Thread by @Noahpinion

Trump has three basic groups of people that he thinks he can use as scary bogeymen to stir up fear among voters:
1. Central American immigrants
2. Black people
3. Muslims

He basically cycles back and forth between these three bogeymen, as circumstances allow.

Recently, it's been hard for Trump to gin up fear of Muslims. There haven't been any high-profile ISIS attacks recently, and ISIS' army has been defeated in the Middle East.

It has also been hard to gin up fear of black people recently. The crime wave of 2015-2016 has largely ended. brennancenter.org/sites/default/…

BLM is not as high-profile, cities haven't had any riots, and Jason van Dyke went down for murder.

All Trump can do is swipe at Kaepernick.

But the caravan provided Trump with the opportunity to go back to his favorite bogeyman - Hispanic immigration.

Hence his revival of the "end birthright citizenship" threat today, plus sending troops to the border, blah blah blah.

Of course, illegal immigration in general dried up a long time ago, as did mass immigration from Latin America. This caravan is just a tiny, fading echo.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

Without stuff like the caravan, riots, or ISIS attacks in the news, Trump will have to fall back on demonizing the media, liberals, etc. etc. - old partisan standbys that fail to evoke nearly as much fear.

That's why Trump needs a new bogeyman, for when there's no caravan in the news. There's one natural target: Hispanic Americans who are the children of people who immigrated illegally.

Hence, the shift to birthright citizenship.

Set aside legal changes for the moment. If Trump can delegitimize birthright citizenship rhetorically, he can paint Hispanic Americans - any of whom *might* have had undocumented parents, right? - as an occupying army on U.S. soil.

If you talk to nativists, and point out that net illegal immigration ended a decade ago, they'll often say "that's the flow, but what about the stock?".

The "stock", of course, means anyone who is - or might be? - a child of unauthorized immigrants.

Of course this could also extend to include Asian-Americans and the kids of recent African immigrants too - and someday it might. But the right has been cultivating the term "illegal" as an anti-Hispanic ethnic slur for a while now.

https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1053375495234961408

So this is the long-term backup plan for if and when there's no more ISIS attacks, riots, or caravans to get people scared about. Hispanics as a permanent occupying army - illegitimate Americans, invaders living in the house nextdoor, etc. etc.

The question is: Will it work??

There are reasons to think it will, and reasons to think it won't.

Reasons to think it might work:
1. Latinos are still fairly highly clustered in the Southwest, meaning voters in the Midwest and Northeast haven't had time to get acclimated to them yet.
2. Republicans are very scared of the Latino vote.

Reasons to think it won't work:
1. Hispanic-white intermarriage is very high: pewsocialtrends.org/2017/05/18/1-t…

As Tomas Jimenez documents, this means tons of white people have Hispanic people in their family now. amazon.com/Other-Side-Ass…

Other reasons to think it won't work:
2. Latinos have adopted English very rapidly, so don't seem as "foreign": washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2…
3. Latinos have made good economic progress:
amazon.com/Barrios-Burbs-…

Painting Hispanic Americans in general as an occupying army calls on Americans to turn against their neighbors, their friends, their coworkers, their girlfriends and boyfriends, their wives and husbands and nieces and nephews.

It's a nightmarish thing to ask.

So while I expect this to be Trump's strategy - and the strategy of the Stephen Millers and Steve Kings etc. who come after Trump and build on his movement - I kind of think this strategy will ultimately fail.

But if it succeeds...God help us all.

(end)