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

5 reasons the attempted ban may work out exactly how the president wants

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock)

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.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.