As President Trump grins like a Cheshire cat at the thought that his attempts at suppressing the full details of the Mueller report are at least temporarily succeeding, he is determined to create a divide in this country wider than the Grand Canyon, wider than even the wealth gap between the insanely rich billionaires to whom he rewarded the biggest tax cuts of their lives and the rest of the nation struggling to get by on wages that have not kept pace with the cost of living.
Rather than attempting to unite the nation as great presidents do, Trump has done everything possible to create a climate of false fear that blames immigrants and anyone who differs from his cookie cutter template of 1950’s era white Americans for the nation’s problems that stem more from Republican mismanagement and corrupt policies than any invasive immigrant hoard.
The president continued his efforts in that vein with his latest tweets this afternoon.
in the first of these tweets, Trump proves that his aims are strictly partisan by blaming Democrats for their failure to agree with his white nationalist immigration policies.
It would be so easy to fix our weak and very stupid Democrat inspired immigration laws. In less than one hour, and then a vote, the problem would be solved. But the Dems don’t care about the crime, they don’t want any victory for Trump and the Republicans, even if good for USA!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2019
It would also have been easy for Trump not to have convinced Republicans to abandon a bipartisan compromise immigration bill that helped protect DACA recipients last June when Republicans still controlled both houses of Congress, but Trump doesn’t care about compassion for refugees and asylum seekers, he just wants any victory for his white supremacist supporters, even if bad for USA!
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Trump upped the ante with his next tweet, employing an empty threat to close the border with Mexico, counting on the Democrats to believe that he just may be insane enough to shoot himself — and the nation’s economy— in the foot by cutting off all cross border trade to achieve his xenophobic aims.v
Mexico must use its very strong immigration laws to stop the many thousands of people trying to get into the USA. Our detention areas are maxed out & we will take no more illegals. Next step is to close the Border! This will also help us with stopping the Drug flow from Mexico!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2019
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Having already handed the Democrats a potent issue to campaign upon in the 2020 presidential elections by announcing that the Justice Department would support the invalidation of the Affordable Care Act by the courts without having even a proposal for a viable alternative on the table and risking the loss of health insurance for millions of Americans, Trump is practically gift wrapping the election for the Democrats by threatening to do something that would certainly reverse the long period of growth begun after Obama rescued the economy from the last Republican president’s disastrous mistakes.
Trump’s calculation that his base’s cultural affinity for racial homogeneity outweighs their own economic interests may be his biggest political mistake ever. For one thing, it ignores the fact that his base makes up a small — and shrinking — minority of the country to whom he has yet to fulfill any of his economic promises.
For another, with the economy already looking like it has begun to decelerate due to Trump’s tariff and taxation policies, Trump’s gambit to close off trade with one of our biggest partners could just be the push needed to launch a full-blown recession and doom his re-election bid, something that a president so vulnerable to indictment once he leaves office might not want to take a gamble on.
We’ll see if the president’s words are more than mere bluster soon enough, but the president who cried wolf lacks so much credibility at this point that even with his ignorance and insanity factored in, the likelihood of him following up on his tweeted threat is as slim as the reasons for his national emergency declaration.
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