i wonder if it’s all just a big show. he threatened tariffs to mexico and canada. when canada said “ok bro fuck you too” all of a sudden they come to an agreement to delay. similar story in Mexico. in a few weeks he’ll say “i got the best deal out of the history of deals. Mexico and Canada are gonna pay their fair share” and people will forget about it to focus on the next ludicrous thing he says
i wonder if it’s gonna be the same with the deportations. something like 5% of the workforce is illegal. and they are highly concentrated in specific industries. it would wreck havoc on those industries and the economy as a whole. it’s really hard to understate. something like every 100 illegals deported causes something like 18 jobs to be lost according to research from Iza based on Obama’s radical deportations. (Obama’s 1st and 2nd term both deported more than Trump’s first term)
i read an analysis by an economist the other day, the deportations alone could reduce lead to the GDP shrinking by something like 3%. keep in mind the housing crisis back in '08 led to a 2.4% decrease in GDP
basically- if Trump actually goes through with his plans we’re in for a long period of economic hardship that we haven’t seen in half a century. and with it comes lots of radical movements because people will be angry and scared and the right wing is more than happy to throw fuel on the fire
however… maybe this is all sort of a show. Kind of like his last term with “the Wall”. The wall was never meant to be built nor was it meant to accomplish anything. It was just a big theater for his base. An easy to understand symbol to point to. Trump supporters believe based on feeling and not on logic.
of course, that could just be me being optimistic.
It was always meant to be a show
The border is over 1,500 miles. It’s so wildly expensive and impractical to build a wall over all of it that the notion is absurd. And if you build a wall, people will climb over it. They will bury underneath it. They will cut through it. Etc
Even if he had succeeded there is little chance it would have meaningfully stemmed the tide of illegals coming across the border. Trump was fully aware of this. But it’s doesn’t matter- like I said- it was show. Americans don’t want a complicated speech on the nuances of economic migrant migration to the US. They don’t want to hear about labor shortages in the US and the changing demographics.
It’s much easier to say “We’re building a Wall” and everybody applauds. Trump on a fundamental level understands this very well. And he’s really really good at it.
Having said all that- it doesn’t even take into considering more than majority of illegals in the US did not cross the border at all. They come on legal visas at legal ports of entries like airports and just overstay their visa. So the Wall is incapable of even impacting the largest source of illegal immigrants.
The Dems have slowly been joining the GOP in the anti-immigrant rhetoric.
Joe Biden near the end of his turn did a photoshoot with CBP and talked about strong borders and used the world “illegal” in a speech. He promised to halt the construction of “the Wall”- he instead expanded construction.
Back when Biden was running initially he campaigned on “a compassionate approach to immigration”. Kamala, however, campaigned on “strong border and national security”
The entire country is becoming radicalized. That isn’t to say GOP (and Trump especially) is more extreme, but a rising tide lifts all boats. or maybe sinks them, I don’t know