"Democrats let him
into our country and Democrats let him stay."
--Donald Trump
President Trump is busy sowing seeds of
division and fear in a racially charged political ad.
A 53-second video remains pinned to the
top of the president's popular Twitter feed. It features Luis
Bracamontes, an illegal alien who was sentenced to death in April
after being convicted of killing two California sheriff’s deputies
in 2014. With a menacing smile, Bracamontes said he's going to "kill
more cops soon."
The ad includes scenes of a migrant
caravan moving toward the U.S., warning ominously, “Who else would
Democrats let in?” and suggesting that more violence would soon
penetrate the border.
The video is accompanied by Trump's own
message – “Vote Republican now!” This ad comes right before the
midterms as Trump pushes his hard-line anti-immigration policies in
response to a mostly peaceful migrant caravan traveling through
Mexico.
Unlike typical political ads, nowhere
in this video does the president declare who paid for it. Thus, Trump
has pushed the boundaries of campaign finance rules. Under current
law, campaign ads are generally required to include disclaimers that
clearly state who paid for the ads. Those rules are partly in place
to address concerns that politicians could try and distance
themselves from harsh attack ads, so as not to muddy themselves in
the process.
"This shows there appears to be a
gap in the law – a presidential candidate like Donald Trump could
be blasting out these campaign commercial-like videos to millions of
views, but viewers would not have real-time information about who is
paying for them," Steven Spaulding of government watchdog group
Common Cause told ABC News.
The ad is reminiscent of the infamous
“Willie Horton” ad used against Democratic presidential candidate
Michael Dukakis in 1988 and condemned as racist. Horton, who was
black, raped a woman while out of prison on a weekend furlough. As
Massachusetts governor, Dukakis supported the furlough program.
Dukakis went on to lose to Republican George H.W. Bush.
Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic
National Committee, called the new ad the “dog whistle of all dog
whistles.” Perez told CNN: “This is distracting, divisive Donald
at his worst. This is fear mongering.”
“This is a sickening ad. Republicans
everywhere should denounce it,” said Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of
Arizona
The Facts
How idiotic would it be to blame the
Republicans for criminals who entered the country illegally under
Trump or President George W. Bush?
The truth is Luis Enrique Monroy
Bracamontes, who is from the Mexican state of Sinaloa, came to the
U.S. illegally in in 1993 when he was 16 and Democrat Bill Clinton
was president. Bracamontes was first arrested in Maricopa County
in1996 for possession of narcotics for sale. He spent four months in
Sheriff Joe Arpaio's tent city before he was released to ICE
and deported in 1997.
Bracamontes was arrested in Arizona
again in 1998 and turned over to immigration authorities, but
apparently not deported.
Bracamontes was arrested a third time
in 2001 for narcotics charges and transferred to ICE custody. It is
unknown what ICE did with Bracamontes until he was re-arrested in
Maricopa county three months later, also in 2001, for failure to
appear in court.
Then Bracamontes was deported a second
time for being in the country illegally. That was during the first
year of the Bush administration. Bracamontes was back in America
again by 2002. He married a U.S. citizen and remained in the country
even as the Bush administration deported people at a record rate,
topped only by the Obama administration.
When Bracamontes shot and killed the
two deputies in 2014, he had been deported once under a Democratic
administration and once under a Republican administration. He had
been back in the United States for at least six years during the Bush
administration and five years under the Obama administration.
There is no evidence that any Democrat
– or any one person or party, for God's sake – allowed
Bracamontes to stay in America. Democratic and Republican
administrations alike have deported hundreds of thousands of people a
year. What happened was a horrible tragedy, certainly a regrettable
and murderous outcome, but an incident not attributable to the
Democrat Party.
President Trump uses fear mongering to
solidify his base and to belittle his opponents. Blame and
scapegoating are tools he employs in his ever-present defense mode.
The truth is Trump is not skilled at figuring out the causes of other
people's behavior, or even his own, for that matter. Bracamontes is a
lone-wolf killer, likely mentally ill and certainly a methamphetamine
addict. He did not kill the sheriff's deputies because he was an
illegal. The deranged killer has insisted all along he wanted a
chance at being executed.
In America we are taught do not judge
an entire group on the basis of a single association – until the
reign of Trump that is. Neither should we assume all illegals are
criminals or all people seeking asylum mean us harm. Is is amazing
that in the aftermath of the bombs sent to Trump critics and the
responsive pleas of the president for peace and harmony that the same
man can use this bigoted, false political ad to accuse the opposition
of murder. How small is his conscience and how great is his insensate
spite?
The ad:
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