Aaron Sanchez: Day 1 & 2 of the GOP Convention

*Aaron does some fact checking and counter-pointing on the 2016 RNC. VL


commentary_&_cuentosBy Aaron Sanchez, Comentary & Cuentos

Day 1: Make America Safe Again

Monday July 18, 2016 was the first day of the Republican National Convention.  Following the presumptive candidate’s restorationist theme of “Make America Great Again,” the theme for the day was the multitude of threats that the nation faced and how to correct them.  After hours of speeches it became clear what the most significant threat to the nation was for Trump and his supporters: people of color.  American decline was not caused by neoliberal policies, outsourcing, massive tax cuts, deregulation, and a disbelief in government.  Instead, the speakers screamed, it was Muslims, Mexicans, and Black lives that threatened America.

It is no surprise that the issue of unauthorized migration featured prominently at the coronation of the Donald Trump.

Just a year ago, he announced his presidential run with anti-Mexican rhetoric and the promise to build a wall.  The wall and the forced deportation of 12 million people, according to Trump, would make America great again.  Speakers last night assured their audiences at the convention and at home that walls and deportation would make America safer.  According to their message, the nation was more dangerous and in more danger because of 8 years of Barack Obama.  Obama and Hillary Clinton were open border maniacs who wanted all the criminals of the world to make their home in the U.S.

All of this is untrue.  Crime rates have fallen since the 1980s, reaching some of their lowest levels under Obama.  More importantly, if deportation was the solution to making America safe again, then there would be no better model than Obama himself.  President Obama has deported more migrants than any president in U.S. history.  He deported twice as many migrants during his first term than George W. Bush did during both his terms.  This has earned him the unsavory title of “Deporter-in-Chief.”  It is important to note, too, that unauthorized migration reached its high point during the early 2000s when Bush was in office.  When Obama took office, the Great Recession slowed the transnational push factors that influence migration.  [tweet_dis]By Obama’s second term Mexican migration was in decline and in some cases more Mexicans were leaving the U.S. than coming.[/tweet_dis]

Clinton’s record on migration policy is not unblemished either.

During the Central American refugee crisis, in which parents were sending their young children unaccompanied to the U.S. to flee the very real threat of violence, Clinton wanted to send most of these children back to their countries of origin.  She regularly defended her position, only softening it to include a fair and impartial judicial hearing.  By the end of the primaries, Clinton promised comprehensive immigration reform with a path to normalization for those in the country.  However, this still comes with increased border security.  Currently, there are more border patrol agents than at any point in U.S. history.  The border’s increased militarization has led to more deaths in the desert between Arizona and Sonora and it increased the number of migrants who chose to stay permanently.

The convention also gave time to many families who had family members killed by unauthorized migrants.  The crucial connection asserted by all of these stories was the link between Mexican migrants and inherent criminality.  The combination of emotional vignettes stoked fear of unknown and unknowable criminal invaders whose capacity for violence is unfathomable.  However, most immigrants are not inherently criminal.  They are not more likely to commit crimes.  In fact, they are less likely to commit crimes than the general native-born population.  While some migrants commit crimes, it is not connected to their immigration status but individual choices.

None of this information was mentioned last night.  If a deportation regime could truly make America greater and safer, then Trump and his supporters would have every reason to be happy after 8 years of Obama.  They would be happy with his policies that have increased border patrols and deportations.  They would be happy that Mexican migration is at its lowest levels in the recent past.  But they are not.

Trump and his supporters feel America is not safe because they are not comfortable with the people themselves.  Mexican migrants, for the most part, do not present a criminal threat.  But, increasingly the base of the Republican Party, are threatened by the people themselves.  In the romantically imagined past of the former America that Trumpists want to restore, there were no migrants, no Mexicans, no Spanish, no evidence of Latino influence on American life and culture.  But today there is.  That imprint is what Trumpists fear.  America no longer feels safe to them because they don’t feel comfortable living with and talking to people different than they are.

Day 2: Make America Work Again

Day two of the Republican National Convention was supposed to focus on the economic ideas and policies of the Trump ticket.  There was none of that.  Instead, the key speakers Chris Christie, Donald Trump Jr., and Paul Ryan delivered disconnected speeches distanced from the main theme.

Paul Ryan has tried to establish himself as the future of the Republican Party.

He has recently discovered poverty as a major policy issue and has dialed back some of his more divisive rhetoric.  He resisted endorsing Trump for as long as he could, but eventually gave in.  This didn’t keep him from calling Trump’s statements on Judge Curiel “racist.”  In a growing number of speeches, Ryan is trying to create a new, kinder, gentler image of a pragmatic solution-based Republican Party.  One that is far from the racist bluster of Trump and distanced from the dog-whistle politics of the past.  Unfortunately, Ryan’s future doesn’t fit the present, nor do his policy proposals.

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In his speech last night, Ryan portrayed the GOP as the party of ideas.  Obama and Clinton’s campaign combined were the “last chapter of an old story.”  He portrayed liberalism as the failed solutions of the last century—a “dreary backdrop of arrogant bureaucracies, pointless mandates, reckless borrowing, [and a] willful retreat from the world….”  Right after declaring the Democratic polices as part of the past, he immediately referenced Reagan and spoke of the “founding generation.”  Apparently, the 1770s can explain the dire problems of the 21st century. While his name-check of Reagan wasn’t surprising, given his audience, it is important to note that the 2012 “Growth and Opportunity Report” pointed out that the GOP needed to find a more relevant standard bearer, given that most voters who elected Reagan are now well into middle and old age.  Ryan’s speech was supposed to outline the contours of a new Republicanism that would lead the nation into a new century of prosperity, but it was nothing more than a tired-old repetition of Republican insults.  He is supposed to be the policy wonk, but he did not mention a single policy.  On the national stage, Ryan conceded that his party was the party of Trump.

Chris Christie’s speech was a crass audition for a position in the Trump Whitehouse.  After a failed campaign, in which he attacked Trump and Marco Rubio, Christie was the first major Republican to endorse Trump.  Many believed it was in an effort to be named VP, yet he was not chosen.  Christie, who never fails to mention his experience as a prosecutor, took on the role of hyperbolic Law and Order  DA.  He listed all of the crimes of Clinton, to which the audience yelled “GUILTY.”  Christie’s political moralizing seemed hypocritical, given that he is under investigation for his role in shutting down a toll-way in New Jersey as a form of political payback.  The ordeal added to the surreal drama of an already absurd convention.

This article was originally published in Commentary & Cuentos.



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