Donald Trump has just attempted one of the biggest “flips” in recent memory on one of his biggest issues in the campaign. In a speech on November 2^nd  Trump, drastically shifted his fear based rhetorical strategy on immigration to one much more forgiving, moral, and much more reasonable to many voters, but the change in ideology is large. The question that needs to be asked is if he is able to “stick the landing” and have this be an effective strategy so close to election day of November 8^th?

Donald Trump has been known throughout the campaign to use emotion in the way of fear as a strategy to get voters. His rhetorical strategy of calling them “rapists, liars, and drug dealers” along with his plan for the wall are ways of doing this; it has been his MO all along and what he has been known for. He seems to now desperately changing the emotion from fear to more values based one as a last ditch attempt to gain the middle ground. In his speech he said, “I want people to come in. I want tremendous numbers of people to come in.” He went on to say, “And we’ll have merit involved, too. Wouldn’t it be nice if we went a little bit on the merit system? We take people that are really going to help us to grow our country? Wouldn’t that be nice?” This is a dramatic shift from what we are used to hearing out of Trump because he is usually an advocate for much stricter borders and even wanting to ban all Muslim immigrants at one point in the campaign.

This is a drastic shift in emotion on the part of Trump and I am left wondering if it is too close in the election to make an effective impact. Most of America knows of Trump’s immigration plans and have known for a while now so I don’t believe him changing from fear to values only 6 days before election day is an effective strategy as people wont change their opinions on his views. It is interesting to question whether Trump is doing this because he is desperate or because he sees an opening and wants to use this change in emotion hopes of fitting through a small hole to gain the middle voters to win.

Donald Trump is not shy about using emotion in this campaign. He has no qualms with striking fear into a voter in attempt to sway their vote. One way in which he has done this is with conspiracy theories. One of his main theories of the campaign has been that the government has failed the people on the issue of immigration. He hopes to sway voters by making current elected officials seem incompetent or that there is some sort of corruption occurring.

Trump claims that the President and current politicians have failed the American people on the issue of immigration. Trump has said “Countless innocent American lives have been stolen because our politicians have failed in their duty to secure our borders and enforce our laws like they have to be enforced.” By enforcing this conspiracy theory he is hoping to make voters see the established politicians as failures who cannot contain the borders so he should be president because he will secure the border. As Hofstader put, it he is making it seem like the government has failed to help.

Trump rhetoric is exhibiting many of the elements that come with conspiracies. He believes that people who do not share similar views to him on this are part of the problem. Trump has made this conspiracy widespread. I, myself, have seen firsthand on Facebook how people now believe the government was negligent on securing the border and it is the politician’s fault that there is an “immigration problem” in our country right now. This issue is self-sealing in that any politician that tries to oppose this conspiracy is seen as just digging deeper into the corruption that exists. They will be labeled a liar that has failed our country.

What is interesting with this conspiracy is that it seems to be working on many people. Trump’s base has bought into this and they believe he is the best man to fix it. Trump seems to have effectively utilized the conspiracy to enhance his support on the issue of immigration.

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are using emotion in attempts to sway voters on the issue of immigration. Emotion in politics is a very powerful thing. According to Weston, people are driven by wishes, fears, and values more so than rational thought and emotion is the foundation to rational thought. The candidates are going about their use of emotion in different ways; Trump is using fear and Clinton is using values. The question that may help decide the election is who does a better job at hitting the right emotions.

Trump is using fear to scare the American people. He wants them to see foreign-born immigrants (mainly Hispanics and Muslims) as bad people that we must keep out of the country. As I said in my previous blog, Trump has labeled Mexican immigrants as “rapists”, “criminals”, and “drug dealers”. All three of these labels are things people fear. Trump is attempting to create a connection between immigrants and these labels to incite fear amongst voters.

Clinton is trying to use a more value based emotional appeal. She tells stories of children of illegal immigrants being separated from their parents. In the most recent debate she spoke about a girl from Nevada who feared her parents would be deported and she would ripped apart from her family. She went on to say “I don’t want to rip families apart. I don’t want to be sending parents away from children. I don’t want to see the deportation force that Donald has talked about in action in our country.” She is playing at the moral value that a person would not want to see their family, or anyone’s, family torn apart and because that is what deportation will do you shouldn’t support it.

