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 2nd 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 8th?
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.