He came, he saw and, well, he didn’t exactly conquer.
U.S. GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s whirlwind visit to Mexico Wednesday to meet with President Enrique Peña Nieto was anything but triumphant.
Ostensively intended to shore up Latino support for himself and the Republican Party in the United States, and to sooth tensions with one of America’s biggest trade partners, Trump’s hasty hello-nice-to-meet-you-we have-an-immigration-issue-goodbye trip to Mexico might have actually backfired for the billionaire.
Rather than healing hurt feelings about his early campaign remarks calling Mexicans undocumented immigrants “rapists” and “criminals,” his six-hour jaunt south of the border may in fact have reopened the wounds and reminded both U.S. minority voters and Mexicans just how xenophobic he actually is.
His insistence during his talks in Mexico that his administration — if he is elected — will proceed full-throttle with his proposed plan to “build a wall” to keep out illegal immigrants only served to underscore that odious image of his ethnocentric biases.
And his belligerent immigration speech in Phoenix just a few hours later pretty much drove home the point that he is not going to back down on his stance against Mexican migrants.
In other words, Trump not only did not win over the electoral segment he was courting, he essentially alienated it permanently, dashing any chance he has of winning the Nov. 8 elections.
Trump’s soar to blue-collar popularity was a fluke, a reflection of a middle-America and populous discontent with the U.S. political system.
But now voters are tiring of his repetitive and pugnacious rhetoric.
Trump’s political heyday has come and gone, and now he is desperately trying to recapture his short-lived popularity.
But, as they say, when you find yourself in a hole, it is time to stop digging.
Trump just dug a six-foot hole for his campaign in Mexico.
Thérèse Margolis can be reached at [email protected]
