W.J. Astore
President Trump claims the USA is being invaded. “Masses of illegal aliens” are going to “overrun” America. “Giant” caravans. Bad people from Central America. Fear them!
Isn’t it amazing that a nation of over 300 million people — which claims to have “the world’s finest fighting force” in all of history — fears an “invasion” by a few thousand desperate people, mainly women and children, who most likely would be happy cleaning toilets and doing other jobs that most Americans believe are beneath them?
This election cycle seems like a gloss on the “The Empire Strikes Back,” with the Dark Side of the Force triumphing on the Republican side. As Yoda the Jedi Master put it, “anger, fear, aggression.” They are “quicker, easier, more seductive” than the good side.
Trump and his minions know this. They know what stirs up his base and drives them to the polls to vote.
Trump is more opportunistic grifter than evil Sith Lord, but he’s stirring up anger, fear, aggression among voters to sustain his power.
Is the Dark Side stronger? We’ll soon see.
Update (11/4/18): A U.S. military report suggests that most of the several thousand people currently in the caravan in Mexico are unlikely to reach the U.S. border. To face down the roughly one thousand people who are likely to reach the border and apply legally for asylum, Trump is deploying roughly 15,000 troops while threatening that rock-throwers will be met by Army bullets.
This isn’t tough-talking; it’s irresponsible, it’s inflammatory, it’s even bat-shit crazy. Will bat-shit crazy work for Trump? Stay tuned: same bat-time, same bat-channel.
Bracing Views 
Fear trumps (no pun intended) common sense, and divisive rhetoric appears to work well for the president. While I have great hope that the upcoming election will begin to turn the country around, I also fear that the tide will not reverse without much more violence and damage to the reputation of the U.S. and to those who do not deserve the added pain. We (collective) have not learned well from the past, I’m afraid.
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Divisive rhetoric works for Trump, but he’s not the only one who uses it. Nearly every politician uses divide and conquer tactics in order to get their agendas passed, using negatives to excite people and invent problems to be solved. Politicians are the same all over: they promise to build a bridge even when there is no river. Immigration has always been a problem in this country: not that there is too much of it, but becoming a LEGAL citizen is much more difficult than living and working in the country ILLEGALLY. Besides, there is little incentive for anyone to want to change things: big government likes people who will vote for more social programs, while big business likes people who are willing to work for less than minimum wage off the books, and illegal immigrants tend to fill both categories. This is not about citizen vs. immigrant, or even left vs. right. This is about centralisation vs. decentralisation, and no politician is for the latter. In my own home state of Pennsylvania, I am presented with another non-choice this election: Democratic governor Tom Wolf increased property taxes, hurting those on a fixed income, such as retirees, as well as full-time landlords, such as my mother. Republican challenger Scott Wagner wants to repeal those property tax increases and replace them with higher income and sales taxes, placing a greater burden on people who work and operate small businesses, such as my father and myself. Divide and conquer in action, folks.
Regardless of where you stand on the larger issues, you get punished for being an informed, responsible citizen, but rewarded for being an ignorant succubus or party sock-puppet.
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One thing that’s odd about this is that Trump could be selling a different message. He could be touting the economy. The creation of jobs. Rising wages. He could also argue he’s kept foreign wars under control. (I know — not entirely true, but nor is it entirely false.) He could sell the idea of rebuilding the military. Of cutting immigration. That it’s “morning again in America.”
Instead, he fear-mongers. He lies. He incites. He goes for cheap applause lines at his rallies.
I wonder if Trump, by going so negative when he really doesn’t have to, is miscalculating? Is he really energizing his base, or motivating others to vote against the Republican party? We’ll know shortly …
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Fear has long been a feature or theme in American politics, fear of communists, leftists, socialists, atheists, a missile gap, losing the space race, terrorists, crime, etc. It seems politicians can always rely on fear when nothing else significantly spurs voter turnout.
Off subject, but the below link is an excellent article, but long on the ramifications of the 1968 Tet Offensive. https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/02/the-significance-of-the-tet-offensive/
Usually articles or TV Programs address the Tet Offensive in military terms, with a side bar on the political implications. This article takes a deep dive into the world wide into economic political and military effects of the Vietnam War and Tet in particular.
One section updates the effects of Tet today:
“For its wars in the Mideast and Central Asia the United States has relied on a volunteer army that returns its soldiers to the theaters of combat two, three, and even four times after their initial deployments. There is no demographic reason for doing this except that not enough young people are volunteering to serve in the armed forces. Most likely they don’t believe in the wars – which is to say they don’t trust the men and women in high positions who would send them to war.
The government could conscript the youth of America by reactivating the draft but no administration appears willing to do so. Why? Is it a fear of provoking dissent and resistance? Better to let sleeping dogs lie? Whatever the reason for its failure to conscript youth for military service, the United States has replaced labor-intensive warfare (many boots on the ground) with capital-intensive warfare using aerial bombardment, drone strikes, private military contractors, and elite commando raids as replacements for popular support. The United States has a deadly military force but not a popular one and that is a grave political weakness. The distrust of government and unwillingness of Americans to participate in wars abroad may be one of the most powerfully enduring effects of the Tet Offensive of 1968.”
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As has been noted here many times all the flag waving, marching bands and flyovers – Painless Patriotism – has not resulted in the Army and Marines being over run by volunteers. Contractors from what I have read carry on many duties formerly performed by draftees, i.e., KP, truck driving, and other services.
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Trump, he of the gilded home high in a building in NYC, once said, referring to illegal immigrants, “they don’t send us their best”. The man has no idea what he is talking about.
First of all there is no “they” ordering people north, rather it is individuals whose lives are so awful that they decide to leave all they know for another land. I ask anyone reading this to think of how bad life would have to be to consider doing this as a single person, let alone having one’s children along. How frightening, how desperate the situation, to see no option but to jump for safety without a parachute and often with a small one in your arms.
There are Mexicans and other Latin Americans legally or illegally here doing hard, boring, low paying work all over America, trying to make a go of it with no security even without ICE hounding them. If they were all to quit working at once, the country would come to a standstill.
As I have said before, anyone who is about to voice an opinion on immigration should first watch the riveting 1983 movie El Norte. As for Trump, let him walk a mile in their shoes.
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