During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump became notorious for his racist attacks on immigrants, especially those crossing the border from Mexico. Because y’know, Canadians are the right color, I guess, and they really don’t generally need to escape desperate situations. Which is what them brown people crossing the Southern border are doing: fleeing poverty and terrorism, perhaps in parts of Mexico but mostly from other countries like Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, where the U.S. has done a great job of creating hell on Earth.

To be fair, the U.S. didn’t create all of the trouble in these countries, many of which have a long history of poverty, injustice, and murder. The U.S. has, however, taken advantage of this instability to help install powerful and murderous leaders to massacre the common people, effectively turning a blind eye to the atrocities.

And now we have Donald Trump at the border waving at people in Mexico. He did this during a visit to Eagle Pass, Texas, and in a video posted on X by Alex Lorusso, the executive producer of the right-wing podcast The Benny Show, we see the former president standing behind a barbed-wire fence next to Texas Governor Greg Abbott and gesturing to people across the Rio Grande. Trump visited Shelby Park on Thursday, sits at the U.S. southern border, where he took time to discuss immigration policies as part of his 2024 reelection campaign.

After waving to the crowd, Trump turned to the camera crew and said “They like Trump. Can you believe it? They like the governor,” he said patting Abbott on the back.

Well, y’know, living in Central America as I do, I can tell you these folks like Trump and Abbott about the same way they like malaria. Which is to say not at all.

Abbott was more than happy to see his fellow racist, especially since the governor has continually been at odds with the Biden administration over handling the burgeoning number of migrant encounters in border states. The ex-president spoke a few words on Thursday, and of course, since he’s running for office, attacked Biden’s immigration policies, and blamed him for creating what he described as “Biden migrant crime” and an “invasion” of the country.

Is Trump waving to the Mexicans? 🤣 pic.twitter.com/SX8noBh3Ps

— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) February 29, 2024

The president spent his Thursday with federal Border Patrol officials in Brownsville, Texas, some 300+ miles southwest of Eagle Pass. During his time at the southern border, Biden urged Republicans to support his border bill and returned Trump’s insults by blaming him for the spending measure’s failure earlier this month. He then asked the former president to “join” him in supporting his security plan, saying, “We can do it together.”

“You know and I know, it’s the toughest, most efficient, most effective border security bill this country’s ever seen,” Biden said.

And the dueling border visits are happening just about eight months before it’s time for voters to cast their ballots for the next U.S. president, and despite former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s feistiness, Trump will assuredly be the Republican nominee and Biden will be the Democratic nominee.

Trump, who has described Mexican people crossing the border as “bad hombres,” is of course making border control a keystone issue during his campaign, vowing to hew to policy promises he tried and failed to deliver his first time as president. Including, of course, his much-belabored border wall. He has also announced his plans to “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” if the rest of us are unfortunate enough to have him as president again.

Biden has faced his share of bipartisan criticism over his handling of the southern borders and right now he is urging lawmakers to pass a $118 billion security bill that includes $20 billion to tighten up border security. But Republicans did what they (almost) always do and they blocked it in the Senate after Trump claimed passing this bill would be “a great gift to the Democrats.”

And of course, the Trump and Biden camps are fighting each other over why both are at the border at the same time, with Trump’s people saying “Biden’s handlers are sending him there on the same day as President Trump’s publicly reported trip, not because they actually want to solve the problem, but because they know Biden is losing terribly.”

Biden has dismissed this, saying he didn’t make the visit as a response to Trump’s plans, telling reporters on Monday, “I planned it for Thursday. What I didn’t know was that my good friend apparently is going.”

While Trump and Biden trade verbal jousts at each other, I’m going to point out there’s an easier, and I’m guessing less expensive way to solve this problem: Stop helping dictators. As this article from Truthout points out, in 2017, the U.S. military was supporting 73 percent of the world’s dictatorships. No dictators, no innocent civilians fearing for their lives and watching their family members being murdered.

See? Simpler, and maybe more cost-effective.

And the thing is, I’ve witnessed military interventions first-hand. You know what? They aren’t fun.