As usual, the TV pundits are failing to understand why Trump’s BS about the “migrant caravan” is so pernicious; and, more to the point, why he is right to think this a more successful closing argument for the midterms than “it’s the economy, stupid!”.
The worst part is not the lies about the caravan itself: that its an imminent invasion threat full of middle eastern terrorist gang members coming to rape our wimmin, vote illegally, take our guns and drop anchor babies in transgender bathrooms or whatever the current line is. Yes, it’s all racist dogwhistling; and yes, it will rile up his base – even, as we have seen, to the point of violence. And that is bad enough; a wound on American society that no previous president would have contemplated inflicting for mere political gain. But it won’t win him any elections. Because it is obviously racist, and there is an obvious response to it in the form of the facts, which people outside of his base are indeed listening to.
No, the worst part is his lies about his opposition: that liberals want the caravan, the progressives are funding it, that the only alternative the Democrats have promised – even specific Democrats running in specific races – is open borders, the elimination of all border enforcement, and all manner of benefits lavished indiscriminately on all comers. It’s bullshit from start to finish. No one stands for any of those things. But there is no response to this, because the Democrats have yet to come up with a coherent counter-argument on what they do stand for when it comes to immigration.
Even people who are not racist want to be reassured that there is some semblance of order at the boundaries of the nation; even people who are welcoming to immigrants are legitimately concerned that there be some manner of control over who is coming in. And while the Democrats have far better ideas than the Trumpists as to how to accomplish this, they have yet to unify around a plan that includes any clear communication of these reassurances. Thus the contrived panic Trump instigates that there is no order, there is no control, and that he (and the military he feels empowered to use as a stage prop) are the only ones offering any order and control will indeed resonate beyond his racist base.
This is why the cognoscenti on both the left and the right mistakenly think that Trump would be better off talking about the economy, and why his instincts as a communicator are indeed superior to theirs. Yes, it would seem, if one is being sensible, that the economy would be his strong point, what with it seemingly going so swimmingly (at least for now). But the opposition has a clear and convincing counter-narrative on that front: that the successes are at least as much due to the recovery from the crisis under Obama; that they have a better plan to more evenly share and invest the fruits of that success, etc. They don’t have a narrative on immigration, which is a far more visceral, emotive issue.
That’s why Trump’s “closing argument” will indeed hurt them at the polls today in ways that the experts still fail to intuitively grasp as well as he does.
The Tarragon Lectures 