The former president reportedly plans on utilizing the military to enforce immigration policies and erecting deportation camps along the border.
Donald Trump isn’t only looking to reinstate the extreme, anti-immigration policies of his first term if he wins in November; he is seeking to take things a step further. “We have to do something about it,” Trump told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in a town hall Tuesday, repeating his ugly 2015 claim that other countries are “not sending their finest” to the United States. “We have the worst border in the history of the world.”
Claiming that countries are “emptying out their prisons” into the U.S., Trump reiterated his plans to carry out mass deportations, which he has promised on the campaign trail would be the “largest” in American history. Of course, he was vague on the details, telling Ingraham that he would “get the bad ones out first,” which he’d find using “local police.”
Nevertheless, the remarks provided yet another glimpse into the radical border policies he’d pursue in a second term—which, as the Washington Post reported Wednesday, could include mobilizing the military for immigration enforcement and the establishment of deportation camps along the border. “Americans can expect that immediately upon President Trump’s return to the Oval Office, he will restore all of his prior policies, implement brand new crackdowns that will send shock waves to all the world’s criminal smugglers, and marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation in American history,” campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told the outlet. Undocumented immigrants “should not get comfortable,” she added, “because very soon they will be going home.”
Let me give you a little dose of realism.
We are long past the point where voting in a presidential election can disrupt the status quo.
Under the current circumstances, voting in the presidential can never be anything more than harm reduction. There are only 3 options when it comes to voting:
Vote for Trump and accelerate the US decline to neofascism.
Throw away your vote on a 3rd party candidate who will never - and could never - win, likely contributing to the decline since conservatives are considerably less likely to vote 3rd party.
Vote for Biden to stave off the decline as much as possible while pursuing other means of affecting change.
Even if a large enough number voted 3rd party to make Democrats take notice, the Democrats are not going to change in any meaningful way. The best they will give us is more of the same, paying lip service to leftist ideas while compromising with corporations and the right at every possible opportunity.
If you want things to change in this country you need to protest, engage in direct action and mutual aid, unionize, and do everything you can think of to create and grow alternative institutions of power.
Edit to include voting in primaries and voting local if you live in an area where that could possibly help.