Today I’d like to discuss what I consider to be the most brilliant 4d chess move of President Trump to date. Sanctuary Cities. My personal moniker for it is “Operation turn Illinois and New York red.”

As everyone knows Trump ran on a platform that is against illegal immigration. Appointing Senator Sessions as Attorney General also shows that he is serious about this particular campaign pledge. It was then leaked that sanctuary cities may lose federal funding. This then prompted numerous cities in mainly democratic held areas like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles to promise that they would stay as sanctuary cities no matter what happened.

So who is the target? This is aimed at the poor and middle class citizens living in the big cities. If you recall in the election Trump overwhelmingly won the rural areas, was competitive in the suburbs, and normally lost in the cities themselves. Making inroads into some of these places means that future elections will be easier to win.

Under normal situations the democrats would be able to choose how to react. However due to their over the top fear mongering during the election they cannot choose to capitulate to Trump and help with the deportations. Their base would revolt. The only option they have is doubling down on their protection for illegal immigrants which is the best result Trump could hope for.

Let us analyze what the most likely scenario is. You have a President saying that he will let ICE and other enforcement agencies fulfill their duties while you have liberal cities declaring they will protect illegals come what may. An illegal alien has two options. He can either stay where he is and risk deportation or move to a city that guarantees he will be protected. Naturally some if not most will decide to move.

What happens if they move? First off they vacate the jobs they currently have and make it available to the citizens in the area. Will it be a good job? Most likely not, but it will still be required to pay minimum wage and the person working now spends all his money in the local community instead of sending half of it abroad to their home country, leading to more jobs being created in their home community. This helps fulfill the promise of more jobs.

What happens to the cities that the illegals go too? Logically once the illegals go there they will need a place to stay and they will need a source of income. Cities generally have limited space, an influx of new arrivals would mean that rental prices go up. There is also a limited number of available jobs. When the illegals get there they have an competitive advantage over the residents as they are willing to work for wages below the minimum which means that they will push out some of the current residents. Of course not all illegals will be able to find jobs so some will inevitably end up turning to crime to survive.

You can make an argument that when new residents arrive in an area they can be a positive impact on the area. Yet when new residents arrive they usually bring with them money, have a job and a place to stay waiting as well. Illegals would not be likely to have any of this.

We now have a situation where the poor and middle classes in the sanctuary cities face increased competition from illegals and possible exposure to more crimes. Any jobs taken by the illegals will contribute less to the community as well as some of the money will have to be sent abroad. Can they take out their anger on Trump? Sure that it is a possibility, but they are starting of as democratic strongholds already so it would not matter. Their ire would eventually fall on their local leaders who inflicted this upon them by forcing their cities to be sanctuaries which gets them to turn on them and vote for the other team or not vote at all.

A more extreme version of this is already happening in Germany as Merkel effectively declared the EU one giant sanctuary city with predictable effects. Of course we don’t expect our crop of illegals to be as violent as the islamic refugees so the process may take longer but with this 4-d chess move I fully expect Trump and his successor to be competitive in the cities in 4 or 8 years.