Honduran migrants bound for the United States in a caravan wait to cross the border from Ciudad Tecun Uman, Guatemala, to Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, last week. (ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP/Getty Images)
The Post reports: “Voters are headed to the polls in 15 days, with a lot at stake for the president. [President] Trump’s strategy has been to return to the immigration issue that helped catapult him into power in 2016. Ominously invoking a caravan of migrants headed to the southern U.S. border, Trump has threatened to close the border, cut off aid to Central American nations and of course, build his wall.” The report notes, “He doesn’t really have the power to do these things solo — but they may be enough to scare his voters to the polls.”
The frequency with which Trump reverts to immigrant bashing and appeals to white fear underscores how dependent the GOP is on cultural and racial hysteria. As the temporary increase in GOP voter enthusiasm from Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s confirmation wears off, Trump looks for something to take the place. The white, male and noncollege educated base – primarily in places that in no way will be affected by border crossings – needs to be juiced up.
This time, Trump’s xenophobic stew of fear, exaggeration and blatant lies comes with a new twist. With no evidence whatsoever, he claims “criminals and Middle Easterners” are mixed into the crowd.
Now, claiming border-crossers are criminals is nothing new for Trump. From the time he descended the escalator in 2015 he’s made that scurrilous accusation (despite replete evidence that immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans). And right-wingers have been insisting for years that the threat of Islamic terrorists justifies building the wall on the southern border. However, there is zero evidence this has occurred or that this group of refugees fleeing chaos and violence in Central America is being used as cover for “unknown Middle Easterners” – by which Trump apparently means terrorists.
As preposterous as these claims are, they are exquisitely designed to infuriate and motivate a core fraction of his base. And in this case, one cannot help but think he is trying to distract from his feeble response to Saudi Arabia’s murder and dismemberment of Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Hey, he’s not a patsy for Arab manipulation, is he! Ironically, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who should be grappling with the Saudi question and also attending to foreign aid and other measures to help bring stability to the Central American countries from which the migrants are fleeing, instead has gotten into the act, accusing them of inciting violence.
The Trump administration from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Mexico blunders on nearly every foreign policy challenge. No wonder they are retreating to their favorite gambit — demonize foreigners.
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