By Ryan Denson
After meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto
(and lying about what was discussed), Donald Trump flew back to Phoenix,
Arizona to deliver a 10-point plan on how to fix America’s broken immigration
system.
As pointed out by the Hillary Clinton campaign,
the speech was overwhelmingly applauded by the alt-right, including white
nationalists David Duke and Richard Spencer, and closeted white nationalist Ann
Coulter (who is apparently back on the Trump train).
In
typical Trump fashion, the immigration “proposal” was laced with lies, deceit,
and rank xenophobia, with outright lies regarding President Obama and Hillary
Clinton’s determination to tackle the issue of illegal immigration.
Considering
Trump has been fact checked on this claim multiple times — with Politifact rating it as Pants on Fire — one would think the Republican
nominee would have the sense to stick to what is fact. But then again, it is Donald
Trump.
The Department of Homeland Security, along with several independent
groups, put the number anywhere between 11 to 12 million, give or take. Not one
serious organization, meaning one with credibility, has published a report
showing the number to be anywhere near the bloated 30 million Trump and his
surrogates are pushing.
It’s
much easier to convince people there’s a bigger problem than there really is
when you conflate the statistics to suit your political purpose, and no one
understands this better than Trump — he conflates the statistics on America’s
tax rates, crime rate, terrorism rate, and unemployment rate.
If
there’s one thing Trump is better at than inflating statistics, it’s letting
his supporters know that he, and only he, cares and can fix it. At the Phoenix
rally, Trump used the opportunity to slam his opponents, saying “President
Obama and Hillary Clinton have engaged in gross dereliction of duty by
surrendering the safety of the American people to open borders…”
Ah,
yes, the “Obama doesn’t care about America” shtick. A popular and sometimes
effective rallying call of the right, Trump and his surrogates certainly know how to play into the
hands of their rabid base, and they certainly knows how to play into the hands
of their latent racial hatred of the President.
If
only it were true though.
See,
if the Obama Administration (which included Hillary Clinton his first term)
really had a gross dereliction of duty of the kind Trump speaks of, it wouldn’t
have overseen the largest deportation force in decades, while simultaneously
seeing illegal immigration numbers fall, very dramatically.
Perhaps
Trump should answer for the illegal immigrants he’s hired to work here in the United States before
he accuses anyone of “dereliction.”
In
a speech that was really rhetoric and not all that much fact, Trump managed to
get even that wrong when Trump claimed President Obama said climate change
was a bigger threat than ISIS, China, Russia (which is ironic), and the 11
million illegal immigrants.
First
off, it was Senator Bernie Sanders who said climate change is the biggest
threat to American security. Second, while President Obama has said that
tackling climate change was an urgent threat to the United States, fighting
terrorism and keeping Americans safe was the top priority.
In
fact, President Obama said, verbatim, “I’ve got a lot of things of
my plate, but my top priority is to defeat ISIL.”
What
say you, Donald?
Wednesday’s
speech in Phoenix was classic Trump — fluff, lies and fear mongering. A trip to
Mexico that ended up being an embarrassment turned into a speech that fell
on deaf ears (except for the white nationalists). This is the man Coulter
compared to Churchill.
Republicans
have themselves a real winner.