exico, remarkably, is a word that is barely being mentioned in the lead up to the . It is not being discussed much on the , even though the southern border and immigration are in the contest. It takes two sides to have a border, but U.
S. political discourse these days treats the 2,000-mile-border with Mexico as if it were the wardrobe leading to Narnia, or the edge of the known world represented by dragons on maps from antiquity. Pet-eating dragons, in Donald Trump’s narrative.
Who knows, really, what we’re bordering. Our southern neighbor and top trading partner was mentioned once in passing in the , and only in the context of auto manufacturing and trade policy. There was no mention of outgoing ; the years of wrangling with his administration over various aspects of immigration policy; Mexico’s or the of President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum; the of the USMCA trade agreement that must occur by 2026, the around combating cartel drug lords.
specific. It’s not surprising that talk about the border and immigration no longer borders anything resembling the real world. From the very day announced his first presidential run in June 2015, he has ruthlessly demonized immigrants as mystical, treacherous scapegoats for all our ills.
And regardless of how much Trump’s of Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating pets gets mocked, or how he fares at the ballot box in November, the sad truth is that he has succeeded in shifting the center of gravity on immigration in our politics. All side.