Demagoguery in immigration policies

Too often during Donald Trump’s presidential terms, the issue of immigration is highlighted to be the most alarming issue that needs to be addressed and handled. He expresses demagoguery in his speech and tactics, and let’s look at how or why.

The first way he displays demagoguery is by constructing an “us” vs. “them” foundation. By turning Americans against immigrants, by labeling all immigrants as criminals and a danger, he plays to people’s emotions. It is, therefore, represented as him prioritizing Americans’ safety by identifying a certain group as the enemy. Additionally, he invests most of his solutions into Homeland Security and prioritizes deporting immigrants. He has, since then, pushed changes like Real ID and proposal of the SAVE act, which will require Americans to go through additional required steps in order to register to vote. Furthermore, he and JD Vance have seemingly convinced people that undocumented immigrants being seen first at the emergency room is an additional issue for Americans, alongside immigrants “taking jobs” that belong to Americans. By following this path, he ensures people that agree with him that he is doing everything in his power to keep them “safe” from this danger that he has titled immigrants to be. When Patricia Roberts-Miller addresses this form of demagoguery, she writes, “If people decide to see things as a zero-sum game — the more they succeed, the more we lose, and we should rage about any call made against us, and cheer any call made against them— then democracy loses.” In this quote, let’s say the immigrants are the “them/they” and the Americans are the “we/us.” (Page 13)  The country has normalized being pit against one another, when in reality, we are all Americans.

However, this isn’t written to discuss political perspectives. Rather, let’s dive into how the President’s supporters are viewed as taking part in the current demagoguery. Roberts-Miller addresses this by comparing it to historical events, like the Holocaust, where we look back and can’t justify that people agreed with this, or genuinely supported it. If demagoguery was easy to spot while we were in it, then we would be proving Plutarch right. Unfortunately, it’s unfolding right before us, this time around, and luckily, no matter if we couldn’t prove it right away (considering that he won the presidency twice), people have proved to be more vocal than they were during times like the Holocaust. Page 27-28 say, “But what we don’t often do is imagine ourselves back in the moment and try to understand whether, in that time and with the information people had, we would have come to the same judgement as we do now. We don’t want to admit that smart and good people liked Hitler, or thought he was raw and crude but would be matured by responsibility, or that he didn’t really mean what he said, or that liberal democracy was dead and therefore fascism was the best choice, or that he could be controlled. Many smart people who didn’t want genocide stoked the fires of hatred, thinking it was a controlled burn. It wasn’t.” This section deliberately tells us as readers that we, unknowingly, get suckered into demagoguery, and when we realize, sometimes it is too late. It seems that the peak of America being suckered was the elections, and now we are dealing with the consequences. Families are being separated, injured, and held captive only for wanting a better life for their families. 

How could this have been approached differently? We have to pay more attention to policies instead of failing to separate the art from the artist. Rather than having our own mindset full of demagoguery, and continuously separating the good from the bad, just because that’s the side that we support, and everyone else is the side that we’re against, doesn’t justify the continuous dismissal. Rather, it would be in everyone’s best interest if we got to the root of the problem. Roberts-Miller writes, “We must also argue about the causes of the problem, because, despite what a lot of people believe — the right solution is rarely obvious —- solutions are directly related to the specific cause(s), and so we have to make sure we have the cause accurately described.” The author’s inclusion of this statement supports the needed awakening to shift our energy from defending one party to focusing on the root of the problem. The continuous defending of a politician only because they are from the party that we associate with can cause more harm than good. Not only does it misrepresent the people of the party, but also the beliefs. We must put all of that aside and focus on the Constitution and where we all can find our place under the law of the land.  In conclusion, the president’s efforts towards immigration has been a true example of demagoguery due to the delivery of the enforcement. Playing to people’s feelings and need for safety is all focused on them vs. us. This distorts people’s image of each other and a continuous trust in a president who mocks the needs of humans by labeling others as the enemy, when the enemy is truly the way the policies are being carried out.