Following Up: Hate Crimes, Trump, and New FBI Data

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African Americans, anti-semitism, FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Following Up, hate crimes, Hispanics, illegal aliens, Islamic terrorism, Jews, Latinos, Muslims, neo-Nazis, Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, racism, Trump, white nationalists, xenophobia

Right after last month’s Pittsburgh synagogue murders, I wrote a post that used FBI hate crimes data to cast doubt on President Trump’s direct or indirect culpability – but closed by noting that the Bureau would soon be issuing numbers that bring the story up to 2017.

“Soon” arrived this week, and the new statistics do provide evidence for a “Trump effect” on hate crimes overall, and on the incidence of anti-semitic hate crimes in particular. At the same time (and I know Never Trump-ers won’t want to see this), much of the evidence is considerably mixed, especially when it comes to the charge that, as presidential candidate and chief executive, Mr. Trump has “activated” violent anti-Semites and other bigots – i.e., he’s emboldened all of them to turn their hatred into attacks on their target groups.

To base my analysis on more data than used in that previous post, I’ve gone back to each of the 2000-2005 years, and continued examining the numbers for each year through 2017. I’ve also looked at two different categories of data that logically shed the most light on these issues – the number of total known incidents for each of these years, and the number of total known offenders. (I also counted up the numbers of victims, but believe that, even though they track well with the other two data sets, they tell us a good deal less about the activation charge. So for brevity’s sake, I’ve left them out.)

The annual figures on total hate crimes incidents typify most of the patterns. The strongest evidence for the Trump effect consists of the changes in the number of incidents and offenders for 2015-2016, and 2016-2017. Recall the Mr. Trump declared his candidacy for president in June, 2015.

Between 2015 and 2016, the incidents figure rose by 4.63 percent, and then jumped by 17.22 percent the following year. The 2016-17 increase was the biggest in percentage terms since that between 2000 and 2001 (a 20.67 percent surge that partly consisted of reactions to the September 11 terror attacks in 2001).

Here, however, is where the activation narrative starts to lose some force. Principally, the 2015-2016 increase was much smaller than that recorded between 2005 and 2006 (7.80 percent). Was then-President George W. Bush unwittingly or not encouraging extremists? Were they becoming activated in opposition to some of his policies, like the Iraq War? The overall hate crimes numbers don’t yield any obvious answers, but clearly among some groups, national tempers were flaring back then.

Another complication: The absolute 2017 number of hate crimes – like the 2016 number – was the biggest in several years. Indeed, 2017’s 7,175 total hate crimes was the highest figure since 2008’s 7,783. But think about that for a moment. It means that the 2008 number was (significantly) higher. So were its counterparts for each year since 2000. Were those years of greater Presidential activation?

It’s tempting to blame a “September 11” effect during those years. Yet the figure for 2000 – the year before the terror strikes – was much higher (8,063) than 2017’s as well.

The offender numbers are even more puzzling from the activation standpoint – since presumably they’re the individuals being activated. They did rise by 14.46 percent between 2014 and 2015 – which covers the first six months of the Trump presidential campaign. But between 2015 and 2016 – when he was running all year and clearly was much more prominent in the national consciousness – the number of offenders actually declined by 2.91 percent.

The following year, Mr. Trump’s first in the Oval Office, offender numbers shot up again – by 10.40 percent. That increase, however, wasn’t that much larger in percentage terms than the rise during the Barack Obama year 2012-2013 (9.06 percent).

Further, looking at the makeup of these numbers (in terms of the target groups) produces even bigger mysteries. Specifically, that big 17.22 percent increase in the total number of hate crimes between 2016 and 2017 was keyed largely by a 37.13 percent jump in incidents targeting Jews. Consequently, the 2017 total reached 938 – the highest figure since, again, 2008 (another George W. Bush year). But as with overall incidents, this means that the 2008 figure (1,013) topped that for 2017 by an impressive margin. In addition, the 2017 total was exceeded no less than six times in all between 2000 and 2008.

More puzzles emerge from the offenders figures. The number targeting Jews increased 8.79 percent between 2015 and 2016, and by 24.23 percent between 2016 and 2017. The absolute numbers for those years (421 and 523, respectively) are also the two highest during the 2000-2017 period. So these figures also seem to bear out the accusation that President Trump has coddled neo-Nazi/”white nationalist” types in various ways and bears some responsibility for their crimes.

But leave aside the objections that Mr. Trump has welcomed Jews into his family, has worked with them in numerous ways during his business career, and has been a staunch supporter of Israel (all of which has enraged some of those neo-Nazis). Why did the numbers of anti-semitic perps skyrocket by 69.40 percent between 2012 and 2013?

