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The poll respondents were unambiguously opposed to the separation of children from their parents in cases of border apprehensions — 88 per cent said families should be kept together, and they faulted Trump for the policy of separating families. But a majority — 55 per cent — said the migrants should be held in custody until a judge heard their claims. Which is what Trump ended up ordering.

Asked whether illegal immigrants arrested for crimes should be turned over to immigration authorities, 84 per cent answered “yes.” A mere 16 per cent were content to go along with the sanctuary city policy of non-co-operation. About Trump’s signature aspiration of building some sort of “wall” between the U.S. and Mexico, a surprising majority of Americans appear to support something along those lines. Asked whether they are in favour of some combination of physical and electronic barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, 60 per cent answered “yes.” The same proportion of respondents said border security was inadequate.

Asked whether illegal immigrants arrested for crimes should be turned over to immigration authorities, 84 per cent answered yes

Since this seems to suggest a majority in support of Trump’s border policies, generally speaking, maybe there aren’t such deep and troubling divisions in the United States after all — at least if the severely controversial issue of illegal immigration is anything to go by.

There are divisions, nonetheless, and they go beyond the familiar left-right divide, and they transcend the usual, almost tribal divisions between Republicans and Democrats. “Identity politics” has come to almost wholly replace the conventionally broad class-based politics of the 20th-century left. There are deep splits among leading American conservatives about the phenomenon of Trumpism. There is a weird confluence of interest between the so-called “far left” and the hard right, so much so that Fox News bleater Sean Hannity is chummy as all get out with former hipster-left darling Julian Assange, and the popular anti-establishment paranoid Glenn Greenwald is treated with the utmost decorum in his Fox News exchanges with fellow “deep state” obsessive Tucker Carlson. The heartland is alienated from the coasts. The cities are disconnected from the countryside. And so on.