Now for any thoughtful person, of course this makes no sense, but I know people who aren’t stupid (though yes, they are “low information” people) who have been telling me that the “caravan” needs to be feared, and perhaps they should vote GOP because of it. They may not know the definition of non sequitur, but they aren’t totally impervious to reason. One eventually was able to understand what I was saying (see below) and said, “well, why didn’t you explain this to me sooner,” as if I am supposed to help them use the google machine!
Now of all the incredibly stupid things I’ve seen since this administration and Congress came to power, this has to be the dumbest, and in fact I can’t think of anything this stupid in the history of humanity. The facts seem straightforward, which is that several thousand unarmed poor people (more than half being women and children) are about 2000 miles away from US borders and walking towards the US. Let’s put aside the inscription on the Statue of Liberty here, since to be fair, those are values, not statutes.
The current President, Congress, and SCOTUS are firmly in the hands of the GOP. The President campaigned on keeping borders secure and the armed forces are beyond well-funded. What’s the problem? He’s had nearly two years to “secure the borders” and will have plenty of time to deal with the “caravan.” So instead of doing anything, he goes on FoxNews or rallies to complain? What is there to complain about? You have control to do what you want, so do it! Imagine if there was a real terrorist threat that might occur in a few weeks from now? Should a President go to a rally and complain, or do something about it?
I asked this one person who was very concerned about the “caravan” if she thought she felt manipulated, but she didn’t really understand. I pointed out that if you vote for someone who claims to be able to solve a problem, and then that person’s solution is to complain about it, despite having all the power a President could ask for in such a situation, wouldn’t the logical conclusion be that the person isn’t up to the job, and therefore be voted out of office? I said that it’s rather audacious for a President to call so much attention to his failings, and then try to somehow get people to think that they should vote for him for this very reason!
Is this another example of “who knew health care would be so difficult?” Yet somehow the “base” thinks this is a reason to continue to vote GOP. For years I‘ve said the GOP is the party of empty slogans, yet this seems to be an attempt to motivate people by the use of one word, which didn’t have negative connotations in the past! In fact, this one person said, after I explained the situation in detail, “but it is a caravan.” I said, “how often have you heard the word used in your lifetime, other than to refer to a vehicle made by Dodge? It was likely chosen by right wing operatives to conjure up images of supposedly dangerous Arabic Muslims. It hasn’t traditionally been used to describe the movement of people in Central or South America.”
Oh well. I tried.
UPDATE: I spoke to that person again, and she said, “it’s a common word, just like that song from Smoky and the Bandit.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her the word used in the song was convoy, not caravan.