Bashing Immigrants RIGHT BEFORE the election???

 

In the days right before the election, Trump has been racing around the country trying to get his last words in before the votes are cast on Tuesday and he is shooting himself in the foot over and over again.  The Los Angeles Times says he spent his final speeches this weekend in Iowa, North Carolina, Colorado, and Nevada bashing immigrants and revealing all of the intensely murderous crimes that they have committed.  What kind of craziness is this??  He has just a few more days to MAYBE win back some of the immigrant votes, make up for what he said before, make new promises.  But no.  He has to spend his last few speeches talking about how violent the illegal immigrants are and reinforcing his promise to deport them the minute he gets into office!!  This is no way to end a campaign!  Yes, for the voters who support him and his immigration rhetoric this may be a good thing, but for those he has lost through his rhetoric he just made things even worse.  A softer and more welcoming rhetoric would have been much more suiting for his last days.

 

 

White men commit crimes too

 

During his speeches this past weekend, Trump was largely speaking to a crowd of white men.  The majority of white men support him, so obviously his speeches were a big hit amongst the crowds.  His rhetoric may have reinforced the votes of the white man, but his harsh and unrelenting rhetoric has surely lost him even more immigrant voters.   Trump stated, “The crime that’s been committed by these people is unbelievable.”  Has he not thought about the fact that white men and American born people commit crimes too?  ALL types of people commit crimes.  How could he just act like immigrants are the only ones that commit crimes?  His main supporters (white men) statistically commit more crimes than the illegal immigrants do!!  But he doesn’t want to point this out because he is a white male himself and white men are his main supporters, so he can’t make them look bad.  He wants to pin the immigrants because he does not like them.  This rhetoric of generalization and assumption that immigrants are the worst threat out there has caused him to look more stupid than causing people to be scared of immigrants.  He appears to be so ignorant that his own people are just as capable of crime as illegal immigrants.  Politifact.com points out that most illegal immigrants come here to make and send money back to their home country to provide for their families.  While it is still illegal for them to be here, that story is far from murder and crime.  That is the story of a hard working immigrant who loves and cares about his family.

 

MORE lost votes

 

Did his harsh rhetoric and stereotyping lose him even MORE votes?  Yes, it did.  Early voting of Latinos in Florida and Nevada proves this fact as many Latinos and other immigrants have supported Hillary with their vote.  Trump needed to use the rhetorical strategy of knowing when to speak and when not to speak as we near the final days.  He would have been much better off even if he simply left the immigration issue alone and focused on other things such as foreign policy and trade.  The worst part of all of this is all of these harsh last minute speeches took place in swing states.  Multiple studies have shown that if Trump loses the swing states, he will lose the entire election.  Trump desperately needed these votes to win the election, and he completely squandered his chances.  I will be amazed if he even has a chance now after the damage he did this weekend.

 

 

 

Fighting for Citizenship

 

Beginning back in April of 2016, many immigrants began a massive scramble for citizenship so they could have the right to vote in this year’s election.  We are reminded  The Washington Post that these immigrants do not only include Mexicans and Latinos, but also include Asians and Pacific Islanders.  Obama allowed the scramble and supported the mass amounts of citizenship papers to be passed through at a faster pace than normal.

 

What’s the Big Deal?

 

There are two obvious reasons why immigrants are scrambling to gain citizenship.  Not only do they want to ensure that they have the opportunity to stay in America since Trump has stated that he will remove every single one of the illegal immigrants within his first 100 days in office if elected, but they also want to be able to have the opportunity vote against Trump.  Trump’s rhetoric surrounding his immigration policy and his negatively emotive responses have consistently pushed away many, if not all immigrant voters.  His harshness and lack of emotion towards these people has lost him all favor in their eyes.  So what’s the big deal?  Many of these immigrants did indeed gain their citizenship, therefore, the right to vote.  Not only have many immigrants turned to support Hillary in her gentle rhetorical approach to welcoming foreigners, but the entire group of immigrants as a whole has become strongly Democratic and is expected to be a big factor in the swing states this year.

