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Emil Guillermo: Fear the blurts, not just the tweets on Greenland, public charge, recession, and now birthright citizenship
If you were an Asian American dreaming of an Asian Woman vs. Asian Woman, Elephant vs. Donkey battle royale for the presidency in 2020 in the form of Nikki Haley vs. Kamala Harris, well, you can forget it.
Haley, who occasionally speaks her mind against Trump, is still firmly within the GOP fold, reports New York Magazine. She’s all in for Trump-Pence 2020.
But who else is, after a classic few weeks of Trumpster fires?
Where are the real patriots out to defend the Constitution, democracy, and the American ideal?
Trump proves that it’s not what keeps you up at 3 am that we should be concerned about.
It’s the random blurts that can happen at any time. Not just tweets. Blurts. This is the Trump style.
More on the Squad? Anti-semitic remarks about Jews? More do-tell from the “Chosen One?” Now there’s a cry for a psychological assessment. The man’s coming undone, or trying to shoot his way out of a corner.
Here’s a tidbit from this week you may have missed..
Trump said Wednesday that he’s looking into ending birthright citizenship—by executive order.
“Birthright citizenship, where you have a baby on our land–walk over the border, have a baby, congratulations, the baby’s now a U.S. citizen,” Trump told reporters at the White House, which was reported on a pro-Trump financial website. “We are looking at birthright citizenship very seriously. It’s frankly ridiculous.”
Of course, this is a legacy issue for Asian Americans. (See my piece on Wong Kim Ark here.)
Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. But Trump wants to do away with it like a king—by executive action.
Forget about all of us. Trump needs to know he’d risk upsetting all the Russians who run the baby tourism industry that promise a pregnant visitor a guaranteed delivered American.
This is the shotgun approach of Trump. The dude is a bucket full of buckshot, wildly shooting at anything.
And he means it. Mostly. Then he doesn’t mean it. Remember his comment about cutting payroll taxes—which funds Social Security?
Trump goes back and forth and thinks out loud as if it has no bearing.
But everyone’s on high alert, because it’s not some shock jock talk host–this is the president speaking.
I took some time off following the Trump nonsense right when he announced his administration’s public charge rule, which would prevent legal immigrants from getting permanent resident status if they were potential beneficiaries of public benefits. It’s the rich immigrants only policy. Since then, the attack on immigrants has only gotten worse. There’s been a new regulation announced to allow the indefinite detention of migrant families crossing the border. If it is allowed, it will essentially mean the creation of family jails for migrants.
I spent my time away poring over that public charge idea affecting legal immigrants. Turns out the policy change doesn’t come cheap, at least $35 million annually, with new direct costs at around $352,026.98 for ten years. Even with discounts, hundreds of millions on a hateful capricious whim?
Hate policy is not cheap.
In the meantime, what may be driving all this is the news of a potential recession, which is anathema to the Trump idea that the U.S. economy is going great and has never been better.
Forget that a third of economists are predicting a downturn. Forget that the federal deficit is growing at an alarming rate. Giving tax cuts does that. The Congressional Budget Office puts the U.S. in the red by $960 billion for the 2019 fiscal year, and $1 trillion by 2020.
What did you expect? This is the Trump way. Remember, his business resume includes bankrupting a casino in Atlantic City. Bankrupting the United States is a feather in his cap.
Oh, and where are all those Tea Party folks who argued for deficit reduction? Hiding behind the Religious Right? Or the White Supremacists?
If you want to ignore the deficit, here’s another set of numbers nobody is talking about.
The typical benchmark for safety is the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield, which is about 1.65%
But compare that to the inflation rate: 1.81%
So you can sit in safety and still be a loser. That’s the state of our economy. Add all the rest and Trump, and we didn’t even mention trade wars with China and whether Asian Americans will be confused with Asians. Things could get a whole lot worse than they are right now.
If you were hoping for sanity among Republicans, Nikki Haley’s allegiance to Trump is very disappointing. Who’s leading the charge for conservatives? Anthony Scaramucci?
The numbers do show, however, a real discontent, with Trump’s disapproval number at 62 percent. Rats like a sinking ship?
But if the numbers go any lower, who knows what we can expect.
A war with Greenland? Does anyone remember Grenada? Oct. 25, 1983, the U.S. was involved in a 4-day invasion under Reagan. Stranger things can happen with Trump at the helm.
I’ve tried to resist commenting on Greenland, because, like many of you, I thought it was a joke. Then over the weekend it wasn’t. Just a real estate inquiry, said Trump advisors, which the Danish prime minister called “absurd.”
Trump got huffy and called the prime minister “nasty.” And who knows.
Grenada here we come?
I thought that the whole thing exposing the colonial nature of the Danes was bad enough. The best stories on the matter actually showed people from Greenland–mostly Inuits, native people like the Inuits of Alaska, who look Asian.
That’s what was offensive. That The Donald thought nothing of the people of Greenland, just the land, and that he’d simply kick out the people who came with the land. A colonial, empirical Trump, as if Puerto Rico and the territories aren’t enough. Can it get any worse?
What will his base say about adding to the Inuit American population?
The real fear is that Trump is showing the world that our country, which should know better and do better, has no clue.
With a leader like Trump, all the values we hold dear are out the window.
Economic recession? We have a dangerous leadership recession.
Emil Guillermo is an independent journalist/commentator. Updates at www.amok.com. Follow Emil on Twitter, and like his Facebook page.
The views expressed in his blog do not necessarily represent AALDEF’s views or policies.
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