I cannot read the future and nor can you, but Donald Trump's decision to arrest illegal immigrants as they crossed the American border, therefore of course separating them from any children accompanying them, will almost certainly win him a lot of votes in 2020 and very possibly the White House.
First, children being incarcerated (rather comfortably, as it happens) is a very memorable picture. Donald Trump likes to create mental pictures, as when he said 'Build the Wall'. It will convince people who were not convinced before (including me) that he is serious
about closing the border and convince many that it is necessary to do so.
I think everyone who does not think effectively open borders are a good idea now sees that a wall of some sort is necessary.
What is the alternative?
His standing in the opinion polls rose after the arrests, though his standing among the high-minded and soft hearted fell even further.
Why will this help him?
Why will this help him?
First, children being incarcerated (rather comfortably, as it happens) is a very memorable picture. Donald Trump likes to create mental pictures, as when he said 'Build the Wall'. It will convince people who were not convinced before (including me) that he is serious
about closing the border and convince many that it is necessary to do so.
Secondly, it incenses the Democrats so much that they cannot think about what they are doing, forces them to side even more than hitherto with the illegals and therefore fight on Donald Trump's ground to defend a position that is untenable.
As his former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon put it,
As his former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon put it,
I want Democrats to talk about racism every day.I had thought that Donald Trump's campaign pledge to build a wall, which he has taken no steps that I know of to honour, was demagogic stuff.
I think everyone who does not think effectively open borders are a good idea now sees that a wall of some sort is necessary.
What is the alternative?
But why does the President not build the wall he spoke so much about?
Such walls between countries are very commonplace and most of the ones built since 1945 have been built since 2000.
Mexico has one to the south. Turkey has just built one on the Syrian border and the Baltic states are building theirs on their borders with Russia.
Such walls between countries are very commonplace and most of the ones built since 1945 have been built since 2000.
Mexico has one to the south. Turkey has just built one on the Syrian border and the Baltic states are building theirs on their borders with Russia.
Like many other of Donald Trump's positions, if you examine them and forget any antipathy you feel towards Donald Trump himself, his ideas on illegal immigration make good sense.
I am not sure what a populist is or whether Mr Trump's promise to build a wall was populist. I do think the Pope is a populist. He sounded to me a populist when he said during the 2016 US presidential campaign that
This sort of loose talking for emotive effect seems to me quintessentially populist. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who at 28 is suddenly the Democrats' new star, said the same sort of thing when she defined socialism as meaning
Populists come in two categories, of course: popular populists, who says things that find an echo in people's hearts and therefore win elections, and unpopular ones. There are a lot of the latter sort, including Theresa May.
A consensus seems to have been created in the USA that separating children from parents is wrong, but this is what happens every time parents are put in prison.
The Democrats do not have a constructive alternative to separating children from arrested immigrants, which means they are happy for illegal immigrants to come and settle.
This is an open invitation to people smugglers to use children.
In effect, it means no borders. Open borders, in effect, mean the end of any country.
Tucker Carlson of Fox News has turned into an interesting and thoughtful Trump supporter rather than the George W Bush type of conservative, a breed I cannot stand. It is one of Trump's significant achievements to have sidelined the Never Trumpers and to change some Fox News Republicans ('patriotards' is a neologism I heard someone use) into Trumpians. How far away we are from the world of the spring of 2016.
I am not sure what a populist is or whether Mr Trump's promise to build a wall was populist. I do think the Pope is a populist. He sounded to me a populist when he said during the 2016 US presidential campaign that
"a person who thinks only of building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, isn't Christian."No-one, I suppose, thinks only of building walls, but the Pope's words were thought to imply that wanting to keep out illegal immigrants is a bad thing, when it is patently necessary, everywhere.
This sort of loose talking for emotive effect seems to me quintessentially populist. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who at 28 is suddenly the Democrats' new star, said the same sort of thing when she defined socialism as meaning
No person in America should be too poor to live.
Populists come in two categories, of course: popular populists, who says things that find an echo in people's hearts and therefore win elections, and unpopular ones. There are a lot of the latter sort, including Theresa May.
A consensus seems to have been created in the USA that separating children from parents is wrong, but this is what happens every time parents are put in prison.
The Democrats do not have a constructive alternative to separating children from arrested immigrants, which means they are happy for illegal immigrants to come and settle.
This is an open invitation to people smugglers to use children.
In effect, it means no borders. Open borders, in effect, mean the end of any country.
Tucker Carlson of Fox News has turned into an interesting and thoughtful Trump supporter rather than the George W Bush type of conservative, a breed I cannot stand. It is one of Trump's significant achievements to have sidelined the Never Trumpers and to change some Fox News Republicans ('patriotards' is a neologism I heard someone use) into Trumpians. How far away we are from the world of the spring of 2016.
