The Weird Obsession with Vilifying Immigrants, the GOP’s Biggest Current Weakness?
GOP embraces a radical agenda and dehumanizing rhetoric, while Harris leans in and goes on the offensive on immigration.
Demagoguing immigrants is the cornerstone of the Republicans' electoral play. Spending a quarter of a billion dollars on nativist tv ads so far this year or the “Mass Deportation Now!” signs gleefully waved at the Republican National Convention should dispel any doubts otherwise. The GOP is so confidently committed to this strategy that there is little in the way of challenging its efficacy.
Meanwhile, most of the political media is willingly accepting the framing from Republicans that one of the biggest challenges facing Kamala Harris is the border. On Sunday, Politico, with the help of some conservative Democratic voices, framed the Harris campaign’s “biggest current weakness: the border.” Taking for granted that the GOP’s nativist attack strategy is one that only presents vulnerabilities for Harris and Democrats.
But is this conventional wisdom true?
We don’t think so. Nor apparently does the Harris campaign, as evidenced by her coming out of the gate swinging on the issue. In a new ad and at a campaign rally, Harris highlighted the Republican-negotiated border bill that Trump killed to frame him as a fraud on the issue. Trump showed everyone what he really thinks about immigration when he blocked the very strict bipartisan Senate bill: It’s not a policy to be solved, it’s a political issue to be exploited. And Harris is trying to drive that point home. To reinforce that message, the Harris campaign is also sharing video clips of Republicans, including Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senator Lindsey Graham and Rep. Dan Crenshaw, admitting that Trump killed their border bill.
Harris can and should continue to lean in drawing further contrast outlining a both/and approach that pairs the call for border security with creating pathways to citizenship. That’s the approach Sen. Mark Kelly ran on and won twice in Arizona. (Sen. Kelly is also the favored pick for Vice President by the Democrats cited in that same Politico story.)
There is an opportunity here for the Harris campaign to pick up a similar approach and make sure that the immigration issue isn’t seen only through the lens of the border, which is what Republicans want. Importantly, the American people support the both/and approach to immigration policy. Yes, they want border security, but that doesn’t diminish broad support for legalization. Both can be done, and that’s the policy Democrats should contrast with the extremism of the GOP.
In sharp contrast with reality, the Trump campaign is hoping to frame Harris as a radical, calling her a “dangerous liberal” in their recent attack ads. With border numbers down, Harris’ history on the issue and signaling she will largely adopt a continuation of Biden’s approach, the frame of a radical Harris is more projection than anything else.
The Trump/Vance plan would, among a long list of extreme proposals, kickstart a truly horrific mass deportation creating a national show-me-your-papers force of red state National Guard troops and deputized local police to conduct mass raids at schools, hospitals, and workplaces targeting those who have called the US home for years, like Dreamers, separating American families and wrecking the economy for working families regardless of immigration status. That is what those “mass deportation now” signs mean.
Last weekend in Minnesota, J.D. Vance said of Harris, “She wants to hand over control of our country to people who shouldn't be here in the first place. And we cannot let her. And I have a message, a very simple message to the millions of illegal aliens who are in this country and shouldn't be. If you are here, start packing your bags right now because Donald J. Trump is coming back into office."
Like Trump, Vance made it clear that every undocumented person in the country is at risk. Trump gave a hint of their concerns about backlash recently on FOX News, “As soon as we grab, perhaps, we take a woman with two children, three children… she shouldn’t be here but she’s a nice woman, the children are beautiful … you’re right, it’s a hard thing to do, harder than a long time ago with Dwight Eisenhower … nobody complained, in those days, we had a country that was much different.”
Yes, that’s who he is going to “grab” this time.
A strategy reliant on demagoguing immigrants could work for Republicans, but there are real vulnerabilities facing the GOP’s signature campaign issue. Here is a brief overview of the top five of those vulnerabilities.
