Mexico's lesson: TR/Trump sticks work better than Obama/Bush carrots

President Trump's tariffs' threat worked, forcing Mexico to commit to serious and accountable actions to stop and stem illegal immigration.

The result was a US-Mexico Joint Declaration, which summarizes Mexico's acceptance to comply with US's demands:

“those crossing the U.S. Southern Border to seek asylum will be rapidly returned to Mexico where they may await the adjudication of their asylum claims.In response, Mexico will authorize the entrance of all of those individuals for humanitarian reasons, in compliance with its international obligations, while they await the adjudication of their asylum claims. Mexico will also offer jobs, healthcare and education according to its principles.The United States commits to work to accelerate the adjudication of asylum claims and to conclude removal proceedings as expeditiously as possible.” 

Looking from a long view perspective, this success might indicate that Theodore Roosevelt (TR) policies of "carry a long stick and a big smile" work if applied in such order -first show the stick or give a first hit with it, then smile, not the other way around- precisely because of the credibility generated by Trump's unpredictable, belligerent and heavy-handed approach to long-time deadbeats like Mexico and China.

The art of the Mexico deal is in understanding that AMLO -as President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is known- is a populist that uses far Left rhetoric but has a long track record of cutting pragmatic deals with "foes" that generate taxes, investment or exports revenue.  After a few rounds of posturing, AMLO sent a commission to capitulate in Washington, quite much like Generalissimo Santa Ana did 150 years ago.

Obama's and Bush's rational diplomacy were seen as signs of weakness and opportunities for cheating and taking advantage of a naive or self-doubting neighbor.

At the root of the problem lay the Schengen-inspired migratory policies that both Republicans and Democrats have kept since Reagan's 1986 Amnesty in the hope that the problem would correct itself. Those policies, designed to capture (and or manufacture) Hispanic votes metastasized even further in the form of  "sanctuary cities" that openly ban migratory laws' enforcement in exchange for a permanent majority-making  influx of voting- and welfare net- enabled constituency.

The proponents of such policies have suffered a major blow that will reverberate in the coming 2020 elections against their candidates.  Instead of choosing to bargain with the wall for accommodation, they preferred to sustain a ridiculous denial of the chaos in the border that self-fed into a Tsunami of asylum seekers, scaring a sizable majority in all border states.

Trump and his foreign policy instincts have a point: raw power seems to be more effective than nice words with authoritarian governments with a track record of serial cheating.

Nice words and noble self-criticism -such as Obama's Cairo speech- seem only to encourage more abuse by ceding the moral ground to declared enemies of most of what US stands for: free trade, free markets, freedom of the press, rule of law.

China's next.

• DoS (2019) US-Mexico Joint Declaration

Geopolitics of Emotions - Dominique Moisi

Emotions are not just individual feelings , but also collective  spirits  that define the ways different cultures and countries respond to the future based on its past experiences, explains Dominique Moisi, professor of Harvard and Sorbonne in his thought-provoking book "Geopolitics of Emotions: How Cultures of Fear, Humiliation and Hope are Reshaping the World".

Analyzing the pushback against globalization after the Great Recession of 2008 in different countries, Moisi made a significant observation:

"If democracies are losing faith in democratic models, and if autocratic regimes are supported in their antidemocratic practices by their combination of high economic growth and political stability, it is the Western world that suffers most from this evolution. the primary reason that today’s globalizing world is the ideal fertile ground for the blossoming or even the explosion of emotions is that globalization causes insecurity and raises the question of identity. Identity is strongly linked with confidence, and in turn confidence, or the lack thereof, is expressed in emotions—in particular, those of fear, hope, and humiliation."

Social emotions  condition the ways different cultures and regions react to events, see the future and interpret their past. Cunning populist politicians ride on social emotions to advance their own careers by responding to the swings of social moods.

Moisi describes three main kinds of social emotions: fear, hope and humiliation : 

•  Fear is the absence of confidence. If your life is dominated by fear, you are apprehensive about the present and expect the future to become ever more dangerous.

•  Hope, by contrast, is an expression of confidence; it is based on the conviction that today is better than yesterday and that tomorrow will be better than today.

• Humiliation is the injured confidence of those who have lost hope in the future; your lack of hope is the fault of others, who have treated you badly in the past. When the contrast between your idealized and glorious "

If we draw a map of the world, we can easily see how emerging Asia -China, India, Southeast- have a hopeful view and attitude towards the future. All the energy of their societies are focused in moving ahead and they are confident that they can improve their lot with effort and using their talent. They view globalization as an opportunity.

