Trump has three basic groups of people that he thinks he can use as scary bogeymen to stir up fear among voters: 1. Central American immigrants 2. Black people 3. Muslims He basically cycles back and forth between these three bogeymen, as circumstances allow.
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But the caravan provided Trump with the opportunity to go back to his favorite bogeyman - Hispanic immigration. Hence his revival of the "end birthright citizenship" threat today, plus sending troops to the border, blah blah blah.
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Of course, illegal immigration in general dried up a long time ago, as did mass immigration from Latin America. This caravan is just a tiny, fading echo.https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-06-26/what-immigration-crisis-the-u-s-isn-t-being-swamped …
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Without stuff like the caravan, riots, or ISIS attacks in the news, Trump will have to fall back on demonizing the media, liberals, etc. etc. - old partisan standbys that fail to evoke nearly as much fear.
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That's why Trump needs a new bogeyman, for when there's no caravan in the news. There's one natural target: Hispanic Americans who are the children of people who immigrated illegally. Hence, the shift to birthright citizenship.
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Set aside legal changes for the moment. If Trump can delegitimize birthright citizenship rhetorically, he can paint Hispanic Americans - any of whom *might* have had undocumented parents, right? - as an occupying army on U.S. soil.
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If you talk to nativists, and point out that net illegal immigration ended a decade ago, they'll often say "that's the flow, but what about the stock?". The "stock", of course, means anyone who is - or might be? - a child of unauthorized immigrants.
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Of course this could also extend to include Asian-Americans and the kids of recent African immigrants too - and someday it might. But the right has been cultivating the term "illegal" as an anti-Hispanic ethnic slur for a while now.https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1053375495234961408 …
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So this is the long-term backup plan for if and when there's no more ISIS attacks, riots, or caravans to get people scared about. Hispanics as a permanent occupying army - illegitimate Americans, invaders living in the house nextdoor, etc. etc.
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The question is: Will it work?? There are reasons to think it will, and reasons to think it won't.
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Reasons to think it might work: 1. Latinos are still fairly highly clustered in the Southwest, meaning voters in the Midwest and Northeast haven't had time to get acclimated to them yet. 2. Republicans are very scared of the Latino vote.
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Reasons to think it won't work: 1. Hispanic-white intermarriage is very high: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/05/18/1-trends-and-patterns-in-intermarriage/#the-largest-share-of-intermarried-couples-include-one-hispanic-and-one-white-spouse … As Tomas Jimenez documents, this means tons of white people have Hispanic people in their family now.https://www.amazon.com/Other-Side-Assimilation-Immigrants-Changing/dp/0520295706 …
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Other reasons to think it won't work: 2. Latinos have adopted English very rapidly, so don't seem as "foreign": https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/01/28/hispanic-immigrants-are-assimilating-just-as-quickly-as-earlier-groups/?noredirect=on … 3. Latinos have made good economic progress: https://www.amazon.com/Barrios-Burbs-Making-Mexican-American/dp/0804788669 …
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Painting Hispanic Americans in general as an occupying army calls on Americans to turn against their neighbors, their friends, their coworkers, their girlfriends and boyfriends, their wives and husbands and nieces and nephews. It's a nightmarish thing to ask.
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So while I expect this to be Trump's strategy - and the strategy of the Stephen Millers and Steve Kings etc. who come after Trump and build on his movement - I kind of think this strategy will ultimately fail. But if it succeeds...God help us all. (end)
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The weirdest thing about using a “crime wave” to gin up fear is that I’m pretty sure it was a predominantly intraracial crime wave. Black intraracial crime scares Whites into electing politicians who support social policies that help drive the crime they’re afraid of. Wild shit.
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I think it increases the general sense that black people are a menace that needs to be contained by brutal, racist police forces (thus making white people more scared of BLM, which seeks to contain the power of the police).
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I’m wondering, given how devoid of reality this whole narrative is anyway, why you need the spike to begin with? I guess the media has to play its part by counting murders in “Chicago.” I’ve often noticed that Whites who don’t live anywhere near us have the strongest opinions...
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...For instance, Steve King of the Clorox flavored state of Iowa seems to think that in Chicago you can go three generations without holding a job, which shows that he only encounters Black people on television. You just take a kernel and lie about the rest.
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There is absolutely nothing good about Steve King...
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He hasnt really concentrated that much on black americans though, afaict, which would make me think it's more nativism and anti foreigner than race per se (this is a point Eric Kaufmann made, iirc, that anti Latino sentiment is much more important than the colour line)
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During his campaign he did, and since taking office he's started fights with Kaepernick, but I think you're right (and the commentariat is largely wrong) - fear of black riots etc. just isn't as powerful as it was a few decades ago.
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