Something else that doesn’t dovetail with the activation charges: Although candidate and President Trump have been accused of stoking racism and xenophobia along with anti-Semitism, the data indicate that any Trump effect in regard to African-Americans and Muslims has been much more muted.

The number of incidents figures show that reported hate crimes targeting Muslims nearly doubled between 2014 and 2015 (from 154 to 294), and then climbed by another 21.77 percent the following year. Maybe candidate Trump’s calls for a ban on Muslim immigration into the United States and for registering Muslims in a national data base deserve lots of blame? Possibly. But then why would anti-Muslim hate crimes have dropped by 7.54 percent in the President’s first year in office – when the Muslim ban effort was a top priority, and front-page news, for months.

Moreover, despite the belief that Mr. Trump’s support of “birther” claims against former President Obama, and a 7.65 percent increase in hate crimes against blacks between 2014 and 2015, these numbers have stayed virtually flat over the course of the President’s main campaigning year and his first year in office.

Evidence for Trump-ian activation that’s more compelling comes from the data on anti-Hispanic hate crimes. The numbers of incidents and offenders both rose strongly – by a record 42.73 percent for the former and by 29.21 percent for the latter between 2016 and 2017, when the President kept immigration issues front and center. As with so many of the other statistics, however, the latest absolute Trump Era numbers for both categories remains way below many pre-Trump annual levels.

That’s why it seems reasonably clear to me that the main driver of the hate crimes data isn’t presidential activation, and that it may not be a major influence at all. What are some possible alternative causes? In many cases, real world events. Two examples: First, the numbers of anti-Muslim hate crimes and violent haters arguably rose so robustly from 2014 on because that period has been marked by a shocking number of fatal terrorism strikes launched by Islamic extremists in both the United States and in Europe.

Second, the anti-Hispanic counterparts of these figures were so much higher during the previous decade than they are today because those years featured mounting efforts by the Open Borders lobby – including an unprecedented wage of protest and other forms of activism by illegal immigrants themselves – to demand more rights and government benefits for this illicit population.

This explanation doesn’t seem to apply to the levels and growth rates of anti-semitic hate crimes. But then again, this form of bigotry isn’t often called “the oldest hatred” for nothing. (Racism of course has been an historical constant as well in America and elsewhere.) 

It should go without saying (but maybe not in these highly charged and polarized times) that none of the events and developments cited immediately above can ever justify hate crimes or similar bigoted actions and beliefs. Nor does it signal a belief that the President has handled these incidents on his watch acceptably. As I’ve written repeatedly, he hasn’t. But what should be clear is that anyone seeking to understand anti-semitic and other hate crimes needs to look far beyond the White House.

Im-Politic: Better Call Saul, Trump, and Latino Stereotypes

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Albuquerque, Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, drug cartels, drug trafficking, Hollywood, Im-Politic, Immigration, Latinos, Mexican-Americans, Mexico, New Mexico

Tonight my wife and I will be watching the latest episode of Better Call Saul – and not just for some relief from the increasingly jaw-dropping Washington, D.C. Follies. We’re big fans of this precursor cable TV series to Breaking Bad (which I’ve had no interest in) and will be sorry to see it come to an end in a few weeks.

But as has been the case for the last year or so, one key feature of Saul, and what it seems to reveal about political correctness-spawned double standards in the entertainment industry, will simply astonish me: the viciously criminal nature of practically every significant Latino character.

There’s drug lord Hector Salamanca. There are his uber-surly and violent nephews. There’s drug lord Gus Fring. There’s Ignacio “Nacho” Varga – a drug gang henchman who soon after his debut was depicted as an example of, at best, the possibility of some honor existing among thieves. (He’s also, however, becoming increasingly sympathetic because of his growing qualms about involvement with the cartels – even though these doubts so far as we know sprung solely from concern for his honest, hard-working father, who has endangered himself and the rest of the family by refusing to pay the gangsters protection money.)

To continue with our list, there are numerous other terrifying-looking cartel thugs. And there are the Mexico-based cartel bosses of Hector and Gus.

In fact, the only decent, law-abiding continuing Latino character in the show aside from Nacho’s father has been Ernesto, a legal assistant. Like Varga Senior, however, he hasn’t exactly been showcased, and in fact may have made his last appearance many episodes ago.

