More of the Same A Continued Waste of Time
More of the Same
Let's start with some quick questions! How many Americans do you think have ever been to the American border? Have they been to the northern or southern border and in what states? How would they describe the border? Wouldn't they want the president to visit the border before making a speech about building a wall?
I thought about the border in anticipation of the president's speech. Candidate Trump called for a wall along the nation's southern border and I often wondered how many of those attending his rallies had ever seen the southern border, knew of the people who lived on either side, knew of the existing fortifications on the border, and if they considered the challenges of building a two-thousand mile concrete wall along waterways, mountains, grasslands, desert, and personal property? How much would such a wall cost and how long would it take to build? In fact, I wondered if Mr. Trump really considered the logistical nightmare that he constantly said Mexico would pay for? After all, didn't he realize that the Mexicans would want to build a wall that they were going to pay for? And, that the wall was not going to built on the Mexican side, but the American side.
So I anxiously awaited Tuesday night's prime time speech from the president. To my dismay, I was terribly disappointed by President Trump's speech and the less painful Democratic response from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. There were some mistaken points in both presentations. And all three statements were dull.
I am not convinced that "the crisis" at the border is a "national emergency". Additionally, I am sure that funding the wall should not be tied to a government shutdown. Conservative estimates suggest that this shutdown affects over a million workers and their families. Should they be out of work for a month or more for an uncertain ineffective project that can potentially cost $80 billion dollars with hundreds of millions needed for annual maintenance? Yes, the $5 billion request is nothing more than a downpayment! (see https://www.brookings.edu/essay/the-wall-the-real-costs-of-a-barrier-between-the-united-states-and-mexico/
I wanted President Trump to make an iron-clad case. Instead it was more of the same-mistruths, lies, and unclear points. His remarks did not sound convincing and at times he seemed like he was reading words instead of making an argument. Some of President Trump's comments should have created anger and frustration. Instead of creating unity on this important topic he resorted to his standard playbook. Sadly, when the American people needed reassurance, they got more comments about terror and fear. The wall, Trump's wall, is to keep heinous people out of our nation. It doesn't matter if they are from Costa Rica, Mexico, Belize, Salvador or another Central American nation, in the president's mind all of these immigrants are engaged in some type of criminal activity. There was no sense of sympathy for mothers and children fleeing violence. Nor was there anything in his speech to encourage these people to not make the long trek to America.
In the course of his speech the president made clear that we knew what a wall stood for. He offered a description of wealthy politicians having walls to keep what was beyond them safe. "America First," for President Trump, means closing the door on outsiders.
Based on his statistics and examples one would believe that more illegal immigrants kill Americans than Americans kill Americans. In his examples of the slain Americans and the tragedies of Angel families, President Trump displayed more empathy for them than he did for those killed by mass murderers. And once again the president relied on race, not evidence, to create a scenario of fear.
It is critical point out that President Trump went to Pittsburgh to call out anti-semitism but did not go to Louisville to denounce racism. President Trump did not go to Kentucky to mourn the African Americans shot at a grocery store by a racist gunman. President Trump did not mourn the black soldier who died rescuing people from a New York City fire. President Trump only mentions people of color when they were killed by illegal immigrants or serve some other point. In essence, the president used his speech as a moment to race bait.
And yet, very few of the fact checkers or critics wanted to make light of that point. So it must be the responsibility of the public to challenge these points. Here is another example. President Trump stated the following: "Tonight, I am speaking to you because there is a growing humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border. Every day customs and border patrol agents encounter thousands of illegal immigrants trying to enter our country. We are out of space to hold them and we have no way to promptly return them back home to their country. America proudly welcomes millions of lawful immigrants who enrich our society and contribute to our nation. But, all Americans are hurt by uncontrolled illegal migration. It strains public resources and drives down jobs and wages. Among those hardest hit are African-Americans and Hispanic Americans. Our southern border is a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl. Every week 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone, 90 percent of which floods across from our southern border. More Americans will die from drugs this year than were killed in the entire Vietnam War."
In the moments after the speech, only CNN's Don Lemon responded to the critical points in the first part of the speech. In his pre-show commentary he raised this point with Chris Cuomo, but during his show, the host questioned: “What do you think there? What is he doing? Is he pinning black against brown or what?” The response from CNN commentator Symone Sanders was “absolutely.”
Fox News did not cover the key words "Among those hardest hit are African-Americans and Hispanic Americans" but it found the time to raise the point that Lemon called out President Trump for race baiting. See https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/cnns-don-lemon-suggests-trump-is-pinning-black-against-brown-in-oval-office-address. Nor did Fox mention that while more whites are dying from drugs, that the greatest percentages of people dying from drugs and the drug trade are African Americans and Latinos.