Developed countries such as those in Western Europe and the United States' politics are dominated by fear. They want to part ways (Brexit, Cataxit) , build walls (US) or cut immigration. They see globalization as a menace to their standard of living, wages and culture.

The Middle East is dominated by humiliation, a feeling that they have lost their cultural dignity and independence, that their better days are in the remote past of the times of the Prophet and the Califate. Humiliation breeds hatred as people see foreigners and even those embracing change and moving upwards as exploiters and feel victims excluded from the benefits. Latin Americans felt humiliated by the debt crash of the 1990s and turned similarly to angry rhetoric and populist solutions -from Chavez "bolivarian socialism" to Argentina's "kirchnerism".

Social emotions, explains Moisi, can also mix and coexist, creating conflicts inside each society: prosperous and military powerful Israel sits in the middle of poorly governed, low income, backward-moving neighbors. Arabs' anger and humiliation after their successive military defeats and their poor economic performance is corresponded with reactions of understandable fear by prosperous and otherwise hopeful Israelis.

US' Appalachia and rust belt regions voted for Trump -a successful millionaire with a populist platform and angry rhetorics- on the promise of bringing back the jobs and "make America great again". Those living in out-of-London Britain voted for a populist Brexit to stop immigration that they feel as a double menace to their jobs and their security.

Populist politicians pander to humiliation with a promise to "bring back" a glorious past (Califate, coal mining jobs, a more homogeneous community) and pointing to "enemies of the people": elites, "cosmopolitans", "bureaucrats" , promising to "drain the swamp" and kill the evil hydra of the "deep state". Or destroy Israel. Or re-establish El-Andaluz and the 7th century Caliphate. 

Emotions can be created by economic crises and also provoke them, by adopting self-defeating policies such as rising tariffs or leaving the EU. Or a multi-cultural country -as in the case of Spain or Iraq-

Self-fulfilling prophecies are particularly hard to avoid, especially for those living inside strong swings of social emotions. For those dominated by fear or humiliation, wars and decay might be also the path of least resistance. For those cultures dominated by hope, success is more likely and failure easier to overcome. 

Steering societies away from self-damaging populist "temper tantrums" in times of social fear of humiliation requires not just leadership, but statesmanship.

It took an FDR or a Churchill to instill hope in countries humiliated by economic Depression and fearing the military machine of Fascist and Communist invaders. Or a Nelson Mandela or a Mahatma Gandhi to overpower humiliation and bring together deeply divided societies.

The current leadership clearly doesn't make that cut.

Immigration Menu: "melting pot", "salad bowl" or "blood and soil"?

"America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” 

― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

The debates about legal immigration, paths to citizenship and the status of millions of undocumented long term residents not born in the US territory has been part of the history of a country of immigrants.

Until 1924, when the first Act restricting and selecting immigration was implemented, immigrants from all over the world were actively encouraged to come and settle in the expanding territory of the United States. The Homestead Act of 1862 allowed any resident in America, included free slaves, to put claim over 160 free acres of Federal Land. Ultimately 1.2 million claims were approved and 400,000 acres of federal land became property of residents.

That sounds like a far cry from the current DACA negotiations about protecting from illegality and deportation 800.000 young residents brought as children illegally to the US or the bargaining about building border walls, establishing "merit-based" quotas and prioritizing immigration by countries of origin (creating a new "shit hole" category for the unwanted).

Republican president Theodore Roosevelt advocated for the "melting pot" doctrine, under which all Americans must be willing to adopt and embrace the Constitution and laws of the country, abandoning all allegiances to their native cultures that might stand in the way. This for Roosevelt, included adopting a simple, non-hyphenated "American" identity.

TR was however, a self-declared "progressive" -in a time when that wasn't incompatible but even politically expedient and popular for a Republican running for office-. As immigration grew, so did  successive laws  restricting and selecting immigration -from the original free immigration stance of the Naturalization Act of 1790 to the present-

From the "give me your poor, huddle masses" poem written in the Statue of Liberty to reality there has been so many twists and turns as Charlie Chaplin -later himself an immigration case- immortalized in The Immigrant:

The "melting pot" doctrine remained, however, based as it was in the fact that the United States is a voluntary federation of preexisting independent states which retained a substantial part of their sovereignty and remains open to accommodate new members (from 14 to the current 50+Puerto Rico) based on the oath of loyalty to the law of the land, not ethnicity, religion, culture or country of origin. 