Moreover, the series has been peppered with scenes of the evidently non-stop drug trade that originates in Mexico and services clients in the United States – including the construction of an enormous tunnel intended to greatly facilitate trafficking that’s been detailed in the last few episodes. And never in Saul is there any hint that U.S. demand for narcotics may be the ultimate driver of the drug trade, or that many Anglos are either helping to mastermind it or even profit from it significantly.

Why have I been nothing less than thunderstruck by all of this? Here’s a hint:

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

The speaker? Then-Presidential hopeful Donald Trump. When did he say it? While announcing his candidacy in 2015. How did many Americans react, especially the kinds of progressives that pervade Hollywood? With outrage.

How have any of these folks reacted to the murderous psychopaths that comprise the vast majority of those Latino Saul characters with any significance? As far as I can tell, with completely indifference. In fact, here’s the only critical item I came up with after searching Google for twenty minutes (and I’m a really good searcher).

Saul’s creators could conceivably reply that they decided to focus the show on the Albuquerque, New Mexico underworld and how it can suck normal solid citizens (and non-citizens?) into its maw – and that Mexican- and Mexican-American-dominated drug cartels dominate this underworld. Fair enough. They can also point out that they conceived the series before Mr. Trump ignited the latest, especially angry phase of the national immigration debate (although Breaking Bad wasn’t exactly short of Latino villains, either). That, too, is worth bearing in mind.

Yet it’s still remarkable that, apparently at no time since the series’ debut, just before Mr. Trump’s “sending their best” remarks, have the creators or writers come under any notable pressure, or felt any need themselves, to introduce any prominent Latino good guys and gals. Unless they figured they’d benefit from yet another double standard in La-La-Land?

Im-Politic: The Politics and Nature of Confederate Monuments May Not be What You Think

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African Americans, Confederate monuments, Democrats, Hastings-on-Hudson, Im-Politic, Latinos, liberals, Mount Hope Cemetery, New York State, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, United Confederate Veterans, Westchester County

The politics of dealing with the nation’s Confederate monuments has just taken a major and, to me, dismaying and surprising turn with the release of a new poll gauging national attitudes on the issue. At the same time, although I remain convinced that the Confederacy and its ideals should be condemned, and certainly never memorialized in public spaces, the more I learn about these statues and plaques and grave sites, the clearer it becomes that a cookie-cutter approach mustn’t be taken to the issue.

First, the poll. Keeping in mind that surveying public opinion is still much more an art than science, the results of yesterday’s NPR-Marist sounding on the monuments are nothing less than stunning. According to the poll, fully 62 percent of all Americans believe that “statues honoring leaders of the Confederacy should remain as a historical symbol.” Especially discouraging for me, the question’s wording makes clear that the subject isn’t some broad category that could include simple burial sites for ordinary Confederate soldiers, and/or even statues or other monuments to these regulars, many of whom were motivated by a wide variety of considerations on top of racism. Instead, respondents were asked their views of monuments honoring the Confederacy’s leaders – who spearheaded the South’s betrayal of the United States and whose declarations of secession leave no doubt that preserving the racist institution of slavery was their top priority.

Even more bizarre – at least for me: Such sentiments were expressed by 44 percent of Democrats, 31 percent of Americans who described themselves as “Very liberal-Liberal,” and 61 percent of self-styled political independents.

Nor were the regional breakdowns what you’d (I assume) expect: Honoring Confederate leaders in this way was endorsed by majorities throughout the country, including 53 percent in the Northeast, 61 percent in the Midwest, 66 percent in the South, and 61 percent in the West.

But the real shock comes from the racial and ethnic results: Honoring Confederate leaders with memorials was backed by 44 percent of African Americans and 65 percent of Latinos (along with 67 percent of whites). Moreover, African Americans registered the largest percentage of those “unsure” (16 percent).

It’s possible that these results were skewed by the phrasing of the “anti” position: The stated reason for removing the statues was that “they are offensive to some people.” That’s an awfully bland formulation, and I wonder if the numbers would have changed much if the wording was changed to something on the order of “because they staged an armed revolt against the United States” or “because slavery would have remained in place had they prevailed.” But over the last week or so, how many African Americans in particular could remain unaware of these facts? And how many liberal Democrats?

So the poll’s findings seem pretty accurate to me. And the big takeaways from them look like the following: There’s a big divide over these matters between the national (bipartisan) political class and especially the national media on the one hand, and the general public on the other; and much of the (current) elite position on these racial issues contains a huge element of anti-Trump posturing. (And don’t forget – I believe that the president is in the wrong on Confederate memorials, too.)

