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.
After reading this and actually facing the election results, I am more in shock than ever. I had no idea as to how Trump spent his last days of campaigning. With his victory, I figured that he would have spent his last few days trying to revive his reputation amongst the immigrants / Latino community, instead. I suppose it doesn’t matter though! Despite the crimes that white men have committed, which outnumber “Illegals” crime rate by nearly triple, ignorance was clearly bliss in this campaign.