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Americans Aren't Buying Donald Trump's Immigration Rhetoric, Polls Show
#1
I found an article that should be interesting. Here is the URL: http://www.politicususa.com/2016/09/01/a...-show.html

Here is the article:

Quote:Donald Trump’s entire presidential candidacy is built upon the idea that America needs to be saved from undocumented immigrants that are “flooding” into the country.

It started when he kicked off his presidential campaign with a speech that denigrated Mexican immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists” and promised to build a wall on the southern border of the United States.

For those “illegals” already in the country, Trump has repeatedly said they need to be deported – no questions asked.

After several weeks of pretending to soften his tone on the issue, his fear-mongering ramble speech on Wednesday in Arizona only reaffirmed all the anti-immigrant sentiment Trump has spewed since the launch of his candidacy.

“For those here today illegally who are seeking legal status, they will have one route and only one route: to return home and apply for re-entry under the rules of the new legal immigration system,” the Republican nominee said, suggesting once again that he is in favor of deporting 11 million people.

After spending more than a year campaigning as the candidate of immigration, you’d think Trump would at least poll well on this issue.

Wrong.

According to a recent Monmouth University poll, a whopping 69 percent of voters don’t feel threatened by undocumented immigrants from Mexico, despite Trump’s constant warnings that there is a violent, undocumented immigrant hiding under the bed of every American.

A recent poll from Pew Research Center showed that a clear majority – 61 percent – are not in favor of his most notable proposal: a wall along the southern border. Trump may repeatedly propose the idea in front of angry mobs that applaud it, but most Americans don’t want it.

Even in head-to-head matchups with Hillary Clinton on this specific issue, Trump still loses.

By a margin of 13 points (53 to 40 percent), voters say that they trust the Democratic nominee more to handle immigration issues, an ABC News/Washington Post survey from last month showed.

On dealing with the specific subject of undocumented immigrants from Mexico, Clinton is favored over Trump by an even larger margin (58 to 36 percent), according to an August McClatchy/Marist poll.

If Trump wants to continue making this issue the center of his campaign, he is free to do so. I’m sure Democrats would be delighted, in fact.

But it’s very clear that the vast majority of Americans aren’t embracing the signature plank in Trump’s platform.
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#2
But if enough voters in well-placed states; i.e., Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, buy Trump's message, he wins the election.

So it's all about quality - not quantity.
"These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation" - Justice David Brewer, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 1892
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#3
(09-06-2016, 09:35 AM)Anthony Wrote: But if enough voters in well-placed states; i.e., Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, buy Trump's message, he wins the election.

So it's all about quality - not quantity.

These states usually swing sharply Democratic after Labor Day due to union-based and minority-based get-out-the=vote drives.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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#4
Immigration is a key divide between Red and Blue in this election.  Most people perceive this difference in terms of morality, consistent with Bob Butler’s conception of the core division is about values with both groups clinging to their own preferred set of values in what Bob calls values lock, which causes conflict leading to a secular crisis.  I would submit that the two sides do not differ all that much in terms of values in the immigration debate, although this stance would seem to be problematic in view of the extensive literature that shows that the current anti-immigration movement reflects racism rather than economics.

Let me be clear, I accept the studies that show that racism is well-correlated with support for European nationalist parties and Donald Trump here in the US, and that racism is most definitely morally wrong.  So there is a values content of the Red-Blue divide on this issue for those (like me) who accept the validity of the studies referenced above. But I don’t see this issue as really a values divide. Why?

The reason is the statement I make below, with which I believe people on both the Red and Blue side would agree:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Institutions are instituted among People, deriving their just powers from the consent of the people they serve. Whenever such Institutions fail, it is the Right of the People to seek redress so as to positively affect their Safety and Happiness.

This statement is a paraphrasing of the Declaration of Independence. Basically it asserts that the People, by virtue of being Human Beings, are endowed with rights that permit them to seek redress when those rights are being violated by some elite institution (typically a state actor of some sort).  This idea is reflected in the trong support amongst Americans (Red and Blue) for the Bill of Rights, particularly the 1st and 2nd Amendments.  

The chief difference between Red and Blue is not in their adherence to this value, but to their interpretation of “people” and “redress”.  Who are the people?  The Red side would say people = citizens and (maybe) legal residents. The Blue side would say, all people everywhere in the world.  As for redress, the Red side would be inclined to interpret the right to redress as applying to right of the people affected to remove and replace institutions they see as inimical to their safety and happiness—which is what is stated in the Declaration.  But they may also allow for a right to leave an unjust situation, as many of their ancestors did, and often support modern versions of the same approach. The Blue side would agree wholeheartedly with both examples of redress.

