I don’t think that’s the issue here? The workers were breaking the laws, unacceptable, but there is little evidence that they are a danger to society or the agents handling them. There could have been much better ways to handle this or maybe, hmm, not televise for the whole world to see. It was done to humiliate. Period.
Just to clarify, I agreed with the OP that it wasn't a good idea. It's bad economics, bad precedent, bad foreign policy, and a bunch of other bad things.
I was speaking solely about politics, i.e. winning elections. And if you can't win elections, none of your other policies matter.
From my reading, this is what they seem to have meant by "bad politics". It's just not clear that OP meant "politics" strictly as "winning elections". I agree that it's good domestic politics. It may have even been seen as a tradeoff by the administration.
This is why politics is where it is — winning one election is less important than shifting the Overton window. The right wing know this and it’s their focus. When ‘moderates’ lean right to ‘win elections’ they shoot their future political aims in the foot
Exactly. The reason this was bad politics is that it created more pain than was necessary for the desired gain.
If Trump wanted leverage in negotiations and to appear strong on immigration... fine.
But there are so many ways of accomplishing that that didn't also alienate and piss off an ally to the extent this perp photo shoot did.
Hell, the government could have just politely detained them, put out a big splashy press release, then worked with the South Korean embassy to repatriate them. Same benefit, fewer hard feelings.
In contrast, as a result now there's going to be much higher government and South Korean domestic pushback on exactly the kind of US investment Trump wants.
It's one thing when someone does something distasteful but gets benefit out of going that far. It's another when they do it because they're inept.
The only people this excess played well for was Trump's base, and as others pointed out, there are plenty of less trade sensitive immigrant groups that could have been substituted, if that was the goal.
