A Risky Bet
Running on Hate: Anti-Immigrant Discourse as a Dog Whistle for Exclusion and Supremacy
By Ernesto Castañeda
November 3, 2024
Our analysis of recent elections, 2018, 2020, and 2022, shows that having extreme anti-immigrant statements in campaign materials is not enough for Republicans to win in competitive elections within a 10% margin in the final votes. Donald Trump’s 2024 candidacy is in a delicate place. He has placed most of his bets on people’s fear and dislike of immigrants. He has blamed immigrants for real and imagined problems. All while lying. That these are lies about immigrants has become clear to many people, who may not have all the facts that immigration researchers have at their hands but who have laughed at the claim that immigrants are eating cats and dogs and coming for their pets. Even J.D. Vance, who spread the false story, admitted on CNN that this was a fabricated story. This showed the public how their claims about immigrants are false. Most people who know immigrants and live in places with visible immigrant populations are not afraid of them. Immigrant fearmongering is not enough to take large numbers of voters from the Democratic party. Indeed, Trump’s increasingly extreme rhetoric alienates many moderate and independent voters. He has lately called for using local police forces, state national guards, and the military to round up undocumented individuals and their families as well as leftists, his critics, and other “enemies from within.” His language could not be more divisive, and he often gets close to hate speech and direct incitements to violence, including threats to fellow Republicans such as Liz Cheney. People who want harmony, order, and a strong economy do not want this vindictive state.
Trump has tried to distance himself from the extreme policy recommendations in Project 2025 because they are radical and unpopular. Trump does not have many detailed policies and proposals, so he is relying on false claims about immigrants. It is not an exaggeration to say that the only things he is proposing are sexism, xenophobia, and White Christian Nationalism. Holding to these traditionalist, authoritarian, regressive practices does appeal to many, especially those afraid of change or upset because of offshoring, deindustrialization, growing inequality, decreased support for public education, etc. But that is not what a majority of the American people want, and Trump and the Republican Party have no future with this platform. That is why Trump is already talking about the next elections being “rigged” by blaming the same populations he often demonizes (which have included undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, naturalized citizens, U.S. citizens married to undocumented people, the educated, the media, Jewish people, women, Black people, Democrats, non-Christians, LGBTQ+ individuals, former Republicans, former people who served in his administration who have said they will now vote for Kamala Harris, Mexicans, Central Americans, Haitians, Venezuelans, Palestinians, Puerto Ricans, etc.). Therefore, the plurality of voters will vote against the loss of rights, threats of authoritarianism, a police state, and immigrant scapegoating. Many White people understand how dangerous and self-defeating that vision is and how they, too, could also end up a target. In contrast, Kamala Harris has opened her campaign and government to people of all backgrounds. The choice in the 2024 election is clear, moving closer to a White Christian Nationalism or towards a better practice of E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one.
Ernesto Castañeda is Director of the Immigration Lab and Professor at American University.
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