Special Report: How Republicans are using immigration to scare voters to the polls

Reuters ^ | October 26, 2018 | By Joseph Tanfani, Jason Lange and Letitia Stein

[Oldeconomybuyer]

The commercial opens with an appeal to fear: a hoodie-wearing man prowling an alley, knife in hand. His face remains hidden but the ad makes it clear: He’s an illegal immigrant.

“We need tough immigration enforcement to keep dangerous criminals out,” says the ad by a national conservative political group, part of an effort to help a Republican challenger, Mike Braun, oust a Democratic incumbent in Indiana and capture a U.S. Senate seat in November’s congressional elections.

As they try to hang on to control of Congress, Republican candidates are following the lead of President Donald Trump and turning to rhetoric about immigrants as a tactic to motivate voters.

The anti-immigration rhetoric, advertisements and campaign events, combined with the party’s embrace of Trump’s immigration crackdown, represent a dramatic evolution of Republicanism under Trump. Anti-immigration themes now dominate a party that for decades was defined by fiscal, social and national security conservatism.

As recently as 2013, when the Senate passed an immigration bill with bipartisan support, a significant portion of the Republican Party backed immigration reform - including a path to citizenship for some of the 12 million people living in the United States illegally. But those voices have been mostly silenced since the rise of Trump, drowned out by his statements decrying “amnesty for illegals” and “chain migration,” his term for the longstanding U.S. policy that allows legal immigrants to bring family members into the country.

[throwback]

I believe illegal immigration is the modern proxy for military invasions from previous generations. Competing nations cannot overcomes us by military or economic means, so they encourage unskilled low wage labor to invade us. If they can turn North America into South America, the United States will eventually slip from being a World Power.

[antidemoncrat]

Grade “A” BS

[trebb]

And the Dems’ message is, “Hey kid, it’s OK to touch that stove to see if it’s hot...and picking up snakes to see if they bite is fine too...it only hurts for a little while....”