Second, Confederate monuments can’t all be lumped into the same category, don’t all raise the same questions, and shouldn’t arouse the same emotions. Here’s just one example. I’m sure I haven’t been the only American who’s been amazed to learn that these sites can be found in many locations outside the old Confederacy. They’re even located in my home state, New York. But the story of one of these markers shows how varied they can be.

I’m talking about not only a cemetery with the remains of Confederate veterans that’s located in Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester County, an affluent suburb of New York City. I’m also talking about an obelisk that stands over the graves.

The bodies interred at the Mount Hope Cemetery, beneath the obelisk are those of former Confederate soldiers who moved to the area after the conflict in search of economic opportunity. The inscription on the 60-foot monolith refers to them as “heroic dead” and the complex was dedicated in 1897. And according to one source, these veterans “remained proud of their Southern Confederate heritage.”

So for an opponent of honoring these figures, like me, that set off alarm bells. But as I read further, my first inclination to call for the removal of the obelisk changed. To start with, even though the site is owned and the obelisk funded by the United Confederate Veterans, this means that it’s a private piece of land. So since it’s not a publicly owned space, the owners should have the right to maintain it however they wish. Moreover, the site was sold to the Confederate veterans group by the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. And this Union group cares for the complex today.

Perhaps most important, a contemporary newspaper account leaves no doubt that the purpose of this particular monument was national reconciliation – a goal no one of good will should oppose provided it’s being sought on the proper basis.

So there are Confederate monuments and there are Confederate monuments. How best to decide their fate? Many voices, including President Trump, believe that the states and/or localities should have the last word – unless the monuments et al are on federal ground. I’m not so sure, partly because it’s a national issue, and partly because policy would likelier become hostage to short-term, and frequently shifting, considerations. Of course, an optimal solution may not be possible, so this outcome might be an acceptable compromise.

One other conceivable option: a presidential commission. Often, these organizations are simply exercises in can-kicking, but some deliberation seems to be exactly what’s needed on the monuments issue now. And its conclusions certainly wouldn’t be ignored – as with the reports of so many other presidential commissions. Best of all, this type of body seems best suited to recognize the variety of Confederate monuments, and propose measures that recognize them adequately – even to the point of case-by-case recommendations.

The big objection to a presidential commission is that it’s not an especially democratic mechanism – although its members would be chosen by a democratically elected leader. Congress could be given a role, too. Especially if its members were well chosen, the result could well be a series of appropriately nuanced decisions that finally, and truly, bring the Civil War to an end.

Im-Politic: Why Trump’s Critics Need to Learn Trump-ish

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2016 election, African Americans, anger, assimilation, border security, borders, Chuck Todd, Donald Trump, Fox News, George Will, Hillary Clinton, illegal immigrants, Im-Politic, immigrants, Immigration, ISIS, Islamophobia, Jeb Bush, Jobs, John Kasich, Latinos, Lindsey Graham, Megyn Kelly, middle class, Muslim ban, Muslims, NBC News, Obama, Paris attacks, political class, polls, presidential debates, racism, radical Islam, refugees, San Bernardino, sexism, sovereignty, terrorism, wages, xenophobia

Since the political class that routinely slams him is hermetically shielded from the struggles of Donald Trump’s middle class and working class supporters, it’s no surprise that the nation’s elite pols and pundits don’t speak a word of Trump-ish. Assuming, in the spirit of the holiday season, that at least some of the Republican front-runners’ assailants are actually interested in understanding the political earthquakes he’s set off and responding constructively, as opposed to buttressing their superiority complexes or stamping them out (frequently in response to special interest paymasters), here’s a handy two-lesson guide.

Special bonus: This post also goes far toward both interpreting the widely noted anger marking the nation’s politic today, and explaining why Trump’s bombshells keep boosting, not cratering, his poll numbers.

Lesson One: It’s been all too easy to condemn Trump’s various comments on immigration policy as xenophobic, racist, or both. Some have clearly been sloppy and/or impractical, which is why, as in the case of his deportation policy, or the original form of the Muslim ban (which didn’t distinguish between citizens and non-citizens), I’ve been critical.  (For the former, see, e.g., this post.  For the latter, I’ve expressed my views on Twitter on November 20 and December 7.)  There’s also no doubt that much opposition to current, permissive immigration policies stems from the kinds of fears about threats to “traditional American values” that have animated explicitly discriminatory anti-immigrant movements in the past.

