1. Numbers
During the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump promised to deport every illegal immigrant who was a rapist, murderer, or thief. He also promised to deport 20 million immigrants. Some voters believed the first promise; other voters believed the second.
Because people are stupid, that first group of voters believed that there were 20 million undocumented immigrants who have committed felonies. This is not possible. The total number of people in jail in America today—this includes federal, state, local, and tribal land prisons—is just under 2 million. The number of undocumented immigrants who have committed serious crimes cannot be 10x the entire prison population of the United States. If it were, then daily life in America would look like Escape from New York.
So some Trump voters were duped owing to their general ignorance and/or innumeracy.
But others were not. Others signed up for Trump because of his second promise (the 20 million deportations) and viewed the first promise (about deporting only criminals) as the pap necessary to get the suckers onboard.
There are two crucial questions about these two groups. The first is:
What is their relative size? What percentage of Republican voters were tricked into voting for Trump’s immigration policies versus what percentage are getting exactly what they wanted?
Would you like to guess? Go ahead. I promise that whatever you’re thinking, it isn’t dark enough.