One of the many scare tactics that President Trump uses is the false claim that Democrats want open borders. It is a claim spewed at every rally and propagated by right wing “news” sources. They stoke this fear to incite his base and promote hatred of “brown people” by the white supremacists who support him.
This is a tactic Trump has used from the beginning. From his initial announcement that he was running for president to his promised Muslim ban to his to calling African nations “shithole” countries to his feud over disaster relief for storm ravaged Puerto Rico, he has been consistent in his demonization of “brown people”.
Yet somehow, he blames Democrats for failing to act on immigration, despite the House of Representatives just having passed a Senate bill that does that very thing. His objection is that House Democrats wanted to include DACA protections, while he only wants more border security without protecting from deportation the children of illegal immigrants who were too young to protest when they entered the country.
For this reason, he makes the claim that Democrats want open borders, depicting the border as a scene from the movie “World War Z”, with illegal immigrants, many affiliated with the gang MS-13, with illegal immigrants clambering to force their way into the country by the millions.
Last week, we saw a more realistic image, as a picture of a drowned father and daughter highlighted the desperate plight of those seeking to enter the country. One cannot imagine the desperation they felt to take such a risk. Trump said Democrats were to blame for that, too. (See video above.)
Despite this, Trump supporters continue to blame these migrants for not seeking legal asylum, even though it was the Trump administration that tightened the requirements, making legal asylum more difficult to obtain.
No doubt, Trump will carry this fight into the 2020 election. He fights every attempt at compromise because he would rather have the issue as a point of contention during the campaign than a solution that would make him appear weak to his base. He neglects to see this as the same failed strategy that doomed the 2018 midterm elections because it is so popular with his base, regardless of what's best for America.
Let’s hope for more of the same failure in 2020.