Yet the standard denunciations of Trump’s positions ignore too many features of his pitch and his proposals to be convincing. For example, if Trump is a simple racist, or white supremacist, why does he never mention the supposed threats from East or South Asian immigrants? And if these groups really are often conspicuously singled out as “model minorities” even by many immigration policy critics, how can they reasonably be lumped into the racist category? Further, why does Trump’s immigration plan emphasize the harm done by low-skill and low-wage legal and (especially) illegal immigrants to the incomes and prospects of so many low-skill and low-wage black Americans?

Similar observations debunk the portrayal of Trump’s Muslim ban as simple, ignorant, irrational Islamophobia. As I’ve pointed out repeatedly (e.g. this post) , for many reasons, Islam presents special problems for American national security and international interests. Even President Obama has accused the so-called moderate majority of the world’s Muslims and their leaders of failing to resist the fanaticism of ISIS and Al Qaeda strongly enough. And although Muslims have by and large integrated peacefully and successfully into American life – certainly more so than in Europe – Western, evidence of pro-terrorist activity and sympathy is too compelling for comfort.

So obviously, there’s much more to the Trump pitch and platform than mindless hating. In the case of immigration from Mexico and the rest of Latin America that’s overwhelmingly economically motivated, it’s the concern that business and other elite economic interests have so successfully and so long focused Washington on satisfying its appetite for cheap labor that the needs of native-born workers and their families, as well as the fundamental security imperative of maintaining control over national borders, have been completely neglected. Therefore, Trump’s pronouncements – including his call for a wall – are best seen as demands that American leaders prioritize their own citizens and legal residents in policymaking, and for restoration of border security arrangements essential for concepts like “nationhood” and “sovereignty” and “security” to have practical meaning.

In other words, when Trump and his supporters complain about Mexican or Latino immigrants, whether legal and particularly illegal, the candidate in particular, and arguably most often his supporters, are complaining not about newcomers with different skin colors or about foreigners as such. They’re complaining about immigrants who are serving exactly the same purpose as the picket-crossing scabs that historically have aroused heated – and sometimes violent – reactions from elements of the American labor movement: increasing the labor supply to further weaken workers’ bargaining power.

Of course, there’s another, non-economic reason for focusing on Hispanic immigrants that has nothing to do with racism or bigotry – though you don’t hear this point from Trump himself. It’s that worry about assimilation and American values referenced above. In turn, it springs from (a) both those groups’ distinctive insistence on concessions to bilingualism in daily life (when was the last time you heard about demands for Chinese language instructions on ballots, or Vietnamese announcements on subway P.A. systems?); and (b) from the eagerness many politicians show to accommodate them. The latter is in sharp contrast to official America’s handling of earlier immigration waves, when the overriding intent was to Americanize newcomers as soon and as completely as possible – and when demands for special treatment were far less common.

Similar non-bigoted messages are being sent by Trump’s Muslim ban and related opposition to admitting large numbers of refugees from Middle East war zones. Assimilation is clearly on the minds of his supporters. But security is an even bigger issue for both the candidate and his backers. Especially in the wake of the November Paris attacks and the ensuing San Bernardino shootings, many Republican and even some Democratic party leaders have understandably felt compelled to call out an Obama administration that has, in the face of all common sense, kept insisting that those fleeing areas of chaos could be adequately vetted – and that with equal stubbornness has demonized such prudence as prejudiced, callous, a propaganda windfall for ISIS, and un-American.

Lesson Two: This one, concerning Trump’s insulting comments towards fellow presidential hopefuls, journalists, and other individual critics (whether they’ve been truly critical or not) should be much easier to understand – though perhaps more difficult for the targets to take to heart. In a perfect world, or even close, office-seekers, anyone in public life, or anyone in public, shouldn’t call others “stupid,” or “losers” as Trump has, and it’s even worse to disparage people because of their looks or use sexist slurs against women.

But this is not only a world that is far from perfect. It is a world – and country – in which the wealthy, the powerful, and the influential enjoy privilege that is almost unimaginable unless you know or have seen it personally. Far too often, to a degree not known in America for decades, their position has come at the expense of fellow citizens so remote financially, culturally, and even geographically from them that the latter might as well as invisible. And even more infuriating, the occupants of America’s commanding heights seem to stay securely in place – and even more securely in place – no matter what failures and even catastrophes they inflict on the country. Increasing signs of nepotism and even dynasticism foul the picture further.