Why was President Trump race baiting? Why was he pitting Blacks against Latinos, and Latinos against Latinos? Because this was an act of desperation. Mr. Trump had to turn public sentiments to get his wall. It is equally important that President Trump placed drug addiction right after he made his statement about jobs.
But let's state the facts. Illegal immigration from Central America does not take jobs away from African Americans. Blacks moved away from those types of occupations at least 40 years ago. African Americans are not seeking below minimum wage intense labor jobs. President Trump obviously knows this as he does not hire African Americans but hires illegal immigrants to work at his hotels and resorts.
And a great deal of violence that accompanies the drug trade is not due to immigrants from Central America, but by American citizens. In the mind and words of the president white Americans are dying from prescription drugs and black and brown Americans are dying from the illegal drugs that he mentioned in his speech. The Trump administration, for all of its talk, has done little to protect white Americans from opioids and nothing to protect blacks and Latinos from illegal drugs. So the only conclusion that one can arrive at is that the president is again race baiting. The fear of illegal drugs is that people of color will attack/rob whites to get money to buy these drugs. Yet the greatest signs of related drug violence are in the black communities of Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
Christopher Hooks' "Trump's Border Wall is a Vortex of Stupidity that Trump and the GOP Can't Escape" (Texas Observer January 9, 2019) points out that 95% of the Texas-Mexico border is privately owned. Building a wall there means seizing private property. Has the president considered that cost? Surveys reveal that most border residents do not want a wall nor do they want to sell their property to the federal government. There are already lawsuits dating back to 2008 attempts to increase fortifications along the border. President Trump should expect many more.
The wall, according to Mr. Hooks, "was a symbol of Trump's showy commitment to a hard line on immigration." The Republican Party wanted no parts of the "Trump wall," largely because of the obstacles that accompanied it. None of the living presidents, despite Mr. Trump's claims, supported building such a wall. Even today, few border mayors or governors stand with the president and his wall. Yet, the GOP silently applauded the racist dog whistle. Mr. Trump's position was a call to fear the rising populations of non-whites, but especially Latino groups, within the nation's borders.
That faction of the Trump party was well aware that the racial composition of the nation was shifting and that American was rapidly becoming a majority-minority nation. The Wall Street Journal (1/10/19) recently confirmed these concerns announcing a 30-year low in American birth rates. Fertility rates for white women are lower than those of black and Hispanic women. Without Latinos, the nation's population will decline. Is Trump's call for the wall solely as an attempt to keep America white?
A divided nation will always have opposing views, but this presidency makes it hard to find common ground. While conservatives and politicians attack Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, they miss the perspectives of their audience. Their comments are not made in isolation. At this point that audience sees President Trump as a racist. And they are well aware of the nation's changing demographics.
Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez's was a bartender before running for office. Part of her district consists of the South Bronx, a section of New York City inhabited by people of color and ravaged by drugs, poverty, poor housing, and underemployment. Her comments on ICE are a community's reflection of the administration's racism. Illegal whites are not suspected of being illegal. ICE, especially under the Trump administration, has targeted brown people and demanded proof of citizenship. In instances they have denied people their legal as well as human rights.
Similarly, Congresswoman Tlaib represents part of Detroit, a city that recently declared bankruptcy. She lives in a state with a large Muslim population and a significant number of incarcerated people. Congresswoman Tlaib knows that Jared Kushner is an architect of the Muslim ban and an Israeli position that weakens the Palestinian state. Mr. Kushner also encouraged Mr. Trump to support criminal justice reform largely because of his own personal family matters, not because it is a social issue. In signing this legislation, President Trump was acting on self-interest not national interest (as he may need criminal reform to assist members of his family who might be found guilty of crimes). Former Attorney General Sessions was against criminal reform and wanted the mass incarceration of African Americans and Latinos for their involvement in the drug trade that was outlined in the wall speech. It is honestly unimaginable that either of the congresswomen's Democratic constituencies could support the wall or the president.
But President Trump cannot have it both ways. He cannot hate black and brown immigrants and then suggest that he is concerned with the welfare of people of color within the United States. Both congresswomen are correct to call him out of his hypocrisy. You may not like their language, but it is the same language that the president uses at his rallies. How often has he approached using the "N" word and how many colored people has he called "sons of bitches"?
In conclusion, the connecting factors between Trump, the wall and the government shutdown do not add up. President Trump in his desire to fulfill a campaign promise is willing to pit Americans from all walks of life against each other. A pledge to build a wall has innocents on both sides of border struggling to survive. Consider the images: Central American refugees in Mexican encampments, illegal refugees in American detention centers with some separated from their children, American government workers and contractors forced out of work and not being paid, and the American Congress locked in political gridlock. The real tragedy is that the president cannot even take the time to make a convincing argument. Our national emergency is not at the border, it is in Washington!
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