The message that Donald Trump and his acolytes have been sending across the nation and around the world is one of ‘you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.’ But, said former Denver Mayor and presidential cabinet secretary, Federico Peña, we’ve seen enough, heard enough from the ex-president to know his promise is ominous.
For starters, said Peña, Trump has promised to refashion his own version of “Operation Wetback,” a fifties-era policy targeting Mexican migrants and even Mexican American citizens for deportation. Trump’s pledge—contained in campaign literature—is to “send shock waves to all the world…to institute the largest deportation operation in American history,” according to documents from Trump’s own campaign.
“Donald Trump will bring back ‘Operation Wetback,” warned Peña. The fifties era campaign was as painful and heartless an assault on our democracy as its racist name implied.
In 1954, relying on racial stereotypes and portraying immigrants as ‘dirty and diseased,’ Border Patrol and local law enforcement across the southwest targeted, detained and deported an estimated 1.3 million mostly Mexicans and Mexican Americans. Peña said it is not inconceivable that Trump would attempt refashioning and rebranding his even darker form of the program. “He has already studied it and we need to be awakened to this reality,” he warned.
The ex-president’s plan is the work of former Trump advisor Stephen Miller and others. Miller is the same person who tailored Trump’s ban on Muslims and others from entering the country in 2017. The executive order was found to be unconstitutional.
Responding to Trump’s draconian vision of America while reminding voters of his own administration’s record, President Biden, along with former Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, held a late March campaign rally at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. There the three men contrasted the Biden/Harris record of accomplishment with the Trump years, including his slow rolling reaction to COVID, while raising a staggering $26 million for the campaign.
While most polls show a close race between the two candidates, last Thursday’s ‘Big Apple’ event was an effective and important wake-up call to voters on just what is at stake, said long time Denver elected official and party activist Rosemary Rodriguez. “I am excited to see President Biden own his bipartisan success in this phase of the campaign,” she said. “Underscoring his leadership for working Americans is a path to victory.”
While the President has not sailed through his first 40 months without encountering some rough seas, he has nonetheless tacked through with enough legislative victories to credibly label his first term a success.
His 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, in which 13 American soldiers were killed at the Kabul airport when a bomb set by an Islamic terror group detonated, left him open to Republican attacks. At least 95 Afghans were also killed with another 100 nationals injured.
Domestically, Biden has recorded what many have said is a nearly unprecedented record of success in his first three years in office.
Between now and November, the President and his two Democratic predecessors will fan out across the country touting the administration’s accomplishments. Perhaps leading will be the $1.2 trillion-dollar bipartisan infrastructure bill the President got passed. But there are other accomplishments that will also be touted.
Over the course of his administration the costs of insulin have been lowered to $35 per month for millions of Americans; $1.2 billion in college loans has been discharged for nearly 153,000 borrowers; expansion of overtime guarantees for millions of workers; passed gun safety legislation; provided over-the-counter birth control. Unemployment has also been reduced from COVID’s near record highs and the economy has added more than 14 million new jobs under the President.
Of course, despite Biden’s accomplishments, the administration is still battling to lower inflation and interest rates. But just last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced that there could be three interest rate cuts coming in 2024 and that inflation, while not at the levels he would like, has cooled. Gas prices and food costs remain above what the administration would like.
Biden has also lost ground, particularly among younger voters, for continued support of Israel in its war against Hamas. The war, which has claimed more than 30,000 Palestinians, is now in its fifth month with no clear signs of an end.
Peña said the President’s bump from his State of the Union Address was a sign that a lot of his message is getting through. But when voters begin casting ballots, it will be a distant memory. There is still a lot of work to be done.
Still while the President has closed the gap, even pulling even with the former president in a number of key states, Peña said Biden still has work to do with minority voters. A number of polls indicate that support for Biden among Black and Latino voters, particularly men, has softened. Both of these traditional Democratic blocs, said the former cabinet secretary, are essential for ensuring a Biden victory in November.
“I’m also pleased that the campaign is focusing on the Latino community,” particularly in states like Arizona and Texas, said Peña, who said he has relatives in his long-ago home state of Texas who are solidly in the Trump camp. The stakes with these two groups, he said, are too high to be taken for granted. “We can’t wait until the last minute.”
There are two things, however, that appear to be solid advantages for Biden as November draws near. One is the still resonating backlash from the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the right for American women to access abortion. Since then, women’s reproductive rights have seemed to make the difference in elections in traditionally red states Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio where women’s health issues—abortion—were on the ballot. Democrats will continue reminding voters regularly for the next eight months.
The other reminder that may tilt in the President’s favor are daily headlines and social media postings detailing the latest in the ex-president’s legal travails. Trump is scheduled to go on trial in New York on April 15th over allegations that he violated campaign laws when he paid $130,000 in hush money to cover up a dalliance with an adult film star.
Trump is also facing trials in Georgia, Florida, New York and Washington D.C. In all, the ex-president is facing 91 felony charges. He has already been found liable for sexually abusing and defaming a New York-based writer and fined $88 million in damages. He’s also facing a potential judgment of more than $355 million, not including interest, for lying about his wealth on financial statements used to secure loans to finance his real estate empire.
The election is November 5th, 2024.
