Trump’s Ignoring Our Real ‘National Emergies’

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/opinion/migrant-caravan-trump.html

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It’s not about immigration. It’s about bigotry.

That’s the real story — to the extent there is a story at all — about the caravan of 5,000 impoverished Central Americans rampaging toward the United States border at, er, two miles an hour.

President Trump, ever the champion speller, declares this to be a “National Emergy”! He may call out the Army! He’s talking about sealing the border!

So, here’s some perspective, by my back-of-envelope calculations:

More than 1.4 million foreigners immigrate to the United States each year. If, say, half the caravan reaches the border, and half of those people actually enter the U.S., they would represent less than one-tenth of 1 percent of this year’s immigrants.

If the caravan proceeds by foot, during the period of its journey 16,800 Americans will die from drugs.

In the period of the caravan’s journey, perhaps 690,000 Americans will become homeless, including 267,000 children.

In the period of the caravan’s journey, 8,850 Americans will die from guns, including suicides and murders.

In the period of the caravan’s journey, perhaps 9,000 Americans will die from lack of health insurance (people die at higher rates when they’re uninsured, although there’s disagreement about how much higher).

Maybe the real “National Emergy” is drugs, homelessness, gun deaths and lack of health insurance?

Trump’s trumpeting isn’t protecting America, and the number of people is so modest that the issue isn’t really even immigration. Rather, it’s fearmongering. Scholars have found that reminding people of dangers makes them temporarily more conservative, so this kind of manipulation can be an effective campaign tactic.

Remember the 2014 midterm elections? This is a replay. In the run-up to voting, Republicans ratcheted up fears of a “border crisis” with terrorists sneaking in from Mexico to attack us, plus alarm about Ebola and the risk that the outbreak in West Africa could reach America.

“President Obama, you are a complete and total disaster, but you have a chance to do something great and important: STOP THE FLIGHTS!” tweeted Donald Trump at the time. His public health vision: Let Ebola destroy Africa and much of the rest of the world, but try to seal off the United States from infection.

Trump also tweeted then that if a New York physician who returned from West Africa developed Ebola (as he later did), “then Obama should apologize to the American people & resign.” And a Fox News contributor, Dr. Keith Ablow, said in a radio broadcast that Obama maybe wanted Americans to suffer Ebola because his “affiliations” were with Africa rather than America.

In the 2014 elections, Republican candidates ran hundreds of ads denouncing the Obama administration’s handling of Ebola. News organizations chronicled this “debate,” but in retrospect they were manipulated into becoming a channel to spread fear — and win Republican votes.

Politically, this was quite effective, and Republicans won sweeping gains across the country and seized control of the Senate. Yet Ebola, like the Central American caravan, is a reminder of the distinction between grandstanding and governing.

Obama’s technocratic Ebola program — working with France and Britain, plus private aid groups — may have worried voters, but it was effective. Instead of careening around the world to kill millions and devastate the global economy, the Ebola virus was contained and eventually burned out. Good governance often turns out to be bad politics, and vice versa.

The same is true of immigration.

Perhaps the approach with the best record is aid programs to curb gang violence in countries like Honduras, to reduce the factors that lead people to attempt the dangerous journey to the United States. Yet it’s not tangible and doesn’t impress voters. So Trump instead is talking about an expensive wall and about cutting aid to Central America, even though this would magnify the crisis there and probably lead more people to flee north.

“Cutting off U.S. aid to these humanitarian organizations will just push more children into desperation and silence the most persistent voices for reform,” said Kevin Ryan, president of Covenant House, which assists children in the United States and Central America. “It’s exactly the wrong move.”

I fear that we in the media have become Trump’s puppets, letting him manipulate us to project issues like the caravan onto the agenda.

Trump is right that, although there’s no evidence of it, “there could very well be” Middle Easterners hiding in the caravan. It’s equally true that the Easter Bunny “could very well be” in the caravan. Speaking of Easter, Jesus Christ “could very well be” in the caravan.

So let’s stop freaking out about what “could very well be” and focus on facts. Here are two: First, the Caravan won’t make a bit of difference to America. Second, we have other problems to focus on, from drugs to homelessness to health care, that genuinely constitute a “National Emergy.”

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