As I wrote last time, the Democrats have been reluctant to directly challenge Donald Trump’s stated goal of deporting 20 million or more legal and illegal immigrants from the country, rooted in a political calculus that their party is perceived as weak on immigration and it’s best not to fight on weak ground. But as I wrote then, and am even more convinced of now, Trump’s vow to ethnically cleanse the nation of brown-skinned immigrants is inextricably tied up with his and the GOP’s goals of putting non-white American citizens in a subordinate place. The deportation plan is in essence a gateway to enacting a deeply white supremacist vision of American that uses the wedge issue of anti-immigrant sentiment to redefine the nature of American society: from a nation of immigrants to a nation of “blood and soil” sentiment, where the only real Americans are those whose families have been here for generations, and from a nation aiming towards multiracial democracy to one that is dedicated to the maintenance of morally indefensible white supremacy. Unchallenged, the extreme notion of deporting millions upon millions of people — an action that would inevitably tear apart families that include American citizens as well — itself validates Trump’s claims that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of our country; otherwise, why on earth would Trump be claiming that such extreme measures are needed?
So it caught my attention the other day when former president Barack Obama, campaigning in support of the Harris-Walz ticket, took aim at Trump’s threatened mass deportations. While it wasn’t an all-out attack, Obama showed at least one way forward for Democrats to engage. Crucially, he tied the deportation threats to Trump and Vance’s desire to deflect attention from their lack of viable plans on a host of issues, from health care to housing. Obama told the audience that when they’re challenged, they always fall back on the same answer — immigrants — and that “if you elect [Trump] he will just round up whoever he wants and ship them out and all your problems will be solved.” On the one hand, Obama’s remarks reinforce the importance of denying the GOP free rein to say whatever it wants about immigration, since immigration is indeed the party’s catch-all explanation and justification for a host of indefensible policy ideas (such as they are). On the other, they show that it’s indeed possible for Democrats to attack Trump’s anti-immigrant animus and deportation plans through common-sense language, as Obama went on to talk about fair immigration that helps build the country without demonizing undocumented immigrants. Instead, he framed the situation on the border as one requiring us to make sure that immigration across the border is “orderly” and “fair,” and segued into talking about how Donald Trump blocked passage of a law to do just that.
I’m not saying that Democrats should pivot to talking about immigration 24/7, particularly as Trump’s mental decline and fully-unveiled fascism seem more productive targets in the final weeks of this election. But because Trump’s war on immigrants is so tied up with his war on American democracy and equality, it seems like a lost opportunity to not engage more fully on just how cruel Trump’s plans are, and how they are meant to distract from a host of GOP failures and bad ideas in multiple realms. Obama showed that there’s a way to talk about immigration and deportation that can unravel the GOP’s lies; surely the Harris campaign can figure out some similarly productive approaches that doesn’t cede such enormous ground to Trump.