, that the US government has been involved in and responsible for much of the political and economic problems in the region. We have overthrown democratically elected governments in the region, we exported the MS13 gang problem to El Salvador, we have supported authoritarian regimes and terrorist organizations in the region.  

Now while I feel terrible for these people, I know it is not an easy problem to solve and the United States can’t solve all the world’s problems (even if we had a hand in creating them) and can’t take every person in the world who wants to come here.  This caravan is only a visible example of the many people fleeing the violence and economies of Central American countries - especially Honduras at the moment. We can, of course, take some new immigrants, in fact our economic growth needs immigrants. We can certainly do our share to take refugees who are fleeing violence.   Clearly, there needs to be solutions that address the problems, not just the symptoms. How can we work with these countries to reduce violence and improve job opportunities? Of course there are ways we can do this and this would be an interesting policy discussion to have.

So what does Trump have to say about the caravan?  Well he knows that immigration is an issue that he can use to motivate people to vote.  This was one of his key issues when he was elected and he sees it as an issue to motivate his base to get to the polls in these midterms.  So does he talk about policies? Does he show compassion for these people? Does he have an immigration reform bill from his first two years in office with both houses of congress controlled by his party to point to as an example of him taking action?  No. He uses this to stoke fear because he knows that fear is a powerful motivator when it comes to voting and activism. He calls the caravan an ‘invasion’ and says he is deploying the military to protect us. The military said they are deploying 5,000 troops to the southern border for this purpose and more recently Trump has said he wants as many as 15,000 troops (more than we have in Iraq or Afghanistan).  He doesn’t even care if his fear mongering is based in fact. In fact, he constantly lies without a care in the world. When it comes to the caravan, he promoted theories that George Soros and the Democratic party had actually organized this caravan and had paid people to be in it. He said there were members of MS13 and ‘Middle Easterners’ in the caravan. When asked if he had proof of these claims, he acknowledged he had no proof and said “there is no proof of anything”.  Of course the words that need to be added there are: ‘to most claims Trump makes’. No, Trump had no proof, he was just making claims he knew would make people afraid and which would place the blame on Democrats. The truth is, there is little or no truth to Trump’s entire stance on immigration.

Yes, our immigration laws need updating - they haven’t been updated in decades.  Trump and the Republicans blame the Democrats for being against immigration reform.  With controll of both houses, the Republicans could have brought a bill to the floor and opened it up for debate and allowed both parties to offer amendments (this is how Obamacare was done - with hundreds of proposed amendments from Republicans).  Then, if no Democrats voted for it, you could blame them. When Trump ended DACA, he said he wanted Congress to act to fix it. He said he would accept a clean DACA bill. Then, bipartisan compromise worked and a bill was drafted that would provide a path to citizenship for DACA recipients and provide $25 billion dollars for border security - money for Trump’s ‘wall’.  Trump rejected this compromise.

So immigration, especially illegal immigration, was one of Trump’s signature issues.  When he launched his bid for President this is what he said about Mexicans coming to our country: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”  He now tells us to fear the invasion that is coming.  The truth is, illegal immigration has been declining for years.  Illegal immigrants commit violent crimes at a lower rate than native born Americans!  Studies actually show that cities with higher percentage of immigrants actually have less crime than cities with fewer immigrants.  So Trump’s depiction of the crime problem is the opposite of the truth. He even recently tweeted out a video showing an immigrant who committed murder here in the States.  The video claimed it was Democrats fault he was here (even though it turns out he was deported under Clinton and then came back in under Bush) But regardless, there are crazy evil individuals - you can’t equate them with the general population.  And then there is the economic argument - they are coming for your jobs! Again, Trump’s fear mongering flies in the face of the truth. Immigrants actually boost our economy and improve job opportunities for American citizens. Even unskilled migrants from Central America are a benefit to the economy - doing jobs most Americans won’t do for the same pay and allowing unskilled American workers to work in higher paying jobs such as the service sector, where speaking fluent English is a skill they have over the recent migrants.  Refugees actually are an incredible boost to the economy and are actually job creators.  

Trump made immigration an issue and he made himself the answer:  ‘I will build a wall to protect you’! And what has he done - taken children from their parents, moved children from state facilities to massive tent prison camps, he brags about portions of the wall that have been built or fixed that were actually approved for construction before he became president.  He put DACA recipients into limbo. He has pushed for rule changes that would prevent legal residents from getting a green card if they have ever used public assistance like food stamps or health care. (This would have disqualified my wife Anke from getting a green card, since our children were born on public medical insurance)  He has turned his back on any bipartisan attempt to create compromises on immigration. And he consistently portrays the Democrats as wanting the illegal immigrants, as wanting ‘open borders’ etc. This, of course, is BS. Immigrant rights activists called Obama ‘the deporter in chief’ because his administration deported more illegal immigrants than any before him.  In fact, Obama deported more illegal immigrants than all the presidents of the 20th century combined.  The vast majority of Obama’s deportees were individuals who had been convicted of a crime. But facts and policy do not matter to Trump.  His own officials admit he doesn’t really dig into policy. They weren’t even worried that the Chinese and Russians were listening to him on his iPhone for this very reason - he doesn’t really know what is going on.  He has reduced the numbers of refugees we will accept to historically low numbers - about 30,000 a year.  They have narrowed the reasons someone can apply for asylum. Now Trump says he can change the 14th amendment to the Constitution to take away birthright citizenship.  

