There’s been a lot of softening this week, but expectations that Trump’s immigration speech will actually firm up any details on his proposed policy, are likely to be disappointed.
You’ve probably heard a lot of people say that Donald Trump is “softening” on immigration. But this doesn’t reflect a meaningful shift in Trump’s priorities as much as it reflects a clever rhetorical trick his campaign has been playing. That should become clear when he delivers his speech on the issue tomorrow, though he may well try to keep this trick going.
Even though Team Trump has sacrificed a whole boogle of weasels (and yes, that’s the real group name for weasels) to get all the words they needed to describe Trump’s policy over the last two weeks, the truth is Trump isn’t changing anything. As the ever headache-inducing Kelly Pierson has said, Trump has “just changed the words he's saying."
Yes, he has. He’s put down his spittle-filled Trumpet and rooted around in drawers to find some of those underused dog whistles, substituting the same kind of mealy terms that previous Republicans have used when they wanted to relay policy that was both racist and unworkable.
Here’s MSNBC touching on all the points Donald Trump must hit in tonight’s speech.
What, precisely, does Trump propose doing with the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants living in the United States, especially those who are law abiding and have lived in the country for years and years? If they must go, how do you accomplish it? If they must go, how do you pay for it? Is Trump 100% certain on ending birthright citizenship?How many of those points Trump will actually touch on tonight? That would be zero.