                                                   

Again, Donald Forgets to Think

 

Trump often forgets that immigrants can be anyone from another country, not just Mexicans and Latinos.  Additionally, he failed to realize that his statements and demeaning words to the Mexicans and Latinos would cause the Asians and Pacific Islanders to also turn against him.  They are angry because they feel that if he feels that strongly about Mexicans and Latinos, then he must feel that strongly against them as well.  His failure to use the rhetorical strategy of “dulling the point” has cost him the vote of nearly ALL immigrants rather than just the Mexicans and Latinos.  “Dulling the point” is a rhetorical strategy in which someone does not express himself as strongly as he may feel in order that he will gain more support for himself or his views because his views do not appear as harsh.  Even if Trump feels the way he does, he would have been wise not to use such negative comments or inclusive comments of all immigrants for that matter.  He did not understand how bad he was hurting himself by sharpening the point instead of dulling it.

 

Will There Be Enough?

 

The question is, how many immigrants were able to obtain documentation before the election so they can give their vote to Hillary?  Hillary has proven to have an incredibly inclusive rhetoric throughout the campaign and has welcomed these immigrants with open arms.  If Hillary wins, the immigrants that have newly become citizens will celebrate in their inclusion and their ability to have the same treatment as a native to America.  But if Trump wins, will these new citizens regret becoming a part of this country?  Will his rhetoric and actions towards them change if they are no longer illegal or will he continue to shove negatively emotive comments in their face and find other ways to exclude them?

 

 

Sources:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/us/politics/presidential-debate.html?_r=0

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/06/26/heres-a-close-look-at-how-immigrant-voters-could-affect-the-2016-election/

 

 

The Flip

 

After the third and final presidential debate in Arizona last Wednesday, Trump, as expected, managed to lose many of his Latino/Hispanic voters due to his harsh comments on his immigration policy.  The debate did, in fact, revolve around immigration policy, so naturally this speech was critical for him to win new voters and keep old ones.  The main issue was that Trump began unleashing harsh law enforcements on all immigrants regardless of whether or not they were truly criminals or just ordinary people who had come to the U.S. to raise their families.  It was expected that as Trump’s last time to speak about the topic that he would choose to soften his policies slightly enough to gain lost voters, but he managed to do the opposite.  Many Latinos were so outraged at his harshness that they have stopped supporting Trump.  One man, Massey Villarreal, stated that, “As a compassionate conservative, I am very disappointed with the immigration speech.  I’m going to flip, but not flop.  I am no longer supporting Trump, but cannot with any conscience support Hillary Clinton.”  Trump’s mistake was failing to use the rhetorical strategy that sometimes it is necessary to lie to persuade voters’ opinion.  Dr. Panetta mentioned in class that one of the most critical aspects in a president is knowing when it is time to lie and being convincing about it.  In this scenario, even if Trump hasn’t changed his views on immigration, he should have softened the blow just a little to gain the last bit of voters that he needed.  Instead, he lashed out at the immigrants again and wasted his opportunity for persuasion.

 

 

The Flop – Will votes move in Hillary’s Direction?

 

The rising question is where will these “lost voters” go?  Though voters such as Villarreal claim that they will not vote for Hillary, is it possible that they be swayed in her direction as time moves on?  Hillary used the simple yet critical rhetorical strategy of being the most likeable candidate in the room, which allowed her to win the debate very easily.  Even if you don’t agree with someone’s policies, it is easier to vote for someone who is likeable than someone who trash talks a large portion of the people in the country.  Additionally, Trump lost out rhetorically when attempting to meet campaign expectations, which is an essential aspect to the General Election Stage.  He even lost some of his non-Latino conservative voters!  The point of this stage in the campaign is to reassure his voters, not to have them changing their minds now!  Jacob Monty who advises Trump on immigration said he believes that Trump only listens to whoever spoke to him last.  When Trump returned from his trip to Mexico that boosted his campaign with the Latinos, he was applying softer policies.  However, after speaking to FAIR and Numbers USA who advocate harsh immigrant enforcement, he went back to his ruthless policies.  Trump rhetorically lacks consistency in what he says each time we hear him speak.  It does appear that he is strongly influenced by his most recent activity before the debate or speech. For those voters who have sided against Trump, where will they go if they can’t support Hillary but still want to vote?  Will Trump’s self-destruction be in her favor or will it only cause many voters to be stuck in the middle voting for a random third party or not voting at all?