Ironically, Trump has some positive things he could talk about when it comes to immigration.  The draft of the new ‘NAFTA’ that his administration drafted with Mexico, includes some good things for Mexican workers, like the right the organize unions and a minimum wage. If enforced, this could help keep Mexican workers in Mexico.  This could help the illegal immigration problem.

After Trump cruelly mocked Christine Blasey Ford at a campaign rally, he was asked in a 60 minutes interview if he regretted it.  He replied that no, he doesn’t regret it because they won, and if he hadn’t made the speech, he would not have won. Win at all costs, that is his motto.  And the divisive nature of his comments are unlike we have ever seen from a US president, at least in my lifetime. Once you are president, you are the president of all the people.  You have a job to unite and represent all Americans. Trump constantly portrays the Democrats as evil people - the entire Republican echo chamber took on the talking point of comparing Democrats to mobs and saying the Democratic party wanted ‘mob rule’.  My pro Trump friends on facebook posted a graphic that showed the Republican party with the word ‘jobs’ and a guy in a shirt and tie sitting at a desk next to the Democratic party with the word ‘mobs’ and a picture of some violent protest. I actually commented on this image, as it not only offended me that they were implying that the Democratic party was properly characterized by riotous mobs, but that job creation under Obama was not all that different than it is under Trump.  I ended up engaged in a very interesting policy debate with her and some of her friends, and this kind policy debate is healthy. It stayed mostly polite, the only time it went bad was when one person claimed I wanted to take away his civil liberties, saying ANTIFA wants to take away his freedom of speech, Black Lives Matter want to take away his due process, and the Democrats want to take away his guns. He actually said we (me and all those he associated with me) wanted to take away his life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.   When I called him on this, he apologized, but it does show you the power of the politics of fear. They are coming for your guns. They are coming for your jobs. They are coming for your freedoms. They are coming for your life. Trump is brilliant to exploit this. He will build a wall to protect you. He will cancel all the trade deals and nuclear deals and climate deals and he will make better ones. The sad thing is, he doesn’t even know the details in those deals, he just knows that saying these things make him sound like the strong man who will protect us.  He will drain the swamp. Of course his administration has been the ‘swampiest’ in recent history.

Now there are two things Trump and his supporters say regarding my claim that Trump is divisive and is spreading hate.  One is that BOTH ‘sides’ are responsible. The other is that it is the fault of the Fake news. Both claims are again, untrue.

Yes, you can find quotes from Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder and Joe Biden of divisive things they have said that even imply violence.  “When they go low we kick them”. These are wrong things to say, people say stupid stuff. I was very critical of Hillary regarding the tone of her attacks against Obama when she ran against him in 2008.  But there is a difference in scale here. I keep hearing these same quotes brought up every time Trump defenders try to suggest the problem is equal on both sides. Trump says hateful things constantly. He actually praised a congressman for body slamming a reporter, and praised the state of Montana by saying the people of Montana would actually think that was a good thing.  This was right after a reporter for an American newspaper was murdered by our ally, Saudi Arabia. Trump is still saying the press is the enemy of the people, even after CNN was one of the recipients of a bomb recently. This attack on the press is absolutely uncalled for and dangerous. Every US president has had issues with the press Obama thought they were not fair to him.  The job of the press is to expose the government - to expose lies and wrongdoings. The press does get it wrong sometimes, yes. There is bias in news organizations, from FOX to MSNBC, yes. But for the most part it is not fake. Trump thinks it is fake only when it puts him in a bad light. He calls the New York Times fake news when they expose his family’s questionable business dealings (backed up by over 100,000 pages of documents) and says the National Enquirer deserves a pulitzer prize and is a great news source.  The same National Enquirer who was buying up negative stories about Trump and not publishing them.

According to the Washington Post fact checkers, Trump has told lies or untruths, 30 times a day in October, leading up to the elections.  So yes, if the job of the media is to keep the government honest, they will be busy with Trump. Plus you have ethics scandal after ethics scandal (Zinky, Pruitt, Carson, etc) and new revelations about more people surrounding Trump having lied about contacts with Russians leading up to the elections, and so many other stories, that of course it seems like the press is always reporting bad news about Trump.  It isn’t that they don’t report the good news - new job reports, for instance, but then it is overshadowed by Trump calling a porn star horse face, or some other thing, so everyone moves on. There is just too much to keep up with. The press is kinda out to get all politicians - it is just that Trump has a lot to get at.

OK, I am getting off the original point, so I will sign off...