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Wednesday 16 November 2016

SO WHY IS TRUMP STILL WITH THAT WALL?


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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