A Change of Views

 

Isn’t it interesting how as election day gets nearer, policies regarding immigration slowly begin to shift closer and closer to the voters wants rather than what the candidate truly wants?  And, how before someone becomes a candidate for president they have an entirely different view on a subject than they do when they are running for the presidency?   Not surprisingly, both Trump and Clinton held entirely different views on immigration prior to running for president according to Sarlin of NBC News.  Sarlin states that in 2007, Clinton opposed the issuing of driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, and in 2012, Trump claimed that Romney’s views on self-deportation were too harsh.  Trump also claimed that Romney’s policies were crazy and that if he was president he would allow undocumented immigrants to stay in the country.  Both of these views are entirely opposite of the views they hold now, which represents the rhetorical strategy of modifying the candidate image and tailoring it to the voter’s wants.  Yes, Trump wants to build a wall, but the reason he has become so adamant towards going through with his plan instead of a calmer and less “crazy” plan as he suggested with Romney, is because he wants to appease his voters.  Most of his voters are extreme right wing who want to build the wall too, so he must chase this viewpoint instead of being more in the middle.  Clinton’s voters, on the other hand are against the wall, so in order to appeal to them she must completely go against the wall in every way.  This means that she has to go against what she said previously about restricting driver’s licenses.  She has to be completely on the left if Trump is going to be completely on the right.  Here, the two are using the rhetorical strategy of “sharpening up the pointless”, a strategy suggested by Kenneth Burke.  While it appears that prior to the campaign the candidates both held more of a middle ground towards immigration, they now have both sharpened the edges of their views and are having to hold harsher positions on the issue of immigration in order to sway voters.

 

 

The “Trump Effect”

 

Now that policies have been sharpened throughout the campaign, the focus is to win the voters onto either side of the candidate by playing on the emotions of the voters, sometimes achieving this by putting the opposite candidate in a very bad light.  Clinton is playing on strong emotions regarding children to get voters on her side regarding immigration.  Clinton says the so called “Trump Effect” is frightening immigrants and children.  Children tend to be where people place most of their emotion. For instance, when an advertisement shows a child in need, more people are likely to donate to the cause.  So, by Clinton saying that children are frightened, she tugs on the heartstrings of Trump voters, challenging them to reconsider their views for the sake of the little ones.  She is effective doing this by using another incredibly effective rhetorical strategy: telling a story.  She has been telling stories of young children who have been adopted asking if Trump will send them back to their home countries if he is elected and claiming that they are frightened of losing their new families.  That breaks the hearts of many, and is a very effective strategy in its use.  As Westen says in his book The Political Brain, “The political brain is an emotional brain.  It is not a dispassionate calculating machine, objectively searching for the right facts, figures, and policies to make a reasoned decision.”  If this is true, then Trump will be in trouble if Clinton’s story gets out to too many of his voters and effects their feelings.  He will lose voters because of her effective rhetorical use of stories against him.  Even the furthest right wing voters who agree with his policies will begin to struggle with him because logic will go out the window and sympathy towards the children will begin to set in and cause people to consider Clinton.

 

Sources:

 

http://insider.foxnews.com/2016/10/09/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-effect-deportation-immigration-debate

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-are-universes-apart-immigration-n641686

 

 

“Islamophobia”

 

The debate on Sunday night, October 9, proved to be quite vicious as Clinton and Trump tried to out-insult the other regarding the scandals of their past.  However, Trump managed to make himself look bad without the help of Clinton when an Islamic woman in the crowd stood up and asked him to describe what he would do about Islamophobia.  Instead of offering a solution to Islamophobia, he turned the question on its head and blamed Muslims for not informing law enforcers about potential Muslim terrorists attacks in the U.S.  Not only did this offend the woman, but Trump also most likely lost any of the Muslim supporters that he possibly had.

