Invading Mexico has gone from Trump’s fantasy to GOP policy – By Mark Sumner (Daily Kos) / Oct 4, 2023
On the stage during the second Republican debate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis did not hesitate to say that he would invade Mexico. As The Hill reported, not only did DeSantis say that getting troops across the border was a “day one” priority, even “more moderate” candidates such as Nikki Haley and Tim Scott agreed that they would get in on the invading-Mexico game.
Military incursions into sovereign states are never a small matter, and they rarely end well for either invader or invadee. At this moment, Russia’s illegal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is not only costing thousands of lives and generating billions of dollars of destruction, it has left Russia isolated and outcast, with a shrinking economy and few prospects for any outcome that doesn’t leave it much worse off than where it started.
As The New York Times reports, the idea of using military force inside Mexico began in 2020 with Donald Trump pondering the idea of shooting missiles into drug labs. Since then, rather than condemning this ludicrous call to violate international law, Republicans have increasingly embraced it. And now an illegal invasion of Mexico by the U.S. military is something almost every Republican candidate is making a priority.
