#tx07

Trump's policy positions are xenophobic and even unconstitutional. We know this. It is the truth, but the argument has already been made, and there is not much more to say on the matter. His supporters either deny it or do not care. What we can do is carefully explain that his policies also will not work.

Trump's wall will not work.

It will be nothing but a very expensive symbol. Walls can be effective in highly accessible areas that are also covered pretty well by Border Patrol, which is why we generally have them in those areas already. In not-so-accessible areas that are not closely patrolled, they are not effective at all. So you slow someone down for five or ten minutes by making him use a ladder and a rope. So what? If there is not a border patrol agent within thirty miles to catch him in the act, it doesn't really matter. A more effective use of resources would be to beef up drone reconnaissance and response teams. If a drone spots twenty people crossing the border in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night, it's clear that these people are probably illegal immigrants. The drone can continue to track them until a team can be dispatched to apprehend them. No wall needed. Why spend tens of billions of dollars on a wall that won't work? As John Oliver said, Trump's grand plan can be foiled with mankind's third invention. (The rope.)

Trump's plan to pay for the wall will not work.

He says he will make Mexico pay for the wall by threatening to stop all wire transfers from the United States to Mexico. This will fail for the same reasons that trade embargoes often fail: people will just go around, through another country. An illegal worker in the United States can't send money directly to Mexico? Fine. He and his friends will find a way to send money to Guatemala and then to Mexico. It will be inefficient, but it will work well enough. Good luck convincing every other country to stop wire transfers to Mexico. Also note that there are other ways of transferring money, such as PayPal and Bitcoin, and these would have to be addressed as well.

Trump's plan to ban Muslims from the country will not work.

How does a government objectively determine someone's religion? Is there a urine test or blood test that will work? Is there a Muslim protein that we can identify? Aspiring terrorists have already shown many times that they are willing to lie about their religion. That being the case, such a policy would only keep non-terrorist Muslims out of the country. One could of course ban all travel from Muslim-majority countries, but just as with the wire transfers, people could just go around this barrier. Also, there are plenty of countries (France, for instance) that do not have a Muslim majority but do have a significant Muslim minority.

Trump's plan to close down mosques will not work.

You don't like some of the ambiguously seditious things that are being said at a mosque. (We know they are ambiguous, because if they weren't ambiguous, you could just arrest people for inciting violence instead of worrying about the building.) So you close down the mosque. You place guards in front of it and arrest anyone trying to enter. Okay. Problem solved, right? Wrong. Now, the Muslims who were meeting there are meeting in private homes. Beyond the public eye, they no longer have to worry about public scrutiny. Also, you have given them very real reason to feel that their government is unfairly persecuting them. Will this situation lead to more or less radicalization?

Trump's tax policy will bankrupt us.

According to the Tax Foundation, even on a dynamic basis (assuming more economic activity due to lower taxes), Trump's tax plan will not fund the federal government and will increase the national debt by $10 trillion over a decade. This is assuming that we do not encounter a massive recession, which Trump says is coming. If Trump is right and a recession is coming, the national debt will increase by even more than that. Meanwhile, he intends to increase military spending and just bomb everyone, which, of course, costs even more money. (It also means intentionally killing innocent civilians, though Trump supporters may not care about that.) Oh, and he also says he will completely pay off the national debt in eight years. All $19 trillion of it. Somehow.

Trump's trade wars will bankrupt us even more.

"Protect American jobs!" It's a lovely mantra. The reality of what it means amounts to ignoring pretty much everything the study of economics tells us. If an individual were truly "self-sufficient", he would end up working a lot more while enjoying a far lower quality of life. The same principle applies to nations. Trade is good for everyone. That is why it exists. There is of course a price, but that is what differentiates trade from theft. Even China's "cheating" by manipulating currency values is not such a big deal when you consider that this strategy comes with a cost. In effect, China's government is essentially subsidizing everything Americans buy that is made in China. If our government were heavily subsidizing exports to China, Trump would complain that we were being robbed in that arrangement too. The reality of Trump's proposed trade wars is that they would actually kill millions of American jobs.

In summary, many of Trump's most popular policy positions are completely impossible to implement.

It’s a pretty simple formula, really, and he has already used it numerous times.

-----------------------------------