In other words, there’s no shortage of reasons for many Americans to refer to their current leaders, their wannabe leaders, and all their varied courtiers without the level of courtesy to which we’ve become accustomed. Indeed, there is every reason for a big bloc of the electorate to view them as outright crooks, incompetents, or some combination of the two. And when Trump treats them as such, a strong case can be made that, even though he’s coarsening public discourse, he’s also sending the Beltway crowd and its fans and funders across the country messages about millions of their countrymen that they urgently need to hear and understand. For example, Trump backers

>are completely unimpressed with monuments to unearned status like former Florida Governor (and presidential relative) Jeb Bush, and former Senator and Secretary of State (and First Lady) Hillary Clinton;

>view failed or failing presidential rivals like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Ohio Governor John Kasich as shills for the corporate cheap labor lobby and its mass immigration plans, not as courageous champions of more inclusive conservatism;

>and wonder who decreed pundits like George Will and news anchors like NBC’s Chuck Todd or Fox’s Megyn Kelly to be arbiters of political, social, and cultural acceptability.

In other words, Trump’s supporters believe that spotlighting the disastrous records, wrongheaded positions, or hollow reputations of many individual American leaders and media notables is vastly more important than protecting their delicate sensibilities. In turn, the specificity of this harsh treatment reveals something important about much of the anger pervading American politics today. It’s not simply aimed at abstractions like “politics as usual” or “Washington dysfunction” or “the system” or even “corruption.” That’s because in addition to being almost uselessly vague, these terms conveniently permit practically any individual or even any particular category of individuals involved in public life to assume that the problem lies elsewhere.

Instead, today’s anger is directed at specific individuals and groups who large numbers of voters blame for the country’s assorted predicaments, and who Trump supporters read and see routinely belittle their frustrations and therefore condemn their chosen spokesmen as know-nothings, clowns, bigots, and even incipient fascists.

Trump’s blast at Kelly right after the first Republican presidential debate in Cleveland in August was especially revealing. Even I first described it as needlessly personal and petty. But looking back, it’s also clear why so many Trump acolytes and (then) undecideds seemed to ignore it and its seeming implications about Trump’s personality and judgment.

For in the actual debate, they heard Kelly pose what they surely viewed as a second-order “gotcha” question – about Trump’s previous insults of women. And they also heard an answer from the candidate that immediately pivoted to some of their top priorities. “I don’t frankly have time,” Trump responded, “for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either. This country is in big trouble. We don’t win anymore. We lose to China. We lose to Mexico both in trade and at the border. We lose to everybody.”

And the more political rivals and other establishmentarians harrumphed or inveighed about Trump’s crudeness, the more backers and sympathizers viewed Kelly not mainly as a bullied female, but as another out-of-touch media celebrity and even an elitist hired gun, and the more they scorned Trump’s critics as selfish plutocrats more concerned with protecting one of their own than dealing seriously with pocketbook and other core issues.

Therefore, as with his populist policy stances, Trump’s language and its appeal are confronting his establishment opponents with a fundamental choice if they want to keep these approaches out of American politics. They can try to learn Trump-ish, and respond constructively to the legitimate economic and non-economic concerns fueling it. Or they can remain self-righteously ignorant, and continue vilifying him and his backers. Since the insults directly threaten not just the elites’ prestige but their lucrative perches, I feel pretty confident that they’ll choose the latter. What’s anyone’s guess is how long, and even whether, they can keep succeeding.

Im-Politic: Could African-American Support Really Help Trump Win?

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2016 elections, African Americans, Bruce Bartlett, Charles M. Blow, Donald Trump, Eugene Robinson, Hispanics, Im-Politic, Immigration, Jamelle Bouie, Jobs, Latinos, media, Republicans, Slate.com, The New York Times, The Washington Post, wages

Bruce Bartlett’s Sunday Washington Post column on Donald Trump’s potential to win the presidency absent Latino support by wooing black voters could be one of the most insightful political analyses generated by Campaign 2016 so far.  In fact, its only major weakness is its neglect of the role African American leaders might play in this drama; so far, they seem uniformly hostile to the Republican front-runner, including on the immigration issue rightly identified by Bartlett as Trump’s best chance for attracting black support.

Bartlett’s case for a significant black voter shift to Trump rests on three strong pillars: the clear tendency of immigrants especially on the lower ends of the income ladder to take job opportunities from African Americans; blacks’ resulting stout historic opposition to looser American immigration policies; and the persistence of this opposition down to the present. His stool, though, could have been four-legged had he cited one more important development: the explicit pitch for the black vote made by Trump in his immigration plan.

In the process of arguing that Open Borders-style immigration policies have helped “destroy” the American middle class, Trump’s blueprint notes that “nearly 40% of black teenagers are unemployed” (along with nearly 30 percent of their Hispanic counterparts). It adds, “For black Americans without high school diplomas, the bottom has fallen out: more than 70% were employed in 1960, compared to less than 40% in 2000.” It also blames “the influx of foreign workers” for holding down paychecks and preventing many “poor and working class Americans – including immigrants themselves and their children – [from earning] a middle class wage.”