Tucker Carlson said of the children being confined
I do not imagine you care much about Donald Trump, gentle reader, unless you are an American. However, I come to see that this is part and parcel of the ongoing political story in Europe. You should too.
Pat Buchanan, writing in Taki's Magazine under the headline 'Trump and the Invasion of the West', sees that the problems on the USA's southern border and in the Mediterranean are part of the same phenomenon and points out:
The majority of American citizens in prison have minor kids they`ve left behind. Their families have been separated by force by our justice system because they committed a crime.
So, in that way, these kids are just like the kids you`ve been watching on television today. The difference, of course, is they`re Americans. So, nobody is spending 35 grand a year apiece to make sure they`re OK.
Democratic politicians and cable news anchors don`t visit their foster homes to highlight their plight. They`re ignored.
This is one of those moments that tells you everything about our ruling class. They care far more about foreigners than about their own people. You probably suspected that already.
I do not imagine you care much about Donald Trump, gentle reader, unless you are an American. However, I come to see that this is part and parcel of the ongoing political story in Europe. You should too.
Pat Buchanan, writing in Taki's Magazine under the headline 'Trump and the Invasion of the West', sees that the problems on the USA's southern border and in the Mediterranean are part of the same phenomenon and points out:
If Europe does not act, its future is predictable.
The population of Africa, right across the Med, is anticipated to climb to 2.5 billion by midcentury. And by 2100, Africa will be home to half of all the people on the planet.
If but a tiny fraction of the African and Middle Eastern population decides to cross the Mediterranean to occupy the emptying towns and villages of an aging and dying continent, who and what will stop them?
Trump may be on the wrong side politically and emotionally of this issue of separating migrant kids from their parents.
But on the mega-issue—the Third World invasion of the West—he is riding the great wave of the future, if the West is to have a future.
The great irony of defining socialism as “No person in America should be too poor to live” is that a century of experience shows that socialism creates and even institutionalizes poverty, while capitalism has lifted most of the world out of it. To have people believing such rubbish is the triumph of Marxist deception in education.
ReplyDeleteTrump is actually trying to build a wall or at least make it look like he is. He's been blocked by Republicans so far. He will eventually. He's figured that the art is to promise symbolic things and execute them no matter how unrealistic. The US - Mexico border is too long.
ReplyDeleteOn the bigger picture you are right that this children crisis is the final piece of establishing immigration as a major issue and the left has bit the bate. So far the left has been defining the major issues and the right has been duly taking their assigned villainous positions. Trump has been changing the map thus turning the table. That's why really the extreme hatred.
Great article.
ReplyDeleteA very good post. My relations with a very old Romanian friend are becoming frayed because he is completely dependent on the EuroNews and CNN view of 'caged children' and similar matters.
ReplyDeleteit has shifted someone who was a staunch anti-communist to the left/ I don't think he is alone in being brainwashed almost in an Antena 3 style.
"Viewed as a very left-wing position until this week, abolishing ICE is starting to move further into the Democratic mainstream. What’s unclear is how many more Democrats will take up the cause." https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/29/17518176/democrats-to-abolish-ice-movement-gillibrand-de-blasio-ocasio-cortez
ReplyDeleteI can def agree, that like you, i didnt nec care about the wall before or understand why it was necessary.
ReplyDeleteThe US is pretty lucky to have Mexicans and other Hispanics coming in. They are hard-working, Christian and often conservative-- quite a few Latinos voted for Trump. Of course he dealt with them cruelly, which his followers love.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason why I was reluctant to vote Trump was that I realized that he is quite efficient and competent, capable of implementing what he sais he will, unlike all other politicians who are plainly incompetent. His tenure has not changed this view.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that Donald Trump can build the wall by itself. He is the president of the U.S. of A. but he can't do whatever he likes and when. First of all, money.
ReplyDeleteI live in NY, or, rather, I live in the burbs, working in the City. I am familiar with the street economy, from food carts to supermarkets to boutiques. Eliminating the fancy boutiques, the rest of the street economy functions with immigrants, the vast majority Mexicans. Their uber-efficiency and reliability is what make the wheels turn ih the big Apple.
Of course, this has no connection whatsoever with the billionaires from the 57th Street - they live in their ivory-glassy-towers, if they ever live there, I heard that the vast majority buy uber-expensive apartments for investments and that the uber-tall buildings I pass by every day on my way to the express-bus are half-empty.
But I digressed.
IMHO it’s all about your own prejudices. And while incarcerating children may gladden his base, it also rapidly peels off independents, which are the always the key to electoral success.
ReplyDelete