When Donald Trump sparred with Tea Party Republicans during the 2016 primaries on economic protectionism, many on the Right instantly wrote him off. When he used ugly rhetoric framing the immigration debate as an attack by rapists and murders on Middle America, many conservatives were put off. President Trump’s campaign and lingering penchant for viewing politics though a tribal lens, and as if ends justify means has made some Republicans fear that the GOP would take a turn for the European, where populist nationalists of a darker stripe have gained political clout.
Now a year and 9 months into his term, President Trump has governed far more within the vein of mainstream American conservatism than expected. But Democrats, in breathless pursuit of that fabled blue wave, are playing a risky game that could actually push the U.S. towards European populism. The impetus is the immigrant caravan meandering up the continent to bombard our southern border.
Considering that federal law enforcement has caught over half a million illegal immigrants entering the United States, the now-infamous migrant caravan comprising at least 7,000 migrants from Honduras, but stopping to pick up more and pose for some photo-ops along the way, could be seen as statistically no big deal. Yet the vociferous and smug dismissal of this matter by liberal talking heads, and the strategic silence of Democratic politicians, may be disastrous.
[Trump: Europe a ‘total mess’ due to illegal immigration]
“It’s not a dog whistle,” late-night leftist Stephen Colbert said about Trump’s warnings on the caravan. “It’s a dog trombone.”
Vox’s Dara Lind both minimized Trump’s concern about the caravan as a “tantrum” while contradictorily claiming that migrants “will likely bear the brunt of Trump’s rage.”
Supposedly objective CNN anchor Bill Weir let the mask slip a tad, tweeting to a right-wing pundit about the caravan, “YOU will be paying the ones that do [make it in]…every time you order a salad they picked, stay in a hotel room they cleaned or buy a house they built.”
Maybe the Left feels they’re on the “right side of history” on all issues immigrant-related. That’s a mistake.
There’s a reason issues like child separation at the border and DACA recipients draw such sympathy: they both involve a sense of immediacy and innocence. The optics of a lone mother torn from her child or an immigrant brought to this country illegally through no fault of their own pulls at the heartstrings without seeming needlessly combative towards American sovereignty. For all of the less than completely honest framing of the Trump administration’s actual role in and the extent of migrant child separation, the narrative itself galvanized many in the center effectively.
In the case of the caravan, though, the liberal intelligentsia’s outright economic elitism, thinly veiled by opportunistic glee, plays differently. Unlike past narratives, where Trump could be painted as cruelly targeting those already in confinement or faultlessly brought here, Trump lambasting the caravan explicitly reads as him defending American sovereignty from a foreign government’s calculated push for immigrants to illegally enter our borders.
European liberals, as David Frum at the Atlantic argues, similarly overplayed their hands at the wake of the Middle Eastern migrant crisis, and now, they’re paying the price at the polls. From Marine Le Pen and the French National Front’s gradual rise to Victor Orban’s radical far-right wing takeover of the Hungarian government, Europe has reaped the results of the epitome of liberal elitism. While average and apolitical Europeans warned that the massive influx of migrants hindered their ability to assimilate, more extreme actors on the Right capitalized on liberal malpractice. Now the political lines of Europe are not drawn between the size and scope of government but the lines between the nation and the continent.
The European road is one no American should vie to embark on. Trump unquestionably says racially questionable things, but embellishments and speculation aside, he’s undoubtedly correct to defend American sovereignty. Democratic leadership cannot control their pundits, but they would be wise to consider the possible ramifications of their silence and the ugly path down which they might lead in their mocking march to champion a force, thousands of illegal immigrants strong.
