{"id":41019,"date":"2018-07-30T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T02:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=41019"},"modified":"2018-07-30T12:00:47","modified_gmt":"2018-07-30T02:00:47","slug":"trumps-immigration-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/trumps-immigration-trap\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s immigration trap"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Donald Trump\u2019s presidency reminds me of nothing so much as the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. At the height of the violence, a Serb friend said to me, \u2018I don\u2019t like [Slobodan] Milo\u0161evi\u0107. I don\u2019t like his methods, his cruelty, his crudeness, and his sadism. But at least someone is doing something.\u2019<\/p>\n

That last clause captured the essence of the entire conflict. My friend was willing to look past all of Milo\u0161evi\u0107\u2019s abuses and brutality if it meant that Serbia wouldn\u2019t be a victim anymore. According to this nationalist narrative, Serbia had been forced to accept that it was just one republic among six, even though Serbs, who were spread out across Yugoslavia, comprised almost half of the country\u2019s total population.<\/p>\n

Of course, the idea of Serbia as a victim ran counter to the views of the other republics. To them, Yugoslavia, far from being a conspiracy to hold down Serbia, was actually a conspiracy to enshrine Serbia\u2019s position as primus inter pares<\/em>. After all, Serbia controlled the army, the secret police and the ruling party.<\/p>\n

In many ways, a similar pattern has emerged in the United States since Trump took office. Trump is rude and often cruel, and even many of his supporters seem to realise that they wouldn\u2019t want their own children to emulate him. Still, he speaks to their grievances and anxieties. And in 2016, he reached enough swing-state voters to clinch a victory\u2014a scenario that could well happen again in 2020.<\/p>\n

Trump and his followers have homed in on issues that were not really on most other Americans\u2019 radars, but which force voters to pick a side. Such inherently divisive \u2018wedge issues\u2019 often provoke an equal and opposite reaction from the other side of the political divide. As each side digs its trenches, the complexities and nuances of the issue tend to be overlooked.<\/p>\n

Immigration is Trump\u2019s key wedge issue. While many Americans would simply be amused by the fact that it is more useful to speak Amharic than English in a Washington DC taxi, Trump has turned immigration into a referendum on America\u2019s soul. Hence, during his recent trip to Europe, Trump issued<\/a> an ominous warning about immigration \u2018changing the culture\u2019 of Western societies.<\/p>\n

In the eyes of his supporters, Trump is winning on immigration, simply because he is \u2018doing something\u2019. Under his watch, distinctions between legal and illegal immigration have been cast aside, along with wonky debates about the need for skilled workers in certain sectors or locales. And if you think that Trump will acknowledge that immigrants built the country, you can think again. The entire issue has been reduced to a question of American identity, filtered through the prism of race.<\/p>\n

By weaponising the immigration issue, Trump has convinced his supporters that they could lose their country to people with vastly different identities and tribal loyalties, owing to what he portrays as a kind of ethno-racial spoils system. In doing so, he has marshalled those who oppose immigration behind the banner of their own group identity. And, at least for now, he has the numbers to win.<\/p>\n

But wedge issues, by definition, tend to galvanise both sides. The new slogan for Trump\u2019s opponents is \u2018Abolish ICE\u2019\u2014that is, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency charged with implementing many of the administration\u2019s immigration policies. And, among proponents of immigration, even \u2018illegal\u2019 has come to be regarded as an offensive, pejorative qualifier for any living, breathing person. Of course, the term refers not to one\u2019s person, but to one\u2019s immigration status within a given jurisdiction, in this case that of the United States.<\/p>\n

Similarly, pro-immigration forces have increasingly denounced those who stress the need for border controls, even though they are simply advocating legal<\/em> immigration. Rather than debate regulations that could stanch the flow of undocumented migrants into the country, pro-immigration radicals seem to doubt that there should be any laws restricting the movement of people at all.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, this plays directly into Trump\u2019s hands. Polls consistently show that a majority of Americans<\/a> want border controls. To be sure, the Trump administration\u2019s policy of separating<\/a> migrant children from their parents went further than most Americans were willing to accept. But if voters think the alternative is no border controls, or a wave of dubious asylum claims, they will side with Trump in the end.<\/p>\n

The immigration debate underscores the fact that the political centre in America is quickly disappearing. But Trump\u2019s radicalism should not be met with more radicalism. Trump and his supporters have selected their winning issues carefully. The best response is not to play their cynical game, but rather to appeal to a broader segment of Americans. It can be done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s presidency reminds me of nothing so much as the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. At the height of the violence, a Serb friend said to me, \u2018I don\u2019t like [Slobodan] Milo\u0161evi\u0107. I …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":507,"featured_media":41022,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1428,492,376],"class_list":["post-41019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-donald-trump","tag-immigration","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTrump's immigration trap | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/trumps-immigration-trap\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump's immigration trap | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Donald Trump\u2019s presidency reminds me of nothing so much as the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. 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