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Painful

Yesterday Donald Trump lied about what Mexican President Peña Nieto said to him about paying for the border wall (Clinton has been quick to grab that opportunity), then gave a speech on immigration so full of exaggerations and misconceptions that it takes quite a while to read the fact-checking. That was all par for the course. Trump’s campaign is shameless in bending the truth to his bleak conception of the world.

The painful part is this: immigration is not one of America’s big problems. Illegal immigration, in particular from Mexico, is way down.  More Mexicans have been leaving than arriving. Enforcement at the border is up. Do what you like about the 11 million undocumented immigrants, it isn’t going to cut the violent crime rate, which is also way down,

or significantly boost low-wage employment. American demographic growth, largely due to its Hispanic population, is one of the saving factors in our economic situation compared to the rest of the world, as it helps to sustain growth in demand that is sorely lacking in Europe, Russia, and even China.

Even Trump’s talk about immigration isn’t really about immigration. It’s about giving working class whites good excuses for why they are economically unsuccessful. Truth is the lower “middle class” (working class for the rest of the world) hasn’t seen any big increases in its net income for almost 40 years. That however is largely due to technological change and tax policies, in particular the Republican effort to lower taxes on upper “middle class” (aka rich) guys like me. I much appreciate that of course, but I won’t vote for it because of its consequences for my fellow Americans.

Too bad so many of them don’t see it the same way. Instead they look to a really rich guy, who is proud of his use of tax loopholes available only to the wealthy, to save them from the likes of Hillary Clinton, who wants to lower taxes and improve services to working class people. But those working class people, many of our white, male fellow citizens believe, are black and Hispanic. Splitting the working class along racial lines is a well-worn technique in American politics. It’s how the wealthy stay in power, and wealthy.

Trump is using this technique in ways that many thought were outmoded. He has learned how to express racist views in ways that the press will cover and his white supremacist supporters will cheer. That’s what building the wall is all about. It would have cost close to $5000 per illegal immigrant currently in the US, assuming had been 100% effective and came in at the $25 billion estimate everyone seems to assume. Clearly the wall is not the most economical way to block Mexicans, but it is a politically acceptable way to express hostility towards them.

The wall is of course not Trump’s only proposition. He also wants a “values” test for Muslims. This revival of the Cold War McCarran Act is almost laughable. Many people at Trump’s rallies wouldn’t meet my own values test, which would be based simply on the proposition that all people are created equal. That would include gays, lesbians, and transgender people as well as Muslims, Hispanics, blacks and others who are few and far between among Trump’s cheering crowds. I wonder why that is.

All this painful stuff is of course being broadcast not only in the US but also abroad. Trump doesn’t have to get elected to cause serious damage to America. He is of course entitled to his views, but I am also entitled to protest that he in no way speaks for me or the America I cherish. Still, it’s painful.