In reaction to Democrats demands for immigration reform in the fight over the Continuing Resolution, a video was released by the Trump campaign (for 2020). NBC News describes it:
After the government shutdown went into full swing this weekend, Trump’s campaign operation released a brutal advertisement slamming Democrats as “complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants” if they stand in the way of the administration’s attempts at curbing illegal immigration. The president himself appears in the ad to approve its message.
This is the sort of political chat that’s really beyond the pale, and should be rejected by all politicos, left and right, who believe they have serious input for the national discussion. I realize that Trump-supporters may believe this is just the President “shaking things up,” but it really isn’t. It poisons the atmosphere for good governance and, really, betrays the amateur status of this President and his advisors.
(If my reader is wondering why I don’t address the putative issue, I refer you to this Vox article indicating first generation immigrant crime rates are lower than Nth generation immigrant crime rates.)
But I think it also is an indicator of the desperation in the White House in the face of the continuing failures of Trump, from his Cabinet failures to his legislative failures to the failures of Republican candidates in special elections, from the Alabama Senate seat that should have been a walk in the park and became a failure, to the numerous special elections the Democrats have won by flipping previously Republican-held seats. They can only claim success in the judicial appointment arena, and despite the joyfulness of some conservative pundits, those are tainted, from Gorsuch’s illicit acquisition of a seat to the incompetence that is so frequently appearing in candidates to the federal judiciary that even the GOP has begun rejecting them.
What to do when you’re a President that’s failing? Well, you could try to improve, but that would mean admitting incompetence in the first place. The alternative is to fight back! And so we’ll be seeing more of these wild swings, most of them involving immigration, as that is the key issue for the Trump base.
But how long will they continue chowing on their own meat? For, after all, most of us are immigrants or the children of immigrants – it’s a self-condemning attack, and I have to wonder if it’ll result in the mad-cow disease which is the logical end of this metaphor. If, indeed, Trump voters start looking at their immigrant colleagues and friends and asking “What criminals?“, what will Trump do then?
What, will he punch himself?