As a result, Trump concludes, “We need to control the admission of new low-earning workers in order to: help wages grow, get teenagers back to work, aid minorities’ rise into the middle class….” And although Trump is often criticized for eschewing specifics, his immigration plan offers concrete proposals directly targeting African Americans: Replacing a via program for foreign youth with “a resume bank for inner city youth provided to all corporate subscribers to the J-1 visa program” and using savings from cutting back on overly generous refugee programs to create a version for American children that would help place those without parents “in safer homes and communities, and to improve community safety in high crime neighborhoods in the United States.”

As Bartlett observes, however, none of Trump’s platform has shown any signs of interesting black voters. The author correctly notes that most African Americans decades ago fell out of the habit of voting for any Republican – and that the GOP deserves at least much of the blame. But the nation’s black media voices have ignored and often rejected Trump’s immigration pitch, too – along with the rest of his candidacy – and this stance may be influencing the broader community as well.

New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow, for example, is so fed up with the national media’s role in creating “this Frankenstein of hatred, hubris, narcissism and nativism” that he’s vowed to restrict his Trump coverage to instances where the candidate “addresses issues with specific policy prescriptions and details….” But I can’t find any columns in which he even mentions the above aspects of Trump’s immigration proposals.

The Washington Post‘s Eugene Robinson blames Trump for leading the Republicans to “dig themselves a hole over immigration,” and has waxed indignant about his “rhetoric blaming undocumented Mexicans for a crime wave and insisting — without a shred of evidence — that the Mexican government is deliberately sending miscreants across the border….” But he hasn’t had anything to say about Trump’s proposals and African Americans’ economic prospects, either.

I looked over the websites of some of the nation’s leading African American newspapers, and it looks like they, too, are overlooking Trump’s immigration plan and its possible impact on their core readership. The most detailed treatment of Trump’s immigration policies of any kind I found focused instead on how his “platform…seems to be to throw gasoline on the fire of issues that stir the growing band of right-wingers, afraid of the increased darkening of America, into an anti-immigrant rage.” Other commentary has (accurately) and explicitly observed that white supremacist voices seem quite taken with Trump’s positions and candidacy.

One exception to this trend so far is Slate.com’s Jamelle Bouie, and he seems deeply conflicted. In an August 18 column, he actually did write about Trump’s specific immigration plan. But though Bouie took great pains to denounce it as “astonishingly cruel” and a formula for bringing “tremendous suffering to millions of Americans—native-born, naturalized, or otherwise,” he never mentioned Trump’s claims that African Americans and other native-born and legally resident minorities would benefit economically.

Yet ten days later, on CNN, Bouie was calling Trump’s contention that better immigration and trade policies would create more American jobs “absolutely fascinating,” and continued, “I don’t think I’ve heard a Republican ever talk specifically about African-American youth unemployment, which is a legitimate problem and a legitimate issue….”

In fact, Bouie recognized that Trump’s efforts to appeal to African Americans could help create a viable Republican victory strategy in 2016: “[P]art of doing that, part of approaching that, might just be harnessing anxiety about immigration, about the fact that immigrants are typically filling low wage jobs, and are in some cases… competing with African-American workers. Trump, I think, might be banking on that fact. And it’s not a bad play as far as strategy goes.”

No one should doubt that Trump and his party have a long way to go before lighting a fire among enough black voters to tip the 2016 balance. In fact, both have a long way to go before even pursuing this strategy consistently and systematically. But Bartlett is right that he’s put this possibility on the table. And even if the gambit is tried and fails during this presidential cycle, it should make you wonder – what if, further down the road, more stylistically conventional and rhetorically disciplined Republicans and conservatives take the hint?

Im-Politic: Will Obama’s Executive Amnesty Squander a Big Political Opportunity?

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2016 elections, Democrats, executive amnesty, Im-Politic, Immigration, immigration reform, Latinos, Obama, Republicans

Some final thoughts on immigration policy just before President Obama officially unveils his executive action at 8 EST tonight:

The wide-ranging deportation protections the President is expected to announce are often described as politically motivated – an audacious gambit aimed at cementing support for Democrats among the nation’s large, rapidly growing Latino population, both by granting a popular request and by highlighting Republican opposition.

I have no doubt that politics explains much about executive amnesty and the Democrats’ broader lurch toward illegal immigrant-friendly policies over the last decade in particular. But I do doubt that unilateral presidential action is the best way for the Democrats to strengthen their image as immigration reform champions.

