Yeah. I agree with you.
But, I don’t think he closed the borders to China because he was acting in a Xenophobic fashion. To my mind, he did it because the pandemic provided a means to get back at China over his failed trade war. It was a petty and vindictive political maneuver in keeping with his narcississtic personality.
That said, in conjunction with calling Covid the Kung Flu, blaming China for the disease, saying they did it to us (like the rest of the world—who also has to deal with it— wanted Covid as a fun party favor), etc. led to an inevitable rise in poor behavior directed at our Asian community. He’s the President, and as such his behavior sets the tone for the behavior of the nation in great part. I hate to say it, but most people are sheep, and they follow the leader. Therefore, closing the border was Xenophobic in effect because he did nothing to ensure it wouldn’t be interpreted that way, regardless of his reasoning.
He deserved every bit of flack he got and more.
Further, he’s been all about border hysteria his whole administration and using racist, xenophobic dog whistles to get it done. This was already his established pattern of behavior. Kind of stupid to whine about how he’s being falsely accused when he’s spent so many years q establishing himself as a racist bigot. I mean, he’s complaining because branding his persona was a job well done? It read exactly as he’s been advertising and propagandizing for all that time.
I was for closing the borders. But I would have closed the borders to and from all nations, and only until such a time as a quick (15 min) test and quarantine protocols could be established for the safety of everyone the world over. Then I would have opened the borders from every country but respected the decisions of other countries to open their borders to us or not as and when they seemed safe.
That would have been a more appropriate, Presidential response given the information available at the time.
That’s the other side of this. He can never be trusted, given his established rhetoric, behavior, isolationist policy, and how he’s handled the office that he would not make border closings permanent. Nobody really wants that. We want secure borders and a fair and equitable path to citizenship. We want immigration cleaned up, not stalled indefinitely as a political ploy each party uses against the other. It’s egregious that families and the nation at large are being held hostage in the manner they are over refusal to hammer out needed policy changes.
