Im-Politic: Both Trump and Media Critics Need to Get Real on Immigration

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2016 elections, amnesty, attrition, Bill O'Reilly, deportation, Donald Trump, illegal immigration, Im-Politic, Immigration, Latin America, legalization, Mainstream Media, path to citizenship

Among the biggest news emerging from this presidential campaign is that Donald Trump is not a model of verbal precision or restraint. Because loose lips can be dangerous in a president, whose words can move markets, shake governments, and even trigger war (and “sink ships”), it’s entirely proper for the media to cover the flood of factual blunders, hyperbole, illogic, canards, and half-baked ideas the Republican hopeful generates.

But an even bigger insight about the Trump phenomenon is being almost entirely missed so far: In an important way, journalists’ coverage of Trump’s statements has been just as juvenile, downright silly, and obtuse as this rhetoric himself. And nowhere is this problem worse than in coverage of the two issues on which Trump has most forcefully opposed the establishment consensus that too many Mainstream Media journalists either actively support or implicitly accept: immigration and trade. The former has of course generated the biggest headlines, so let’s confine our discussion today to that subject. And to keep this relatively short, let’s focus on “mass deportation.”

As I’ve noted, Trump is largely responsible for the uproar over this option. Although deportation was never mentioned in his immigration plan, he did endorse the idea, and surely out of stubbornness, has refused to back down. The media – including Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly – have proceeded to rake Trump over the coals, characterizing his position as everything from delusional to racist, xenophobic, and fascistic.

There’s no doubt that mass deportation is wildly impractical, for reasons ranging from economic to humanitarian. And that’s why nothing even remotely like it will happen, even under a Trump administration. Indeed, that’s likely why such deportation was absent from his plan (though I have no evidence to support this claim). But it’s not necessary even to insist that journalists concentrate on the plan – which is full of proposals strongly endorsed by many immigration specialists in academe, and even strong bipartisan majorities in Congress (e.g., expanding the E-Verify program) – to recognize the immense bigger picture the Big Media is missing.

Thoughtless as their content is, Trump’s deportation remarks were necessary push-back against strong bipartisan insistence that America has no choice but to accept that the roughly 11 million illegals estimated to be living here. Thus, both Democrats and Republicans in their parties’ mainstreams have worked overtime to insure that what immigration debate is permitted is limited to whether illegals will be granted a path to citizenship or not.

But however reasonable these views seem, they overlook (or cleverly define out of existence?) a huge likely downside: Any form of legalization will become a powerful magnet for still more illegal immigration, no matter how circumscribed legal status is, how strict the conditions for securing it, or how well the border is secured. Disagreeing amounts to accepting two related propositions that make mass deportation look like the essence of realism:

>That populations in Latin America in particular will react by thinking, “The U.S. government has just decided that if we can get into the United States, we’ll be allowed to stay forever. Therefore, we’ll just keep living here in [Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, etc. – including, more recently, collapsing Venezuela?].”

>That when Latin populations begin coming north, Washington will decide to leave them stranded in the Mexican desert.

That’s why it’s time for journalists to start doing some thinking to try to figure out what Trump is really saying – and why it’s resonating so strongly even beyond Republican ranks. Roughly translated, it’s “Legalization looks like a disaster. As a result, it would be off the table in my administration. And something else is urgently needed.” And indeed, not so surprisingly, Trump’s plan points unmistakably to the alternative: an “attrition” strategy that aims at denying illegals both jobs and government benefits.

Clearly, this might leave a large illegals population still in the country. But eliminating most payoffs for unauthorized border crossing is likely to both prompt some outflows (much evidence indicates that the U.S. recession convinced many illegals to pick up stakes and return home) and, at least as important, deter inflows. Trump himself of course could help clarify matters enormously by shifting his own emphasis. But some minimal smarts by the media wouldn’t hurt, either.

Fortunately, some evidence of genuine thought is starting to emerge in its ranks. Is it delusional to hope that we might get at least a tad more?

Im-Politic: Where Bill O’Reilly is Wrong and Right

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Bill O'Reilly, Brian Williams, Buenos Aires, Dabid Corn, El Salvador, Falklands War, Fox News, Hurricane Katrina, Im-Politic, Mainstream Media, media bias, Mother Jones, NBC News, New Orleans

The more I think about it, the clearer it is to me that the best way in this hopelessly political era to discuss the Bill O’Reilly war record controversy is to start by pointing out what shouldn’t matter.

But first, a confession – which foreshadows my conclusion. I’ve been a “Factor” fan and something of an admirer of the “King of Cable Talk” for several years. Not that he hasn’t displayed major flaws. Even if I were Christian, I think I’d find the Fox News host’s “War on Christmas” claims way over the top. O’Reilly seems to have little awareness about the special problems – and prejudices – still facing many African Americans. He seems to believe that, because he finds abortion abhorrent, mainstream contemporary feminism lacks any merit. His grasp of economics, whether it’s fiscal and monetary policy, or trade – well, there simply is none. His foreign policy views are unnecessarily moralistic – even given the unmistakably Islamic and evil terrorist threat confronting America.

