Tuesday, October 4, 2016

The Atlantic: Trump's Immigration Policy Trap


It’s not that Trump never discussed deportation during the primaries. Over the course of hundreds of interviews, he was occasionally forced to admit that, yes, he would send all the undocumented home. But he discussed the topic as little as possible, for the same reason he avoided discussions of how to end the civil war in Syria and how to design a conservative replacement for Obamacare: He couldn’t condense his answer into an appealing bumper sticker. For months and months, Trump watched his GOP opponents discuss such topics as he soared above them in the polls. If they, who actually knew something about government, couldn’t spin policy flax into electoral gold, why on earth would he, a policy ignoramus, try?

Why is Trump now ensnared in the very net he avoided for so long? Because Kellyanne Conway, who specializes in making conservative politicians appealing to moderate female voters, decided that in order to soften Trump’s image, she needed to soften his immigration policy. What she appears not to have realized is that softening Trump’s immigration policy requires actually formulating one, something The Donald had wisely avoided for more than a year.

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