The caravan can stop the Blue Wave

Voters are seeing scenes like this

On TV the Mexican caravan looks like an invasion.

Democrats are mumbling, while Trump has a plan. 

Democrats are happy to talk about long term solutions to US immigration. The need for nation building and political stability in Central America. The benefit to the US if there is prosperity in Latin America. The need for comprehensive immigration reform.

There is a problem with this approach. It looks like they avoiding the current problem, the caravan. It looks weak.

The caravan of migrants does not evoke sympathy in the way that a sick child does. Democrats want the public to see a conflict between compassionate humanity vs. cruel Trump. That is a fight they can win, when the migrants look fragile, sympathetic, and few in number. 

But it isn't the fight they face. 

What Democrats see.

This fits perfectly into the Trump definition of immigration and the way Trump wants Americans to view them. The caravan is a mass of people voicing their own intent and serving their own purpose, despite police. They look lawless and willful to Trump oriented people. As Trump would have it, the good ones are here to steal our jobs, and the bad ones here to steal our money and do violence crime.

They are invaders.

The caravan is a terrible image for Democrats. It shows immigration as Trump defines it, so not only do Democrats look weak, they look blind. 

Good bye Blue Wave. A great many of the voters who Democrats expect to be part of the Blue Wave are people who see the caravan as a problem to be dealt with. They aren't seeing the sick child. They are seeing the caravan.

What voters see on TV

They are seeing immigration the way Trump sees it.

Note, my recommendation: 

Democrats should embrace border security, not because it is cruel but because it is the least cruel. Immigration can only be successful and politically welcome in the US if voters feel it is being carried out under an orderly process. I am pro-immigrant, and a pro-immigrant policy has rules and enforcement.

Today I add the perspective of Thad Guyer in a Guest Post.

Thad Guyer is an attorney specializing in litigation involving whistleblowers. He follows American politics from the US, Europe, and Asia--currently most frequently from Vietnam. He says his overseas perspective gives him better opportunity to see how different countries and cultures think of migrants, foreigners, and borders.

Guest Post by Thad Guyer

"Showdown on the Border, Then Showdown in the Courts”

A migrant caravan is about to deflate much of the oxygen still left in the dubious “blue wave”.  Like his successes with Kavanaugh and the Muslim ban in the Supreme Court, Trump’s predatory eye turns to two prizes, one short-term and one long-term:  the mid-terms with an energized if not frenzied GOP voter turnout; and a direct challenge to the courts and their infamous “nationwide injunctions”.  Trump projects the illusion that he acts only for the immediate thrill, when in fact he’s predisposed by genetics and real estate development to play the long game. Democrats and the media make it ever so easy for Trump.

Thad Guyer

As the migrant caravan, with defiant leaders vowing no laws will stop them, trends fast toward 10,000, two men take center stage: Donald Trump and George Soros.  See, New York Times, “Did Democrats, or George Soros, Fund Migrant Caravan?”, Oct 21, 2018, (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/world/.../migrant-caravan-video-trump.html), and Wall Street Journal, “George Soros and the Caravan”, May 6, 2018  (https://www.wsj.com/articles/george-soros-and-the-caravan-1525635094).  While the NYT in an anemic fact-checker tone says there’s “no direct evidence” Soros is paying the migrants, WSJ and others point out that Soros-funded NGOs in Europe and Central America are frequent activists in these mass migration controversies. The truth of it doesn’t matter, what does is that the NYT even addresses the Soros conspiracy theories. What really matters is that nowhere is any national Democrat heard saying what we should do right now about the approaching caravan. 

Elite media decries Trump’s fear-mongering, as if oblivious to non-stop cable news video of riotous migrants vowing “no one will stop us”.  See, Salon, “Republicans are fearmongering about a migrant caravan to boost midterm turnout”, Oct 18, 2018 (https://www.salon.com/2018/10/18/republicans-are-fearmongering-about-a-migrant-caravan-to-boost-midterm-turnout/).  Instead, Democrat hopefuls prefer waiting for border calamity, as they did with separated children, and only then grandstanding with anguished calls of injustice-- just before private planes whisk them off to campaign events in Iowa and New Hampshire. By stark contrast, Trump bellows out “right-now “solutions like closing the border, deploying the military, cutting off aid to Central America and putting the NAFTA replacement on hold.  To Trump’s “do something” “can-do”demands, Democrats conspicuously dodge every right-now question. Like Beto O’Rourke, they’re mum on immediate solutions, retreating into weak murmurs about more nation-building funding for Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.  

Yet, lost in the media haze is Trump laying the foundation for an epic clash with federal judges over illegal immigration: “The courts are asking the U.S. to do things that are not doable!” See, Time, “President Trump Calls Migrant Caravan a Disgrace to the Democratic Party”, Oct 20, 2018, (http://time.com/5430618/trump-migrant-caravan-disgrace-democratic-party/).  Trump not just anticipates, he is counting on Democrats to file a bevy of new lawsuits demanding the migrants be let in for processing, that they cannot be detained in over-crowded facilities, and that Trump has no constitutional authority to effectively declare martial law at the border.  Voters, however, will overwhelmingly if not secretly take Trump’s side.  

Trump is now putting “activist” courts on notice that he is ready, with his 5-4 majority, for the showdown he has long relished.  He almost sure to win.