Not a minor feat for a 327 million people country that according to scholars includes 11 different cultural "nations" :

That is why the Naturalization Oath of Allegiance  ask those who was for American citizenship to renounce to any previous allegiance to any "foreign sovereignty" . After all, our first generation Americans -this country's Founding Fathers were citizens or subjects or foreign countries (8) and also of 13 different new colonies now turning into States (48). 

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

An emotional event that documentarist Alexandra Pelosi filmed in the 50 states:

Under the First Amendment, all people in the US (residents or visitors) are free to speak and practice their religion.

But becoming new US citizens carries also a duty, explicit in that public oath: they must put the US Constitution over any other law and obey the laws of the land regardless of their religious or personal beliefs. Hence, sharia law or any other religious practices remain private and not enforceable on anybody.

Traditionally, "melting pot" meant also learning and using English as a common language -something much easier now that the entire world has adopted English as the "common language of work and trade-.

Ethnic-nationalists on the Left (like La Raza o Black nationalists) or Islamic fundamentalists think otherwise, conceiving the US as a "salad  bowl" like the European Union. where "multiculturalism" means keeping separate cultures and norms, and even languages.

Some of them -like the Amish- choose to live in close communities and endogamy to preserve their traditions, others establish ethnic neighborhoods and ghettos.

The "salad bowl" doctrine has historically provoked backlashes, especially when jobs are hard to find. 

More recently, White nationalists and White Supremacists have pushed for a "blood and soil" criterion that puts "their" "America First". This means not just prioritizing Americans over immigrants, but those born over those naturalized and those "white" poor over "colored minorities".

The swings between these two un-American doctrines: multiculturalism and ethnic nationalism have been stronger since US elected its first Black president, succeeded by a president who ran in an white nationalist platform.

Both multiculturalism and ethnic nationalism share the concept of backward-looking  "identity politics' as opposed to our forward-looking Constitution and are one of the key sources of the current lack of civility:

Midterm elections invite populist politicians to play identity politics to shore their ethnic vote bases increasing the likelihood of "hang up parliaments" and gridlock.

Whichever way identity-based politics weigh in the coming elections, the result will be a more fractured and incivil civil society.

The civil way: make yourself an American

After all, this is a country of self-made people who can even chose (and often do) change their last names to start over again.

The problem with "salad bowls" is on plain sight with the ethnic riots in EU and US. "Blood and Soil" is a civil war solution that US and EU have tried with very well-known consequences. Starting a new one over the monuments of the previous is not a good idea.

Peter Schrag describes this paradox of immigrants against immigrants in his book "Not Fit for Society: Immigration and Nativism in America":

"Our contemporary immigration battles, and particularly the ideas and proposals of latter-day nativists and immigration restrictionists, resonate with the arguments of more than two centuries of that history. Often, as most of us should know, the immigrants who were demeaned by one generation were the parents and grandparents of the successes of the next generation." 

The "melting pot" metaphor may also be unrealistic: people are not alloys and cultures do not "melt" well in a few years. Becoming a non-hyphenated American is not automatic. It doesn't come with legal citizenship papers. It comes with an open, forward-looking attitude. Learning English and the country's ways. And time, a lifetime of self-building hard work.

The "melting pot" works better if we conceive it as it is: a slow, multi-generational process in which the first generation sacrifices its native language giving a big handicap in the labor market to help the next generation become fully and easily integrated.

Another way to understand how the immigration process has worked for the past 250 years in the United States, is by noticing that each one of the three alternatives is part of the process itself.

When immigrant arrive in large numbers when jobs declines (which tends to be always the case, since US economy drags or propels the rest of the world), the first reaction they provoke is "blood and soil" attacks on the newcomers. It happened with Irish, Germans, Chinese and Mexicans, on top of black slaves forced to live here. 

The second phase starts almost in parallel, with the newly arrived immigrants turning their lower-income neighborhoods and adoptive towns into multilingual "salad bowls" while they learn English to communicate with their neighbors and send their children to school. 

There, at school and at work starts the "melting pot" phase:  immigrant children and adults "melt" together with a long time of hard working, volunteering in wars and taking hard and dangerou

Finally,  those who went through the long process feel full-fledged, taxpaying Americans and start complaining about the next wave of illegal immigration.

There is no way around for first-generation immigrants. I'm one of them and we know that very well. We accepted the challenge when we applied and swore to play by the rules of the Constitution.

Members of each immigrant generation can become Americans by following a true and tried set of  civility rules: pull your own weight (and your family's), master English, drop the hyphen (hyphens are chains), practice real diversity by joining and share a culture different from your parents'.

And, over all: Don't take the  bait of either side of identity politics.