Trump is Gonna End America’s 4 Years of Decline – By Deporting People

So, in a sense, Trump will end what he sees as 4 years of decline, given that he never accepted his defeat in the 2020 election. The fact that he wasn’t defeated in the 2024 election must automatically mean to him that someone’s decline has been arrested. And that someone would be Trump himself.

Since anything and everything in Trump’s world is about Trump, his most recent election to the office of President of the United States must mean that happy days are here again. Kind of. Because it does not seem that Trump is capable of being actually happy for more than 7 minutes at a time.

Trump’s default mode involves impractical displays of ego, and ego displays aren’t nearly as much fun as they look. Ego displays are actually defense mechanisms designed to stave off death, exile, or prison. Having to spend your entire day and night, every day, defending yourself against the specters of death, exile, and prison is much less fun than almost anything. Except, you know, death, exile and prison.

Still, I would imagine he would find it validating to see everyone bending to him, proving his philosophy of life, which is that if he never bends, everyone else will.

So… he’s going to repay the bending of the American electorate, such as it happened to be in November 2024, by… deporting a lot of people.

This deportation business brings out what appears to me to be some of the greatest idiocies of American politics. Or American culture. Or American media. Or American public life. Or whatever combination of things about America it is that sucks so bad it’s impossible to describe how badly it sucks.

America’s Immigration-Related Idiocy is Not Just About Trump

Now I’m not saying America is alone in its immigration-related idiocy. Great Britain put on some really impressive shows of idiocy what with Brexit and the Tories.

But that’s a topic for another day. Today, we need to talk about American idiocy. And American common sense as well. Cuz that exists too.

American Immigration-Related Idiotic Idea #1: Immigrants are terrible, terrible people selling drugs and raping people and murdering women and stuff. Deportation will fix that!

American Immigration-Related Idiotic Idea #2: Immigrants are wonderful, wonderful people paying taxes and contributing so much to America. All immigrants should be welcomed with open arms!

Depressing Immigration-Related Reality: Immigrants are people. They are neither terrible nor wonderful. They’re just people. There are advantages and disadvantages to immigration and specifics make a difference.

And, here’s the kicker, it doesn’t matter where or when or who or even what reasons why are given – nobody anywhere in the entire world likes to feel overrun with immigrants of any kind. People don’t like feeling overrun with newcomers no matter who those newcomers are or what they are like. It does not matter how much you scream or whisper about human rights and compassion and economic benefits and whatnot. If there are enough immigrants in a given locality to make the locals feel like things are rapidly changing – the locals ain’t gonna like it. That’s life. That’s human nature. It hasn’t changed in recorded history, and it ain’t changing now.

And yet –

Not So Depressing Immigration-Related Reality: If the immigrant in question is an immigrant – as opposed to a bunch of immigrants, then if said immigrant is polite and says things like ‘thank you’ – then people like immigrants. When people look at individual immigrants, they like them. That is, they like them if they’re doing good things, or even halfway decent things. Even Trump likes them. A lot.

People like individuals. It’s clumps they can’t stand. Thick hairy clumps of ‘someone else-ness’ fill the human heart with anxiety, irritation, and a desire to defend territory. Individuals fill the human heart with compassion, mercy, and a desire to eat their delicious-looking food.

You might think – that since these realities have been observable for thousands of years that people who hog the immigration-related microphone might get a clue and acknowledge that a manageable dose of immigration is great and an unmanageable dose of anything – including immigration – is unmanageable.

Actually you wouldn’t think that, because it wouldn’t occur to you. It wouldn’t occur to you because sensible shit like that has no place in current media.

The reality of how people look at immigration is playing out all over the country, it seems. People that are dead set on deporting people are the same people – yes the very same people – who have married immigrants, legal or otherwise. Who hire immigrants – legal or otherwise. Who like individual immigrants legal or otherwise. Many of these people think that deportation will naturally mean that only the bad people who don’t say politely say thank you and do good stuff are gonna get deported.

Large deportation campaigns have never, so far as I can tell, played out that way before. Mass deportation means capturing polite people who say thank you and do good stuff. Mass deportation means capturing people who are in the country legally.

Despite what Trump implies, mass deportation means economic harm to the people who are in favor of mass deportation.

The track record of mass deportations is not of ending decline. In fact, the track record of mass deportations is not great – unless you’re a big fan of failure. Some people are big fans of failure, and they may get a kick out of mass deportations just cuz they get a kick out of stuff like that.

Now, would a policy that was a bit less – um, deportation-y help with the problems that mass immigration causes people who have to deal with an influx of newcomers?

How about a policy of gradually closing down immigration until the places handling large influxes of newcomers have time to adjust? How about gradually halting immigration until the immigration courts have cleared their backlog?

Nice try. Such a policy would probably be quite a bit less controversial and waaaaaaay less expensive than mass deportations. But it would probably also be too little too late.

The US screwed itself over big time by bending to anti-immigration extremists at the start of this century and not getting immigration reform done under Bush when the time was ripe. It’s reaping the consequences now.

The decline of America, such as it is, is here for the long haul. And now matter how pleased Trump might be to stave off death, exile, and prison – he ain’t gonna reverse said decline. If anything, he will probably energetically accelerate it.

You can choose to get pretty fed up about that if you please – or not.