Democrats practicing fear mongering
Since the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States on Nov. 8, Democrats have been engaged in fear mongering, trying to scare people because of campaign rhetoric that now appears to have been nothing more than campaign fodder.
Fear mongering is the deliberate use of fear-based tactics including exaggeration and usually repetition to influence the public in order to achieve a desired outcome.
Ever since Trump was elected, Democrats have been telling immigrants that the government is coming after them. The latest such message was delivered on Monday when California lawmakers — Democrats — urged President-elect Donald Trump to refrain from pursuing mass deportations and introduced urgent legislation to fund immigration lawyers and help public defenders protect the state’s immigrants.
Since his election, Trump has backed way away from talk of mass deportations, except those who are in this country illegally and commit a crime. He never said he would deport those in this country legally and he supports a path to citizenship for those who are here illegally, but working and contributing to the good of communities.
Democratic lawmakers also passed resolutions in both chambers urging the incoming administration to uphold a program for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants in the country illegally, despite intense protests from some Republicans.
Both measures were marked urgent and aim to protect immigrants in California — which has more than 10 million foreign-born residents — from Trump’s campaign promises of tougher immigration enforcement.
What is ironic is President Barack Obama, a Democrat, has deported more illegal residents than any president in history — reportedly 2.5 million people in eight years. No one said anything about those deportations.
Democrats have been spreading fear since the election, an election they still seem to not accept. Setting up all these “sanctuary” cities and campuses is done to scare people, not to protect them. There hasn’t been a deportation raid in years.
Even State Superintentent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson got into the fray when two days after the election he sent out a message telling students they were “safe.” The connotation of such a message is they do have something to fear and that was irresponsible of Mr. Torlakson.
It’s time to stop the fear tactics and address the issues facing this state and nation.
Editorials in The Porterville Recorder are the opinion of the editorial board which consists of Publisher Rick Elkins and the managing editor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily of The Recorder.