It's interesting-really when you read what he is saying. He's arguing for better national security at the borders. He certainly did commit some gaffes, but his message is one trying to protect Americans from crime (Maybe some spillover from the drug war in Northern Mexico).
But it's a politician, so who knows his end goal anyway.
I heard a really interesting interview with a former president of Mexico on a podcast, I think it may have been Freakonomics, where he basically said flat out that his primary goal had been to knock down as many borders as possible between the North American nations, and that in fact there was a deal seriously in the works to allow for much greater economic permeability (for both money and labor) at the Mexico-US border before 9/11 totally redirected the US government's focus.
That has no bearing on whether what he said was racist, but it might explain which Mexican businesses don't like it and may try to spin it that way; if this was a thing that was seriously in the works as the former president said, there may be a lot of powerful people in Mexico who are kind of upset that it got put on indefinite hold.
It's interesting-really when you read what he is saying. He's arguing for better national security at the borders. He certainly did commit some gaffes, but his message is one trying to protect Americans from crime (Maybe some spillover from the drug war in Northern Mexico).
But it's a politician, so who knows his end goal anyway.
I heard a really interesting interview with a former president of Mexico on a podcast, I think it may have been Freakonomics, where he basically said flat out that his primary goal had been to knock down as many borders as possible between the North American nations, and that in fact there was a deal seriously in the works to allow for much greater economic permeability (for both money and labor) at the Mexico-US border before 9/11 totally redirected the US government's focus.
That has no bearing on whether what he said was racist, but it might explain which Mexican businesses don't like it and may try to spin it that way; if this was a thing that was seriously in the works as the former president said, there may be a lot of powerful people in Mexico who are kind of upset that it got put on indefinite hold.
Your point is sound. I agree definitely.