The events of the last week have been truly extraordinary. Last week President Trump began to roll out his overall plan to secure our borders and prevent the entry into this country of those believed to be a risk to our safety and security. Admittedly, the roll out could have been better executed, and one can only hope that when other parts of the “plan” are rolled out, the administration will do a better job in doing so. But, what about the overall policies upon which President Trump’s plan is based?
Describing the reaction of the Left Media, the National Democratic Party, the Hollywood Left, and the remaining usual suspects on the Left to these policies as “apoplectic” would be a significant understatement. There have been demonstrations. There have been riots. Madonna famously shared her fantasy of blowing up the White House. One former member of the Obama Administration suggested a coup d’état to remove President Trump from Office. The article reporting same can be found here. Not to be outdone, one of the usual suspects on the Hollywood Left (and yes, I know that I repeat myself) made the same suggestion, and the article reporting same can be found here.
The Left is prone to blame the many failures of the Obama Administration on its failure to adequately communicate to the public what it wanted to do and why – which is particularly ironic given that Obama never seemed to stop talking. Therefore, perhaps the Left’s opposition to President Trump’s immigration policies is likewise a failure by him to adequately communicate with them. If so, then that failure can be solved in the manner in which Obama attempted to solve problems, by giving a speech. Maybe then the Left will cease its call for the horrors that inevitably follow from the violent overthrow of a government. The speech that I envision President Trump giving would look something like the following:
All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected, but in every place in this country are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal immigrants entering our country. The jobs that they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public services that they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That’s why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders, by hiring a record number of border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, and by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens. In the budget I present to you, we will do more to speed the deportation of aliens who have committed crimes, and to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace, as recommended by the commission headed by former congresswoman Barbara Jordan. We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of immigration laws that we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.
I must confess that the preceding speech was not authored by me. But then, who spoke these words? Adolf Hitler? Genghis Kahn? Donald Trump? While the Left is so overwhelmed with Trump Derangement Syndrome that they would likely claim “all three”, they would be wrong. The speaker was none other than President Bill Clinton in a State of the Union Address, the video for which can be found here. When he finished, he was given a standing ovation. In the speech, President Clinton explicitly recognized that illegal immigration was a major problem, and that the country was “rightly” disturbed by it.
In order to address this major problem – which warranted inclusion in a State of the Union Address, President Clinton explicitly promised to do the following:
- Move aggressively to secure our borders;
- Crack down on the hiring of illegal aliens;
- Deny welfare benefits to illegal aliens; and
- Do more to speed the deportation of aliens who have committed crimes.
President Clinton emphasized that we are a “nation of laws” that need to be enforced, and that “it is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of immigration laws that we have seen in recent years.”
Moreover, the policies that President Clinton promised to implement were based upon the recommendations of a Bipartisan Commission. That Bipartisan Commission was headed by Barbara Jordan, Texas Congresswoman (D), who was a very prominent African-American Civil Rights Leader. Here is the full Commission Report, and here is a much shorter Executive Summary of the full Report.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t recall either President Clinton or Barbara Jordan being called a Fascist, a Racist, or a Xenophobe. I also don’t recall the Left Media demonizing Barbara Jordan’s Bipartisan Commission for its recommendations, or attempting to delegitimize President Clinton due to his stated intention of following the recommendations of that same Commission. Finally, I also don’t recall the Hollywood Left or anyone from the preceding administration calling for the violent overthrow of the government.
In the intervening years, the problems identified by the Bipartisan Commission, and addressed by President Clinton in his State of the Union Address have become even more severe, especially during the Obama Years when existing laws were not adequately enforced – if they were enforced at all. All of the immigration and border control policies which President Trump now seeks to implement are philosophically based upon the same reasoning used by President Clinton in his State of the Union Address, by Barbara Jordan in her Commission Report, and largely involve the enforcement of existing laws.
Such policies enjoyed broad bipartisan support during the Clinton Administration, and within the Democratic Party. It would be good for the country if the Left Media, the Democratic Party, and the Hollywood Left admitted as much. But then again, what the Left Media, Democratic Party, and Hollywood Left are now doing has nothing to do with what is good for this Country. What they are doing has everything to do with their continuing efforts to delegitimize President Trump, the best interests of this country be damned.