Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Trump is ‘vice-signalling’ over immigration – and it’s going to work | 19 June 2018

The stories are filed, the pictures are posted, and the media verdict is almost unanimous: separating children from their parents is wrong, it is unAmerican, and President Donald Trump is going to suffer for it. His administration is baby-snatching. The ‘optics’ are terrible, say the hyperventilating PR men and Washington know-alls.

But if everybody stops to breathe for a moment, they should stop to recognise that, on this issue, as on so much else, Donald Trump is winning the politics.

Call it vice-signalling. The President and Kirstjen Nielsen are making clear that, even if it means being seen to be inhuman, they are taking voter concerns about massive immigration seriously. There is a clear political upside to this, despite – or because of – the negative headlines. ‘Zero tolerance’ on illegal immigration is popular, even if some of the unpleasant consequences are not.

Time and again, we see that the media consensus on the rights and wrongs of immigration is way out of step with what the public thinks. Look at what happened in Britain, with the Windrush scandal. There it emerged that the government, in its attempts to create an inhospitable climate for illegals, had treated some longstanding Caribbean residents as unlawful. The story sucked up enormous amounts of media oxygen – more so, arguably, than it deserved, given how few Windrush residents were targeted. Everyone who was anyone agreed that the government policy was a national disgrace, unBritish, and deeply damaging to the Prime Minister. The Home Secretary had to resign.

Then a funny thing happened. In the wake of the scandal, the government outperformed expectations in local elections, and in fact ever since Theresa May has been pulling away in the polls. Well-informed British political analysts now say that her party benefitted from Windrush, since voters appreciated the toughness on immigration even to the point of being cruel.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in