Trump's immigration order is toxic xenophobia. It's also smart politics.

Donald Trump's Monday night tweet announcing an executive order suspending immigration to the United States should have surprised exactly no one.

In recent weeks, the country has learned for the umpteenth time that Trump is temperamentally incapable of speaking to and for the vast middle of the electorate. There will never be a Trump pivot to the center, not even in a pandemic killing thousands of Americans a day and in an economic meltdown putting millions of them out work every week. He has no interest even in trying for a wider appeal.

Instead, he is a master of division and polarization — and thanks to the interaction between quirks in the electoral composition of both parties and the country's archaic way of electing presidents, Trump's facility at dividing and polarizing the country works to his advantage, as we discovered so ruinously in November 2016 and may discover yet again a little more than six months from now.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

This is how Trump's proposed executive order on immigration needs to be understood — as an act that will increase the likelihood of his reelection. That doesn't mean it was some masterful piece of electoral strategy devised in the Trump campaign war room, with every consequence thought out in advance. I've never given much credence to the 12-dimensional-chess accounts of the president's actions. His moves are mostly instinctual and impulsive. It just so happens that his instincts and impulses happen to harmonize remarkably well with advancing his political interests and those of his party.

There are at least five ways in which Trump's xenophobic immigration order is smart politics.

1. Taking decisive action during a crisis. Trump's immigration move is the right-wing nationalist equivalent of Barack Obama's first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, saying amidst the financial meltdown in January 2009, "Never allow a good crisis to go to waste. It's an opportunity to do the things you once thought were impossible." This sentiment justified the Obama's administration's early push to pass a sweeping heath care reform bill — something that the last Democratic president (Bill Clinton) had failed to do during more placid times. In much the same way, Trump is now taking advantage of not one but two major crises to attain a goal he has long sought but has thus far been unable to achieve — the curtailing or even elimination of immigration. That will make him look decisive and energetic as the general election showdown with former Vice President Joe Biden is just heating up.

2. Performing crucial base maintenance. Heading into a re-election battle, presidents always need to ensure their most loyal supporters are excited about the prospect of showing up to vote on Election Day. When a president is as polarizing as Trump, this kind of maintenance needs to be an especially pressing concern because the support of these voters is absolutely crucial to his re-election prospects. Trump tends to his base constantly — that's the best explanation for his incessant tweeting — and an executive order banning all immigration is a larger and juicier gift for these voters than ever before. Many of them gravitated to Trump in the first place because of his hardline stance on immigration. They're the ones who want the border wall built and respond favorably to xenophobic appeals. Thanks to the promised executive order, Trump has every reason to hope these voters will reward him with an extra burst of loyalty on November 3.

3. Encouraging the nationalist reaction. A pandemic was bound to strengthen the hand of nationalists around the world, with every country but China seeking to protect itself from a deadly contagion that has arrived from abroad. With severe economic consequences (including massive spikes in unemployment) following from efforts to contain the spread, nationalist arguments gain even further. Shouldn't the few remaining jobs go to Americans desperate for work? Those who wish to combat these arguments are bound to find themselves in a politically weakened position, sounding like they're siding with foreigners against their fellow countrymen in a time of a severe national crisis.

4. Dividing and conquering. In putting forward such an extreme order, Trump is forcing Biden and other Democrats to stake out a contrasting position on immigration. That would be fine were it not for the fact that the Democratic Party, including the Biden campaign, has been drifting left on the issue. That tracks with the views of very liberal white voters. But it clashes with the views of more culturally conservative white voters in the Midwest whom Biden needs to win in November. As always, Trump's strategy is to divide and conquer. He wants to force Biden to stake out a position on immigration that puts him implicitly on the side of open borders. That could give Trump an added edge with those same Midwestern swing voters.

5. Full-spectrum smackdown. In announcing a sweeping executive order suspending immigration, Trump has placed himself on a collision course with both the media and the courts, and Trump is never more content than when he's in a vicious battle with opponents he can portray as enemies of the people, with Trump himself serving as their defender and champion. He'll be exceedingly pleased if journalists attack him, calling him a racist for putting the health of Americans and the jobs of American workers ahead of those who come from other places, while courts try to block the order with stays and injunctions that appeal to globalist principles.

The greatest outcome of all for Trump would be for the executive order to go as quickly as possible to the Supreme Court, where members of the conservative majority will likely follow the reasoning they deployed when adjudicating the administration's travel ban. That gave the president broad discretion in determining what is and isn't in the interest of the United States and demonstrated an unwillingness to challenge such determinations on policy grounds. Such an outcome would not only give Trump a splashy victory to crow about as we approach the election. It would also underline for Republican voters the crucial importance of giving Trump another term to appoint like-minded judges to the judiciary.

Trump's proposed executive order might be cruel and immoral, but it is also politically shrewd. Grasping the potency of policies that combine those qualities is one key to understanding the challenge facing Democrats in November.

Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.