I believe Clinton has a better approach to this competition on emotion. Her strategy applies more broadly because anyone with a family or that has belonged to a family can emphasize with what she is saying. Many people believe Trump’s name calling to be bigoted. His fear mongering is not as effective as Hillary’s emotional play on moral values.

Donald Trump is no ordinary candidate. While Trump, like most traditional candidates, is fact checked based on what he says in speeches and debates, what separates him from the rest is that he believes being caught as untruthful and inaccurate does not harm him or his campaign anywhere close to as much it would a more traditional candidate such as Clinton. He believes he has transcended the need for facts and relies an incredible amount on emotion. Trump leans on emotion to elicit certain emotional reactions, mainly fear, in attempt to garner support and persuade voters on the issue of immigration. I believe this is a dangerous strategy. While yes, this will give him a concrete base of voters supporting street immigration, it will hurt him when it comes to the moderates he needs to win the election.

It is widely known that Trump referred to Mexican immigrants as “criminals” , “drug dealers” and “rapists”, while assuming that just some are “good people”. His rhetorical goal by saying this was to go after people’s emotions and make them fear Hispanic immigrants. He wants to create an emotional link of fear with Hispanic immigrants. His statements were not backed up with fact and were actually proven to be blatantly wrong. According to the Washington Post, “a range of studies show there is no evidence immigrants commit more crimes than native-born Americans. In fact, first-generation immigrants are predisposed to lower crime rates than native-born Americans.” Trump’s immigration policy  is much more restrictive than Clinton’s. Because voters are driven by wishes, fears, and values, if he is able to create this link it will be of great benefit to him even though his statements have been proven as false. Those that he is able to successfully persuade to believe this will be in agreement with him.

The danger in this approach is that I do not believe enough voters will be persuaded by this fear-mongering, emotional tactic. Trump needs to go after the median voter in order to have a chance at the White House, and while emotion is a great strategy in getting support on the issue of immigration, having no facts at all to back up claims can make him seem uninformed and foolish to many voters he needs to win over. His strategy of emotion with lies will not be as effective as he believes.

Donald Trump’s immigration policies can be summed up in one word: extreme. He is literally advocating for the building of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and plans to have Mexico pay for it. These hardcore policies are killing him when it comes to Latino voters, whose votes he and the Republicans desperately need in order to take back the White House and to keep the Senate. The impression Trump is leaving on these voters could have lasting implications far beyond this election cycle and make it seemingly impossible for the Republican party revive this voter block they desperately need.

In 2004, Bush was able to win a narrow election because he was able to pull 40% of the Latino vote. That number of Latino votes has shrunk in every election since then for the Republicans, while the number of Latinos in America has continued to rise. Trump is projected to get below 20% of the Latino vote this upcoming election . In order for the Republicans to win elections this trend has to change. According to Pew, Latinos made up 17.3% of the U.S. population in 2014 and this number is projected to grow to 28.6% by 2060. By showing how drastically the demographics in the U.S. are changing, it further proves Republicans need these votes to stay relevant. It also shows how Trump’s extreme views could bring down the Republican Party. They can’t win without Latinos, and Latinos are not voting for Trump. GOP pollster Whit Ayres said, “After alienating so many nonwhite voters, Trump needs to win 65% of the white vote. Only one candidate has done that in the last 40 years, and that was Ronald Reagan in a 49-state landslide in 1984. It’s not going to happen.” Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan.

The Republican Party must find a way to distance itself from the extreme views of Trump, but this is very difficult to do while Trump is the face of the party. Paul Ryan and the rest of the leadership on the right must make it clear to the country, and to Latinos in particular, that Trump does not represent the party when it comes to immigration; they are not this extreme. If they fail at this then the Republican Party will be in a massive hole that may take decades to climb out of if it even can climb out. Donald Trump, at best, will hurt and inconvenience the Republican Party. At worst he could spell its downfall.