We are trapped in the worldview of Trump’s base
As Sabrina Siddiqui demonstrates, Republicans are running dozens of ads across the country that paint undocumented immigrants as violent criminal invaders. Trump tweets regularly that countries to our south are deliberately unleashing them on us. This latter idea is foundational to Trumpism: In his announcement speech, he didn’t merely slime Mexicans as rapists; he also repeatedly said Mexico is sending them, which is why he vowed to get revenge by forcing Mexico to pay for a wall.
Those vows of retribution — and the vow to build that wall — continue today. If migrants are merely predators, and their origin countries are suckering us by unleashing them northward, then you will of course believe that being “tougher” will both cause the immigrant predators to slink away and bully those countries into refraining from taking advantage of us.