 

Vetting or Screening?

 

Trump did not stop here.  He took it a step further and tried to smooth the lines of what he said, potentially realizing his mistake in pushing away potential voters with his rude comment.  He declared that he has changed his position on the blanket ban on Muslim refugees and now feels that they should be allowed to enter the country, but only through extreme vetting.  The question that many Americans are raising is what is the difference between extreme vetting and the screening that already takes place among the Muslims that enter the country?  The use of the word “extreme” implies that the screening/vetting is going to be more intense than it already is.  Therefore, another question arises.  Has Trump really changed his view on the blanket ban or did he just say that to appease and gain voters?  It sounds to me like he has not changed his opinion and is simply rephrasing it by using the words “extreme vetting”, which really means that he is going to use such harsh screening standards that VERY few Muslims will be “qualified” to enter into the country.

 

Video Link to “extreme vetting” question during debate

http:/http://for.tn/2dDYguI

A Rhetorical Mistake?

 

The big mistake revolving around the Islamophobia question was that Trump did not follow the rules of full, partial, and non-answers.  Trump’s response to the Muslim woman was a huge mistake because if he had instead said positive things about the Muslims, even if he did not completely agree with himself, he could have gained several Muslim voters. Instead, he flat out blamed the Muslims for the whole idea of Islamophobia and terrorist attacks.  This was a time in the debate when he should have used the non-answer strategy, or stuck with a partial answer and only state the second part of his statement that he had changed his opinion on the blanket ban.  Even then, it is possible that he deterred potential voters with the use of the word “extreme vetting”, but he at least shed some note of positivity by saying that he had decided to allow Muslim refugees to enter the country.

 

In conclusion, Trump’s misjudgment of when to use a non-answer and a partial answer caused deep damage to potential Muslim supporters.  Once again, Trump’s impulsive mouth has lost him voters that he so desperately needs in November.  Sometimes silence is a candidate’s best friend.

 

Source:

http:/http://www.theatlantic.com/liveblogs/2016/10/second-presidential-debate-clinton-trump/503495/

Worlds Apart

Worlds apart. Those two words precisely describe the vast disagreements between Trump and Clinton on immigration policies. The American Dream as understood today still means a promise of opportunity, but this opportunity could be defined as a concrete wall built by Donald Trump that will keep undocumented workers out and allow more Americans to have access to these job opportunities, or the American Dream could represent the typical “golden paved roads” that were described when the “New World” was found and the original immigrants thought that the streets were paved with gold. In this case however, the gold is opportunity for jobs, careers, education, and a better way of life for immigrants that could be had in America if Clinton wins and allows the undocumented immigrants to stay.

Knee Deep into Convictions

“Depending on how a handful of swing states choose in November, the next president will either target every undocumented immigrant in the country for deportation or provide millions with work permits instead” says Seitz in his article “Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are Universes Apart on Immigration.” Trump wants to build a concrete wall funded by Mexico itself to keep out the immigrants entirely, while Hillary wants to pave a path within the first one hundred days of office for immigrants to receive full citizenship. She says she will “go further than Obama” in supporting immigrants in this country as she feels that they should be allowed to keep their jobs and move on with their lives. She sees them as no threat to the country and as a possible benefit as there would be more people work and grow the economy. Trump wants absolutely no amnesty and wants to close off all funding to sanctuary cities. He says that undocumented immigrants are a threat to the American job market. His rhetoric, or persuasive speech, plays on the emotions of Americans who are struggling to get jobs that are currently occupied by undocumented workers, and persuades them to vote for Trump. As you can see, both candidates appear unwilling to budge on their intended policies. The question is, would either candidate be more successful by softening their approach or their position on immigration policy to more of a middle ground that could accommodate some form of immigration to improve the economy and grant opportunity while also eliminating the harmful aspects of immigration such as drugs?

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-are-universes-apart-immigration-n641686