I’m not thinking here of polls that show general public opposition to Mr. Obama’s intentions. I’m thinking instead of the main message contained in this new post on CNN.com. In it, national political reporter Peter Hamby describes how major Republican White House hopefuls have been reacting to the impending Obama decision. Most of them have emphatically criticized executive amnesty, but their opposition has focused on process questions. In so doing, they’ve made clear that they – and the list includes (outgoing) Texas Governor Rick Perry, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Wisconsin Governor Rick Walker, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie – would really rather not talk about the substance of immigration policy.

The reasons for this discomfort – I don’t think that’s too strong a word – should be obvious, too. Any successful Republican presidential candidacy is going to need solid backing (and financing) from American business, which is chomping at the bit for immigration reform that will flood the nation with new workers and thus generate powerful new downward pressure on wages. This support will be crucial both during the primaries and during the fall campaign. Signaling opposition to the idea of loosening immigration restrictions would brand these office-seekers as anti-business on a front-line issue.

As a result, the Machiavellian in me thinks President Obama and the Democrats would be better off depriving Republicans of this procedural dodge, and maintaining and increasing the pressure on their leaders to reveal whether they’re basically for or basically against more Open Borders. What could be likelier to ensure, through election day, 2016, continuation and even intensification of the immigration divide between the Republican establishment and its more populist wing?

Instead, executive amnesty will enable Republicans to paper over these differences. Indeed, the dynamics of Washington gridlock, which practically ensure that some form of executive amnesty will remain in place for the next two years, could well mean that immigration becomes a unifying issue for Republicans.

It’s true that further delaying executive amnesty could further frustrate Latinos and other supporters, and wind up depressing their turnout in 2016. But it’s also true, as I wrote recently, that having won this victory, such voters and their leaders could decide to thank the Democrats and then keep upping the ante and asking what they’ve done for the cause lately. (It’s entirely likely, even probable, that they’ll keep expanding their demands anyway.)

All these possibilities are purely hypothetical, and the politics of immigration could take entirely different courses among both Democrats and Republicans. But I feel more confident in believing that, because the President seems about to squander an opportunity to split his opposition wide open, the payoffs he and other Democrats evidently expect from executive amnesty had better be massive.

Im-Politic: Of Loyalty and Executive Amnesty

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2016 elections, African Americans, executive amnesty, Hispanics, Im-Politic, Immigration, Latinos, Obama, voters

Just some quick thoughts about the politics of President Obama’s reported plans to give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens via executive order: It will be fascinating and revealing to see how the Latino/Hispanic community in America reacts over the medium-term, especially at the leadership level.

The conventional wisdom of course is that by circumventing a balky group of Republicans in Congress, the president will cement the loyalty of Latino Americans to the Democrats for generations, and thereby ensure a long string of Democratic presidents going forward because Hispanics are such a fast-growing voting bloc.

The conventional wisdom isn’t always wrong, and Hispanic leaders in particular may indeed follow this course. But recalling the experience of African Americans raises the question of how smart this decision would be.

After all, one of the problems that’s faced African American voters and their leaders for decades now is that they’ve backed Democrats so reliably that Democrats understandably feel free to take them for granted. And so black voter loyalty arguably has led to considerable black political marginalization – especially between elections, when Democrats aren’t focused on mobilizing African American turnout to swing tight races.

Logic, at least, indicates that Hispanic voters could face the same fate if they completely turn their backs on Republican politicians after any executive amnesty. The rank and file may react in diverse ways – reflecting Hispanic America’s great diversity. But their leaders, at least the ones who dominate the news, are much less diverse.

So the smart tack for Latinos, and especially their leaders, to take politically after an executive amnesty – even a big one – would be to thank Democrats and then, as the next election approaches, ask what the party has done for them lately. Of course, the more effectively Republicans persuade Hispanics that they’re a plausible alternative – a challenge they haven’t met vis-a-vis African Americans – the easier it will be for them to play hard to get.

Of course, it’s also conceivable that Democrats might fear just such an Latino reaction to even a big amnesty – or even simply declining interest in Hispanics’ interest in politics and thus voting once this high priority goal has been achieved. These concerns could lead Democrats to string Latino voters along further – to ensure their support and turnout in 2016 – by either postponing executive action, or going small for now with the implicit or explicit promise of more to come.

It seems like we’ll get at least some answers soon, in the form of the (reportedly) approaching amnesty decision. But the new questions raised by any such move could prove more interesting still.