Today's LA Times: Op-Ed on tRump's race-baiting techniques

[CaliforniaPeggy]

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-07-18/trump-racism-xenophobia-immigration-democrats


By Rich Benjamin
July 19, 2019
3:05 AM

No one could call President Trump’s race-baiting highly successful from a policy perspective.

He has failed to deliver much funding or congressional support for his border wall, and immigrants continue to flow to the United States. The courts handed him a stinging defeat in his attempt to add a citizenship question to the census in order to dilute the voting power of Latinos and boost the voting power of non-Latino whites. His taunts to Democratic congresswomen to “go back where you came from” were roundly mocked and rebuked, and the women certainly aren’t packing to leave the country. What’s more, his recent directive to prevent asylum claims from Central American migrants appears headed for a smack-down from the courts.

But racking up policy successes was never the main point.

Trump is tripling down on racism and xenophobia as a path to remaining in the White House, and having his policy initiatives blocked or his Twitter rants attacked is at worst irrelevant and possibly quite helpful. The Trump administration has aimed its rhetoric at a slice of aggrieved white Americans who are panicked about their demographic decline. When the courts or Congress or “fake news” thwart his plans or call him out, that’s just more evidence for the base that “us” is under attack from “them.”

Trump is very aware that in 2016 white support for him was highest among those with negative views on America’s increasing diversity, and that kind of white voter was a key factor in the swing districts that decided the election in 2016 and could well again in 2020.

As a result, it seems a safe bet that the man is just getting started where race-baiting is concerned.

Look at some of his recent actions: A Trump booster on Fox News who has pushed for aggressive raids and a nationwide sweep on undocumented families was recently appointed head of Customs and Border Protection. Another Trump anti-immigration champion, who has backed a plan to end birthright citizenship, has been put in charge of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that oversees legal immigration.

Of course, there’s an irony to seeing a man with an immigrant wife, an immigrant mother and immigrant grandparents rushing to slam the door tight, but Trump believes in a racial hierarchy of immigration, with his own kind at the top.

The rest at the link.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Depressing.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. It certainly is. But I see it as challenging.

We need a candidate who can lead us away from this creature tRump and towards a better future.

I hope we can find one.