“If Liberals Won’t Enforce Borders, Fascists Will.”
So warned my colleague David Frum in the headline of an April 2019 article about America’s failure to control mass immigration. “Demagogues rise by talking about issues that matter to people, and that more conventional leaders appear unwilling or unable to address,” he wrote. “If difficult issues go unaddressed by responsible leaders, they will be exploited by irresponsible ones.”
That thesis looked shaky in 2020. Voters declined to reelect Donald Trump; for the first time in more than 50 years, Gallup found that Americans who wanted immigration to increase outnumbered those who wanted it to decrease––a seeming rebuke of Trump’s cruel family-separation policy and attacks on Mexicans and Muslims––and that 77 percent said immigration is a good thing for the United States. Then Joe Biden failed to control the southern border and presided over record surges in unlawful entries. By 2024, a majority wanted less immigration, Trump won the presidency while promising the biggest mass deportation in U.S. history, and an analysis of why voters rejected Kamala Harris found that “too many immigrants crossed the border” was nearly tied for the top reason.
Today, Frum’s warning seems prescient: The Trump administration has deployed a force of aggressive masked officers onto American streets while promising “retribution.” They’ve detained, pepper-sprayed, assaulted, shot, and killed Americans. And high-ranking officials have repeatedly gotten caught lying about events captured by citizen video footage.
A majority now disapproves of Trump’s
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