As much as I disagree with Mr. Trump on the substance of his immigration plans, his uncompromising speech has the virtue of presenting Americans with a clear choice on the issue. The anti-immigration wing of the Republican Party has its man at the top of the ticket. Nov. 8 will be a test of whether their inward-looking, nativist vision of the party is a winning formula for a national election.
On the substance of his proposals, Mr. Trump’s argument relies on two big fallacies — that illegal immigrants make working Americans less well off, and that illegal immigrants are responsible for a wave of violent crime.
K. William Watson reacts to Trump’s recent visit to Mexico. A slice:
One big problem with this approach [of Trump to trade] is that there is no economically rational or morally justified line to tell us who belongs in the us group and who is them. Nationalism is a politically convenient sort of tribalism, but there’s no objective reason why Michigan and California should be considered economic friends on a team that fights against Mexico. Just as socialists have to claim that class lines are hard and objective, nationalists have to convince people that some lines on a map matter more than others.
Nick Gillespie ponders Clump’s proposed immigration restrictions.
David Boaz identifies some ominous parallels.
