By now, it is conventional wisdom that the Republicans must embrace some sort of immigration reform to raise their percentage with the expanding Hispanic population. However, Ann Coulter’s anti-immigration Adios America is finding a wide audience, and Donald Trump drew attention, condemnation, and enough Republican support to now rank one or two in various polls with his anti-immigration stance. Here’s a conundrum for Republicans. Shoot down Trump and nominate Jeb Bush or any other pro-reform Republican, and for every Hispanic vote you might pick up, you will probably lose a Trump vote. Those who are either supporting or are sympathetic to Trump’s point of view are motivated not just by hostility to illegal immigration, but to the Republican establishment itself, which is very clearly trying to jam Bush down their throats. Sure, as this article states, Trump will probably crash and burn, but the immigration issue is not going away. The anti-establishment, anti-immigrant voters will make life extremely difficult for the Republicans, especially since many of them are not too crazy about mainstream Republican stances on foreign intervention, the surveillance state, or common core either. Good luck, Jeb! Robert Merry, at nationalinterest.org, analyzes the immigration issue:
Donald Trump is not a pleasant man. He is egotistical, vain, bombastic, often mean-spirited. He revels in his financial superiority, which he conflates with human goodness. When he contorts his mouth into a kind of tube as he talks, you brace yourself for something outrageous—and it nearly always emerges as expected. His likability quotient, at least in terms of his public persona, is down somewhere in single digits.
And yet he has just taken hold of the American political system by the neck and doesn’t seem inclined to let go anytime soon. The political elites don’t know what to do or say about his sudden rise in the polls. The elite media default to their favorite hobby horse of political analysis—that any backlash to the current wave of immigration will simply destroy the Republican Party earlier than it would otherwise be destroyed, which is inevitable anyway so why bother?
The latest poll, by The Economist and YouGov, has Trump leading the field of GOP presidential candidates with 15 percent, four percentage points ahead of former Florida governor Jeb Bush. Though the YouGov polling methodology is sometimes criticized, this result matches other polls, including a recent North Carolina survey that has Trump at 16 percent, again four percentage points ahead of Bush. There is widespread speculation that Trump ultimately will initiate an independent presidential candidacy and shake up the country’s politics in the general election.
So here we have a hard-working, conventional Republican candidate in Jeb Bush, who has amassed a strong record as a serious politician over many years and has the benefit of a hallowed political name. And suddenly he finds himself second fiddle to an upstart industrialist with an acid tongue, no political record, and a penchant for offensive remarks.
What’s going on here?
First, let’s stipulate that Donald Trump is not going to be president. Neither is he going to get the Republican nomination. But he has a capacity to be a serious political spoiler in the looming presidential campaign, and he seems bent on spoiling as much of the political establishment as he can. And that explains his current standing. Large sectors of the American electorate are disgusted with the political establishment and will welcome any force that takes it on.
This disgust stems from one highly emotional issue and a cluster of other issues that add up to a crisis of the old order. And yet the political establishment doesn’t want to address the highly emotional issue in any serious way and operates as if there is no gathering crisis of the American system.
To continue reading: Why Trump Surged in the Polls (And Why It Matters)
Trump is God.
No, I do not think Donald Trump will be nominated for President. And no I do not think he talks like the article’s undefined smooth talking political elite. But Trump has certainly made the issue of illegal immigration a matter that none of the other candidates for 2016 will be able to gloss over. I hope he brings up more topics–Obamacare, TPP, Middle East War-you name it-so they are openly discussed. Even if he takes the wrong position. I want Openness, Honest, Intelligence, Clarity. I know, probably can not happen.
To me the Republican establishment “political elite” include those in Congress who follow the rule of Boehner, Ryan, McConnell and Graham, the RNC under Preibus, the Chamber of Commerce and lastly, the big money and power brokers both in front of and behind the scenes. The author favorably portrays Jeb Bush–he and his family are part of the “power elite”
The author does a pretty disgusting ad hominem attack to “kill the messenger” rather than supply any documentation about Trump’s message.
How about some vitriol and reasoned discussion toward all of the political elite (both parties) who got us into the messes even he mentioned. I also find it ridiculous of the mention onlyof the Clintons and the Bushes. No Obama-how is this possible exceot for one tiny reference to “the President”?
When I read the full article there were 697 comments. I read about 20 and the intellectual level had already deteriorated–to a level even worse than the article itself.
Reblogged this on lisaandrews1968 and commented:
And yet I will still keep pulling for him — I am well aware of his idiosyncrsies and past but I am FURIOUS with the Established Republicans — I am FORCED to voting Republican year after year because a 3rd party is NOT going to win in this 2party nation GOP will not CAST MY vote in 2016!
“Donald Trump is not a pleasant man. He is egotistical, vain, bombastic, often mean-spirited. He revels in his financial superiority, which he conflates with human goodness.”
same ‘ol dog-and-pony show. The Donald works for and with the same gang of Wall Street/Las Vegas/Hollywood Judeo-billionaires that own the collectivist gubmint-mongering and neo-con warmongering wings of our One-Party political system. He has and does employ thousands of mestizo illegals on his construction projects and other crony capitalist rackets. He contributes tens of thousands of dollars to gun-grabbing globalists like Chuck Schumer. He’s a windbag and a fraud. What happened is this: the Republiscam Party oligarchs finally understand that, after 30 years of open-borders insourcing of non-White/antiWhite cheap labor, after 30 years of betraying their White/Right base on every other issue (see: current Republiscam-controlled Congress) they’ve painted themselves into a demographic/political corner. So, as they continue to “reach out” to Latinos, they must continue to con the StupidWhitePeople into voting for a Party and participating in a system that is grinding them into a powder. Trump is the appointed scammer. If he succeeds, he will be well rewarded. If he fails, and millions of Whites behave intelligently by refusing to participate in the 2016 fake-election, Mrs. Clinton will occupy the Rainbow House. In my view, a good thing, because we are deep into worse-is-better territory. Hiligula is completely incompetent, massively corrupt, and hates the (her words) “vast RightWing conspiracy”. She will be an ideal Captain for the USS Titanic as it accelerates toward the debtberg…and Civil War/Race War. Which is the only way we are ever going to get our Republic back