So Trump, the charlatan supreme,
inevitably starts rolling back on his grossly inflated pre-election
pledges. Scant surprise. But then how come he’s still on about that stupid wall?
It’s grandiose monstrosity would seem a prime example of rash
promise, made when you thought there was no risk of being asked to
deliver on it.
And, completely contrary to his inflammatory rhetoric,
Mexican immigration to the United States is falling and likely to
continue falling. While, despite all the absurd liberal rhetoric
we've heard lately, Obama actually deported more migrants than any
other President so far. Above all, most migrants don’t try to cross
an already policed border, they just get a temporary visa and
overstay. (Like, duh.) You might as well build a wall to keep out the
climate change. If he admitted it was happening.
Which means it’s not just impossible
to achieve it’s, even by it's own twisted logic, increasingly
unnecessary. But instead he’s upped the ante by bringing in this
three million target. Estimates suggest there probably are enough
illegal migrants in the States for him to theoretically reach his
magic number. Except illegal migrants don’t by tradition make
themselves easy to find, what with being in the country illegally and
everything.
Here's an idea of what he might be
planning. His association (yet again) of migration with criminality
may be the clue. Certainly there's nowhere near enough migrants
who've committed crimes to reach the figure, unless you use the
circular logic of claiming illegal residence is itself a crime. But
let's remember that other great American standby, of linking criminal
records with the right to vote then criminalising those you don't
like voting.
Latinos currently occupy quite a
unique, perhaps even key, place in the demographics of the States,
which presents a unique problem for the right. They don’t vote
Democrat in the same proportions as black Americans (nine-tenths) or
Jewish Americans (just under three-quarters). But the figure is still
a significant two-thirds. And they’re the second-largest ethnic
group in America (after whites) and the second-fastest growing (after
Asians). In other words, every day they are busily making more
non-Republicans.
More established Republican strategists
saw the solution as winning them over, seeing religion and the work
ethic as strong in their culture and therefore claiming them as
natural supporters. Yet that third which does vote Republican tends
to do so because it’s Evangelical. Which means to win over the
other two thirds you need to convert them religiously before you
stand any chance politically. Which might be a bit of a tall order.
Or on the other hand you can just
deport them.
In an extreme form of gerrymandering,
Trump's plan is to start deporting Latino citizens. Don’t renew
your car insurance quick enough, run a red light, drop some litter,
maybe get arrested while protesting against his anti-Latino plans and
find yourself in Mexico or Puerto Rica. And if the remaining Latino
citizens get cowed into quietude, if they don’t
protest his plans for the fear they might be next, so much the
better. Making America Great Again and Keeping America White have
become analogous concepts.
Sounds wild and implausible? There’s
precedent for it. America has already deported ‘criminals’ to
countries they left as children, sometimes when only a few days old.
Like most Trump pledges, they only need to do more of what they’re
doing already.
The illo's from this vid...
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