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.