At the same time, O’Reilly’s conservatism contains praiseworthy populist elements. He gets in his bones the Wall Street’s responsibility for the financial crisis. He supports raising the minimum wage. He spotlighted the pressures squeezing America’s middle class well before it became fashionable on the Right.

O’Reilly’s non-partisan impulses shouldn’t be forgotten, either. He has unsparingly criticized both Democratic and Republican party figures, and praised the former from time to time. He has strongly condemned the loony – and often prejudice-rooted – personal criticisms hurled at President Obama by many extreme conservatives. He has openly admitted being wrong about supporting George W. Bush’s Iraq War (actually, I think he’s gone overboard here) – even though he favors using (limited, he says) ground forces versus ISIS and expresses full and unjustified confidence that they can leave quickly once their mission is accomplished. And he regularly features both regulars and guests with whom he disagrees.

But none of the above really matters in connection with whether O’Reilly has falsely described his experiences as a foreign correspondent. Nor does it matter that the Mother Jones article that first questioned O’Reilly’s veracity really does look like a political hit piece aimed at retaliating against conservatives and conservative journalists following the tall tales-prompted suspension of NBC News anchor Brian Williams. I don’t even care that Mother Jones author David Corn was not renewed as a Fox News contributor a few years ago, or that some of O’Reilly’s former colleagues at CBS News may be contradicting his account of events in Argentina because they’ve been nursing personal grudges. And there’s no reason to take seriously the argument that O’Reilly shouldn’t be held to Williams-like standards because he’s not hosting a straight news program.

All that matters is whether his claims to have experienced “war zone” conditions are credible based on what we can know about the circumstances and what we can’t know. And I genuinely regret to conclude that O’Reilly has engaged in exaggeration that’s unacceptable for someone with a prominent role in America’s national public policy debate – whether they proudly claim to run a “No-Spin Zone” or not.

The best and fairest analysis I’ve seen of the events O’Reilly covered in Buenos Aires following the British-Argentine Falklands War in 1982 comes from Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple. His research into not only American sources but Argentine sources (including contemporary local newspapers) convinces me that the Fox host was reporting on a chaotic, violent, and dangerous situation. But it was not one that qualified as the “war zone” he calls it.

This isn’t a huge exaggeration. But neither is it the hair-splitting of which O’Reilly has accused his attackers. A few rounds of live ammo were fired by the police, as well as many more rubber bullets and tear gas. Injuries were suffered, and the fatalities cited by O’Reilly can’t be ruled out, although there is no positive evidence. But no heavier weapons – the kind typical of military operations – were used. The tumult O’Reilly covered lasted a single night. He was not embedded in any units of soldiers, and he didn’t accompany combat forces on his own. In short, he experienced nothing like reporters in real combat zones have experienced in genuine armed conflict for decades. (See these links for some brief descriptions of the World War II coverage of figures like Ernie Pyle, Walter Cronkite, and numerous others who spent prolonged periods on the front or in their air and naval equivalents.)

And this difference counts because O’Reilly has used his claims in efforts to distinguish himself from interlocutors who he depicts as unqualified to hold contrary opinions on military-related topics because they haven’t tasted such danger.

All of which means that O’Reilly’s exaggerations as such sound a lot like Brian Williams’ Iraq war stories. Moreover, just as Williams has been criticized for false reporting in other sets of circumstances (Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the fall of the Berlin Wall), so has O’Reilly (for his accounts of his reporting of El Salvador’s insurgency in the 1980s). For some reason, though, the critics haven’t concentrated on those characterizations – and O’Reilly hasn’t addressed them.

The only major differences I can detect entail Williams’ contrition versus O’Reilly’s vituperation, and on NBC’s decision to suspend its star and examine his record versus Fox News’ decision to ignore O’Reilly’s. Bottom line: The Williams and O’Reilly misdeeds haven’t been modern journalism’s worst by a long shot. As a result, I’m open to the argument that both deserve a second chance (at least based on what is known so far). But I agree with those who would reserve forgiveness for those who seek it. So O’Reilly has a ways to go before he qualifies.

One final point: Speaking of journalistic misdeeds, something that’s truly garbage, as O’Reilly might put it, is the implication by Mother Jones authors Corn and Daniel Schulman that the “culture of deception within the liberal media” (their words) slammed repeatedly O’Reilly is a myth. If you doubt this, check out this compilation of confessions from mainstream media journalists. Which means that the worst outcome of O’Reilly’s troubles – including his often abusive counterattacks – could well be undercutting criticisms and concerns about a much more important problem.