Their Radical Agenda:
If Republicans' signature campaign promise, mass deportation was such a winner, why do Republicans rarely delve any further into the details? The reality is that there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that the bottom could fall out on this campaign proposal. We have looked at recent polling on this, highlighting the significant drop in support when the barest of details are added. And when given the choice between legalization and mass deportation, we and others have noted a majority preference opposite to the GOP’s agenda. A recent Gallup poll found, when offered an array of immigration policy options to choose between, support for a process for long-settled immigrants to become U.S. citizens remains at the top of the list of preferred policies and maintains an enduring and overwhelming majority of respondents. This support for citizenship is at 70% – and for Dreamers (81%) – is much higher than the support for deportation (47%). One other indication is the cognitive dissonance of particular Republicans on their Party’s signature issue. Like Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), who recently tried to play down concerns of the radical agenda, absurdly claiming it was just campaign rhetoric. Or Sen. James Lankford, who recently told NOTUS mass deportation is “not gonna happen because, again, a court’s gonna stop it”. Maybe smarter or savvy political types could argue differently but the ‘don’t worry, our signature campaign promise is just bluster and even if it isn’t, the courts will block the horrific proposals we are campaigning on’ sentiment doesn’t seem like a confident endorsement of a winning policy proposal.
Limited Appeal:
Yes, “Immigration” is a top issue for some voters: Republican voters. Behind the headlines, as Gallup noted, there is a record-breaking partisan divide on the issue where for Republican voters, the issue is a top concern, and for Democrats, it's near the bottom. This is true across all the public polling for the last several months. This concern, based on everything Republicans have been saying, is not about legislative reform but a reactive fear that immigrants represent an existential threat to the nation and its people. This divide is also an indication that the GOP’s message isn’t persuading but is radicalizing, causing a tension where the MAGA base is looking for a message that has limited appeal beyond those already likely to pull the lever for the GOP. And after a quarter of a billion dollars and a relentless push for years, only making more Republicans care about this issue doesn’t suggest it's the electoral silver bullet some believe it to be. There is obviously more nuance here, but there is more flexibility in further polarizing the issue by exposing the extremes of the GOP message.
Propelled by White Nationalist and Bigoted Rhetoric:
Tomorrow marks five years since the replacement theory motivated mass shooting in El Paso committed by a white nationalist who wanted to stop a supposed “Hispanic invasion.” The very same racist conspiracy theory is now the centerpiece of the Republicans' immigration message, with the first point of the Republican Party platform echoing the domestic terrorists' manifestos. Case and point was Trump’s appearance at the NABJ on Wednesday, where in an attempt to appeal to Black voters, Trump pushed the white nationalist invasion conspiracy, the same lie that led to an anti-Black terror attack in Buffalo in 2022. As top law enforcement officials have repeatedly warned, the amplification of this deadly racist lie creates a threat to public safety. Republicans' embrace of the replacement theory also has them using their anti-immigrant attacks to threaten American democracy. While these radical attacks may work with some of the MAGA base, many of those who are skeptical about the level of immigration might not yet be ready to sign up for the racist and violent movement downstream of this rhetoric.
Attacks Reliant on Disinformation:
Facts alone will not win the day, we all need stories wrapped around facts to give them meaning and context. The nativist stories Republicans are telling give voters a villain (Democratic elites in collusion with parasitic non-white foreigners) for their anxieties around safety, economic stability, and identity, but those stories are lies. Crime is down, there is no “migrant crime” wave. Immigrants are essential to a thriving economy, and are not “taking jobs.” The opioid crisis is urgent but has nothing to do with migration. Left unchallenged, the strategic racist lies being peddled by Republicans are potent appeals, but their lack of fact is a serious vulnerability that could undermine the message and the credibility of the messenger.
The nativist attack strategy hasn't delivered:
Beyond the narrow electoral college victory in 2016, the campaign strategy to relentlessly demagogue immigrants hasn’t delivered for Republicans at the ballot box. Nevertheless, they keep doubling down. In 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2022 along with special elections earlier this year, have tried to use aggressive nativist appeals to juice their turn out of base supporters, but the strategy repeatedly failed to deliver and backfired in many races. Our analysis of AdImpact data shows over a tenfold increase in the amount of money Republicans have spent on anti-immigrant attack ads from 2020, with over $260 million spent so far this year. Going louder and more extreme on a strategy that has repeatedly failed sure seems like a vulnerability that could use a lot more exploration.