The big difference then is in the particular method of redress. The Red side believes that the People of Syria had the right to rise up against their dictator. But they do not have the right to move to Europe or the United States when their revolt went sour.  In the same way, they believe oppressed peoples (e.g. Jews in the USSR) should have the right to emigrate to any country willing to take them (e.g. Israel).  On the other hand, Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany did not have the right to emigrate to the US if the US did not want them (the US could not accept these immigrants because of the 1924 immigration law).  The key issue is the only way repressed people can gain redress with 100% certainty is to do it themselves.  They cannot expect someone else to bail them out—although sometimes this will happen, and since Jewish immigration had been severely limited by the 1924 law, sending these people to their deaths was a necessary evil resulting from the law—call it collateral damage.

The Blue side agrees with the Red side that the Syrians had a right to revolt.  They also believe that America should have prevented the Jews on board the St. Louis from going to their deaths; the 1924 law was evil and should never have been passed.  They agree with the Red side that it is evil to allow Syrian refugees to endure miserable conditions and even death in order to prevent them from coming to America.  They differ in that they do not see this evil as necessary.

I do not see where the moral values of the Red side or the Blue side really differ.  Both sides accept evil when it is necessary and reject it when they perceive that it is not necessary.  They really differ on the empirical question of Is it necessary?   For example, do open borders actually have empirically-justified detrimental impacts on native populations?  It is not an easy question to answer. In certain cases, it is pretty clear that migration of foreign populations was very bad for the natives such as European migration to North America in the 17th century.  The paper I cited proposes that the culture that migrating populations bring with them affects the subsequent economic development of the destination country. For example, the paper suggests that the in-migration of populations from historically less developed regions of the world into the US could boost economic inequality with negative impacts for non-elite natives.

I am one of Robert Reich’s highly-educated “symbolic analysts” and so am immune from potential negative impacts of mass immigration or free trade.  And had I reproduced, it is likely my offspring would be similarly immune.  Instead, I married a foster parent.  As a couple we continued to be foster parents until we adopted one of our kids.  So my family are all working or non-working poor whites.  Thus I am aware of how poor folks live and how they think.  They are my family.  And I have seen how poor folks are just fucking ripped off by our current political-economic system. It’s sickening.  I felt the Bern because Bernie was old enough to remember how it was, and had finally reached the point where he realized that the New Dealers, the very folks he had fought in his youth, really were on his side. I don’t blame him, it took me decades (coming from the other side) to reach the same conclusion—and I was born and raised in Milwaukee Wisconsin.

Nevertheless, although I do not agree with the Right politically, I will pay attention to what they say, especially when I have reason to believe they that may have a point.  Will I vote for Donald Trump?  Hell no, he is fatally flawed candidate. But a rational and grounded candidate for either party who was a protectionist, wanted to restrict immigration and favored very high taxes on high incomes, would win my vote regardless of their views on social issues.  That is, a Trump-like serious candidate who called for everything Trump does--except with a Bernie Sanders take taxes, would win a vote from me, even if he ran under the Republican or a putative Trump party banner.
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#5
Quote:" An estimated 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants lived in the U.S. in 2014, according to a new Pew Research Center estimate"


http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/201...ign=buffer
 … whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Phil 4:8 (ESV)
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#6
Well Mikebert, that's good; but Trump is of course wrong on many more issues besides taxes. His whole supply-side economic scheme is wrong, just as supply-side trickle-down economics has always been wrong. His climate science denial is not only pathological, it is fatally dangerous to us all. I DO believe Trump and his supporters would rather see Syrian refugees drown than be admitted to America, because that is the effect of his policies for the USA not to do its part to help them. His foreign policy is dangerous. Immigration I can't see as a genuine issue now; it's an on-balance plus for the economy, even if sometimes too much at once can be disruptive and alienating. His call for protectionism may be the only issue he is correct on, except even then, he would probably take it too far or irrationally.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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#7
Trump doesn't have any actual policies outside of trade, immigration and taxes.  What has has are bloviations, like his six positions on abortion, or his oscillating hawk/dove foriegn policy.  I said I would support a serious Trump-like candidate who exchanged Trump's tax policy for Sander's policy.  A serious candidate does not bloviate and so there would be no six positions on abortion or foriegn policy stance of the day.  He would be pretty much a three note pony.
 
His policy positions outside of these three would be shaped to whatever supporters wanted.  Trumps isolationism seems to have been pretty popular when he was doing that bit, and since Clinton is a hawk it would be a good ploy, so I expect a serious Trump would keep that.  He would have no need to get ever get hawkish because his tax policy would have turned off conservatives, who hate taxes even more than they hate scary brown people.

For other issues he would hold the average of Trumps many positions--which is really no policy at all.  Like Sanders he simply would not talk much about them and keep pounding on his three hobby horses.
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#8
Does anyone want to bet that many Mexican-American citizens have a good cause to oppose the harsh rhetoric about deportation even if they are personally safe? A loved one (including an in-law) could easily be an illegal alien. Citizenship status is not the first thing one asks on a date.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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