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Trump Has Only One Choice on Immigration
Donald Trump has arrived at his moment of truth. Two paths in the woods diverge in front of him. The time for equivocation is ending and the constant legerdemain of his campaign will soon cease fooling anyone. Trump must decide whether he intends to send all illegal aliens back to their home countries – or not. By this choice the character of the man will be determined and the fate of his campaign will be sealed.
Trump’s campaign for the White House began last summer with the common sense recognition that “you either have a country or you don’t.” The essential corollary of this axiom is that those who have entered our country without permission (or remained past the expiration of their visas) are in violation of our laws and are subject to removal. As Trump said in an early-campaign interview with NBC journalist Chuck Todd, even though some lawful process may be passed through Congress to enable their return, “they have to go out. If they come back they have to enter legally.”
More generally, Donald Trump’s appeal, which has paralleled to a large degree the Brexit campaign, has been his ability to challenge the elite decision-makers who make rules that seem miraculously to benefit those very elites. In other words, he has pointed out that the system is rigged. Rules that are inconvenient to the powerful are either ignored or changed.
This charge has particular appeal to people who don’t have much if any access to the levers of power.
Because, as is well known, many Trump supporters have been, for a generation, on the windward side of economic hardships: they postpone retirement or take multiple jobs to get by. They see Europe from their couch or they struggle to keep clothes on their kids’ backs. And yet they continue to teach their kids about the importance of obeying the rules. God bless them.
These are the people who crave to have the voice that Trump promised them in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. With regard to immigration, these are the people who have witnessed – who witness every day – foreigners (who crammed into the back of closed trucks or hiked across deserts) invading their country, taking their jobs, clogging their emergency rooms, and putting a weight on their social services. They are skeptical whether these people, who arrived this way, teach their children about the importance of obeying the rules.
In dendrology the core section of a tree is known as the “heartwood.” It is the oldest part of the tree, and while neither absorbing nor needing many nutrients, it maintains the weight of the whole productive assembly of bark and branches and leaves and fruit. In many trees it is comparable in strength to steel. Correspondingly, a tree is critically threatened when any wound allows fungus to enter the heartwood leading to “heart rot” which causes the tree to collapse under its own weight.
The heartwood of Donald Trump’s campaign for presidency is his promise to restore the integrity of the rules – and first and foremost his promise that the donors and the politicians who aid the lawbreaking deluge of illegal aliens will, like the illegal aliens themselves, not be allowed to rewrite the laws to their benefit. This is how Trump became the Republican nominee.
If Trump now recants on his pledge that “they have to leave,” meaning “they all have to leave,” everyone will know it and everyone will understand it. It might be the case that Trump delegates such as myself will still vote for him. But I guarantee the tree will come crashing down nevertheless.
Published in General
What other crime would a policitican characterize in such a way as to say, “We must catch every single one of them. “?
No one does this. Not for speeding, not for bank robbery, not for any other crime. What they say is they’ll be tough on crime, meaning beefing up enforcement so there’s a good chance criminals won’t get away with it.
So it doesn’t make sense to say with Michael Stopa: “Trump must decide whether he intends to send all illegal aliens back to their home countries – or not. ”
Maybe Trump has put himself into this ridiculous position, and his fate may be sealed by it, but it’s lamentable because it was a ridiculous position. It was falling into the trap the liberals set: making people believe that you only have two choices: total deportation or total amnesty. Once people start thinking that, it’s clear which one wins. But this was never the choice. Just like we don’t legalize speeding just because all speeders can’t be caught.
All he had to say was, “I’m going to build a wall to stop the problem from getting worse, and if you’re here illegally, you have no guarantee that you won’t get caught at any moment because I’m going to enforce the immigration laws like I’m going to enforce all the laws.”
You are going to be so disappointed.
He’s 70 years old. I think we already have a pretty good feel for his character. Like when he insulted Cruz’s wife’s appearance. Or when he made fun of the disabled reporter. Or when he mocked Carly’s appearance. Or when he said Bush lied to get us into war. Or when he implied Cruz’s father helped assassinate Kennedy. Or when he said McCain was not a war hero. Good good stuff.
Sorry to hear that you were conned. Better luck in 2020.
Thanks, Trink.
I think that is not the point, Bob. What you said at the end is all I really meant. All law enforcement professionals mutter in their sleep: “5% enforcement = 95% compliance.” The point is merely to rebuild respect for the law. If you haven’t been caught yet it is not because we have given up.
It was 5:30am and I didn’t have my glasses on. So at first, I read this as “you are going to be so deported.”
It sounds like Trump still isn’t getting it. He’s starting to hint that some of them can stay legally, presumably as a result of the realization that it’s impossible to deport all of them. But that realization shouldn’t mean that illegals get legal status, any more than we legalize speeding just because you can’t catch every speeder. I don’t see what’s so difficult about that concept.
Actually that will probably be me…
Thanks Michael for a post that nails the problem with the Trump candidacy.
How can we relate the bedrock qualities of the post, Robert Frost, heartwood, fundamental integrity, as well as the intelligence and decency of your views, with Trump.
I can’t even while I vote for him.
That’s fatal.
You mean the same Trump supporters who’ve been telling us for months now that no matter what our reservations about Trump, we should hold our nose and vote for him because Hillary? Surely no matter what he says tonight, even if he says he now favors the Gang of 8 plan, that can’t make him worse than Hillary, right? So all his supporters, while they might be disappointed, will still vote for him regardless because Hillary. Right?