Leave it to Donald Trump to know his audience, especially when this nation’s President is trying to work as hard as he can to change the narrative of his troubled administration. We have this theory that whenever Trump is in trouble, he finds a way to go to this base and begin spout the xenophobia and racism that basically got him elected.
Case in point: Tuesday’s speech in Youngstown, Ohio. Yeah, we know that Trump said a lot of things, but you would be a fool to think that his thoughts about “criminal immigrants” wasn’t red meat to his supporters. All you have to do is go to the video:
Or read what he (and his supporters) said in these two clips:
After spending billions of dollars defending other nations’ borders, we are finally defending our borders. (Build that wall! Build that wall!) Don’t even think about it, we will build the wall. Don’t even think about it. I watched the media as they say, well, he just had some fun during the campaign on the wall. That wasn’t fun, folks. We’re building that wall, and walls do work and we’re going to have great people come into our country, but we’re not going o put ourselves through the problems that we’ve had for so many years. After decades of rebuilding foreign nations, we are finally going to rebuild our nation. They’re pointing to a protester. Honestly, if you don’t point, nobody’s even going to know he’s here. Weak voice, weak voice, don’t worry. (USA! USA! USA!) Boy, he’s a young one. he’s going back home to mommy. Oh is he in trouble. He’s in trouble. He’s in trouble…
Because we’re going to bring back our jobs, bring back our wealth, and we are going to bring back our dreams, and we are going to bring back, once again our sovereignty as a nation. As a nation. Since I took office we have cut illegal immigration on our southern border by record numbers. 78%. (Build that wall.) Record, record numbers. And in fact, the ICE, folks I’ll tell you what, and the Border Patrol police, they are phenomenal people. They’re working with General Kelly. And just so you understand, we’ve already started fixing much of the good wall that’s already there. We’ve already started fixing it, but we are breaking records. And it was actually told to me the other day by somebody in Mexico that’s very high up, said it’s incredible because their southern border is getting very little traffic. Nobody is coming anymore because they know they can’t get through our southern border. So they don’t even come.
Never again will America surrender the security of our people, the safety of our communities or the sovereignty of our nation. We are cracking down hard on the foreign criminal gangs that have brought illegal drugs, violence, horrible bloodshed to peaceful neighborhoods all across our country. We are throwing MS-13 the hell out of here so fast. You know, we’re actually, hard to believe that we’re talking about our great country. We are actually liberating towns and cities. We are liberating, people are screaming from their windows, thank you, thank you to the Border Patrol and to General Kelly’s great people that come in and grab the thugs and throw them the hell out. We are liberating our towns and we are liberating our cities. Can you believe we have to do that? (Build that wall.)
Earlier in year and Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted the largest single raid of transnational gangs in the history of our country. We are dismantling and destroying the bloodthirsty criminal gangs, and well, I will just tell you in, we’re not doing it in a politically correct fashion. We’re doing it rough. Our guys are rougher than their guys. I asked one of our great generals, “how tough are our people? How tough are they?” He said, “sir, you don’t want to know about it.” Then I saw one guy come out, a customs officer who is a monster. I said, “so general, you think i could take that guy in a fight?” He said, “Mr. President, sir i don’t even want to think about it.” I said “you’re right, actually.” We have tough people. Our people are tougher than their people. Our people are tougher and stronger and meaner and smarter than the gangs. One by one we are finding the illegal gang members, drug dealers, thieves, robbers, criminals and killers. And we are sending them the hell back home where they came from. And once they are gone, we will never let them back in. Believe me.
The predators and criminal aliens who poison our communities with drugs and prey on innocent young people, these beautiful, beautiful, innocent young people will, will find no safe haven anywhere in our country. And you’ve seen the stories about some of these animals. They don’t want to use guns, because it’s too fast and it’s not painful enough. So they’ll take a young, beautiful girl, 16, 15, and others and they slice them and dice them with a knife because they want them to go through excruciating pain before they die. And these are the animals that we’ve been protecting for so long. Well, they’re not being protected any longer, folks.
And that is why my administration is launching a nationwide crackdown on sanctuary cities. American cities should be sanctuaries for law-abiding Americans, for people that look up to the law, for people that respect the law, not for criminals and gang members that we want the hell out of our country. Sanctuary cities legislation has passed the house, along with Kate’s Law, named for Kate Steinle, who was brutally killed by a five-time deported illegal immigrant. We are asking the Senate to vote on sanctuary cities and Kate’s Law legislation. We’ve got to get it passed.
The Trump administration has the backs of our ICE Officers, our border patrol agents. And yes, our great police officers. And we have their backs 100%. We are going to also protect them, like they protect us. This month in Chicago, there have been more than 2 homicide victims per day. What the hell is going on in Chicago? Better tell that Mayor to get tough, because it’s not working what they’re doing. We are going to get criminals off our streets. And we are going to make America safe again. We also strongly believe that our borders must always be closed to terrorism and extremism. We don’t want radical Islamic terrorists in our country. We’ve seen the total devastation in Europe. And the murderous attacks from New York to Boston to San Bernardino.
Exactly one year ago next month, I came right here to Youngstown to deliver a major address on how my administration would protect our country from terrorism and radical Islamic terrorism. We only want to admit those into our country who share our values, who love our people and who always will love our people. We don’t want people coming into our country who have bad intentions even before they start. We also believe that those seeking to immigrate into our country should be able to support themselves financially and should not be able to use welfare for themselves or the household for a period of at least five years.
As we speak, we are working with two wonderful senators, Tom Cotton and David Purdue, to create a new immigration system for America. Instead of today’s low-skill system, just a terrible system where anybody comes in. People that have never worked, people that are criminals, anybody comes in. We want a merit-based system. One that protects workers our workers, our taxpayers, and one that protects our economy. We want it merit-based. We want people that work really hard in their country and that are going to come into our country and work really, really hard. We don’t want people that come into our country and immediately go on welfare and stay there for the rest of their lives. We’re not going to do it.
This type of speech makes Trump’s initial campaign speech from two years ago feel like a G-rated movie. The President is even more dangerous than ever, showing no regret in even admitting that 95% of what he is saying when it comes to immigration is just bullshit to rile up his overwhelmingly white audience.
Yet what is even more sad is how we as a country don’t even get riled up about it any more. We are not saying that Trump’s tweet about transgender people in the armed forces should not have been covered by media, but let’s be real: this week, which issue got more airplay in the news media? You don’t have to answer, because deep down, you are probably reading this and thinking, “Hey, wait a minute, maybe Trump is right about immigrants.” (He’s not.) That’s the bigger issue here—Trump has riled up the immigration lies so much that no one really questions it any more.
For example, the Twitter accounts of @UnidosUS (formerly NCLR), @LULAC, @MALDEF, @NHLAgenda didn’t call out Trump’s Ohio words of hate this week. Why not? Have we all resigned ourselves to the normalization of these type of language and actions?
This is not the moment to stay silent.
Or else it will be too late. Because if there is anything the Trump Administration is hoping for right now, is to get people all fearful of immigrants. You don’t think so? Check out Thursday’s White House press briefing.
The marauding Central American Islamic MS-13 Gang Members are already here! Run!