Democrats should lean in harder with the confidence granted by these vulnerabilities exploiting the weaknesses born of an extreme agenda backed with racist rhetoric. If they do, they could undermine the GOP's main electoral message flipping a perceived strength into a weakness. The GOP’s overconfidence in their strategy has them overstepping, which Democrats now have an opportunity to take advantage of. Or they can fall for the Wile E. Coyote GOP trap and either run scared or to the right.
The Harris campaign and its surrogates should provide an aggressive contrasting approach that challenges the deeply weird GOP agenda around immigrants, revealing the details to make the plan even more unpopular. Talk about Trump and Miller’s scheme that will rip apart American families, kick kids out of school, and wreck the economy for working people. The GOP’s agenda is based on a flawed premise and minority opinion, pushing it over could turn their perceived strength into a liability. With American democracy at stake and a new campaign, there's little better time to check old assumptions.
Also check out Gabe Ortíz’ latest
Operation Wetback was a “racial terror” campaign that swept up and deported hundreds of thousands of Latinos – including U.S. citizens.
Deported individuals were abandoned “like cows” in the desert. Some died agonizing deaths from exposure.
Modern-day observers have likened Operation Wetback’s deportation boats to 18th century slave ships.
Read the full piece HERE
WEEKLY STATS OF NATIVIST NARRATIVE
262 Republican ads running with immigration-related attacks on TV and CTV
Total spending on nativist ads for the week of July 28th-- $24,537,062 (AdImpact)
18 new Republican-aligned immigration-related Facebook ads
Year to date:
Total nativist TV and CTV ads: 1,185
Total spend on nativist TV and CTV ads --- $281,688,141 (AdImpact)
Ugliest Nativist Ad of the Week
School Freedom Fund has a new TV ad stating that “a nursing student killed on the University of Georgia campus. Police say an undocumented migrant killed the student on the campus of UG last week” and fearmongers that “UT could be next yet” because “Frank nicely voted to provide illegals with taxpayer funded tuition at our state universities inviting the invasion to campuses across Tennessee.”
Of the 525 GOP Twitter accounts we track, this week, they sent:
816 original tweets peddling anti-immigrant attacks mentioning “border”
178 original tweets about “open borders,” with Speaker Mike Johnson tweet having the most reach with 663.6K Views, 7k Retweets, and 28.1k Likes.
12 original tweets that used “Biden/Harris Border Crisis” with Gov. Greg Abbott tweet having the most reach with 62k Views, 543 Retweets, and 2.6k Likes.
341 original tweets that mentioned both “Harris” and “Border Czar” with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweet having the most reach with 1.2M views, 25.2k retweets and 67.6k likes.
16 original tweets that mentioned both “fentanyl” and “border” with Gov. Greg Abbott tweet having the most reach with 62k Views, 543 Retweets, and 2.6k Likes.
Top Articles on Social of the Week (Right-wing media still dominating the conversation online)
This past week there were 587.1k interactions, an increase of↑ 23% and 9.1k articles published, a decrease of 13% from last week. Interactions and article count are both lower than the previous week. Data assembled from Newswhip.
Breitbart: “Illegal 'Got-Away' Accused of Killing Nashville Restaurateur Matt Carney” - Facebook: 3.3k Interactions and X: 7.6k Shares
Fox News: “Flashback: Harris pushed Dems to reject funding for ICE detention beds, Border Patrol agents” - Facebook: 1k Interactions and X: 8.8k Shares
Fox News: “Elizabeth Warren calls for granting citizenship to illegal immigrants, says Harris 'will get that done'” - Facebook: 6.3k Interactions and X: 2.2k Shares
 | A guest post by
|