Biden Mismanaged the Border, and Gave Trump the White House
Taking ownership of why Democrats lost the 2024 Election.
Photo by Barbara Zandoval on Unsplash
We knew what Trump voters cared about. The man came down his escalator 8 years ago calling Mexicans rapists, thieves, and thugs. His rhetoric has consistently - for 8 years - targeted migrants, undocumented aliens, and the crisis at the US border. This issue, I would argue, won the election for him in 2016.
When Biden and the Democrats retook control of government in 2020 it was unclear what path they would charter on border policy. Biden had run a campaign not focused on border security and had remarked that he believed in a more humane approach to solving the border crisis (like, at a minimum, not separating families). Well, four years later with millions of undocumented folks flooding into the country and still no significant legislation passed to address our border security, it’s safe to say that the Democrats decided to do close to nothing about the problem.
And then Trump won back the presidency. Again.
It was very non-strategic to do nothing at the border, if we’re being honest. It’s a logical principle in politics that if you have the opportunity to undercut your opponent by addressing their strongest concerns or talking points, you’d be damned not to take the opportunity. Take the wind out of their sails, and they’ll sit idle in the ocean. It could have been that simple for the Dems. Maintain Trump’s strict border policy, at a bare minimum don’t let the numbers spike, and suddenly Trump’s rhetoric against the illegals “poisoning the blood” of our country doesn’t inspire as much.
Of course Democrats didn’t do that. Millions of people entered the US under Biden’s watch, a rate not witnessed before, and every single thing that Trump has ever said about Democrats being poor managers, or being soft on crime, or not taking the border seriously, or being incompetent, all of it was proven true. He was vindicated. He said in 2016 that he would do a better job on the border and the Democrats proved him right. A majority of voting Americans agreed with him this November, re-electing the man as President of the United States.
I see activist friends of mine consistently defend the rights and liberties of folks who are undocumented in the US - typically responding to concerns about the border with statistics about the billions of dollars in taxes that undocumented folks contribute to the Treasury, or the economists’ estimates that deportations would inflate food prices. These points may be valid, but they don’t excuse the fact that a nation must have strong security - including at its borders - to protect its citizens and provide for a lawful immigration process. Illegal immigration is, well, illegal. Being loose on undocumented immigration is unfair to the folks who want to become Americans through legal processes. Skipping the line is rude, after all. But it’s more existential than that. Americans won’t feel safe if they think our government isn’t guarding our palace. And a state that fails to enforce the law will find its days numbered. Look at Rome, the Weimar Republic, and the French Revolution.
Democrats need to sit and process just how deeply they screwed this issue up if they want to have a meaningful chance at returning to power in the future.
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Agree w/ U Julian.