Donald Trump's hellish scream-fest/immigration speech was welcomed by his "Gimme Mo' Red Meat" audience. However, sane Americans, Latinos and non-Latinos, heard his speech for what it is:
A reassurance to his base to join him in turning this country into a nightmarish hellscape of hundreds of boxcars crammed packed with millions of men, women, and children headed for deportation. This is Trump's vision for America.
A blogging friend wrote about the impossibility of Trump's dystopian remedy for illegal immigration --The fabulist's wall and his plans for massive displacement of millions of human beings:
"The president of the united states cannot build walls, unless we're talking Lego here.
Day one, says trump. Even if he could get congress to appropriate at least 2 billion dollars on day one, most of those 2000 miles are private property and as the wall can't physically be built right on a riverbank, 2000 miles of ranches and homesteads and even towns and cities would have to be condemned, environmental studies would have to be done and unless the Fascist Dictator Trump somehow earns a 3rd and 4th term he doesn't have the time.
It's questionable as to whether a 20 foot gapless structure could be built at all and whether it could really deter anyone from crossing without stationing soldiers every 20 yards 24 hours a day. I'm getting tired of news nitwits ignoring this point. and tired of Americans who couldn't pass a citizenship or constitution test and ought to know this stuff.
Now as to rounding up ten or twelve million people on "day one" the physical means do not exist. Would we need 50 or 100 thousand new government employees and the most massive government agency in history?
It's one thing to dismiss the Liar Trump as an unscrupulous creator of myth, it's another to try to excuse all those supporters who can't do arithmetic and are clueless as to the separation of powers that defines this great country."
Paul Waldman at The Week (via Daily Kos):
That is going to be one seriously efficient deportation force if it can round up and deport two million people in an hour. Trump also said that his wall will be built "in record time," although he didn't mention what the current record is for building a wall between the United States and Mexico. [...] the Trump on display Wednesday night is the true one, the one who can't stop campaigning like he's trying to win the South Carolina primary. He needs to get in front of that angry crowd and soak up their love, to stand back and smile while they chant "Lock her up!" at any mention of his opponent, and squeal their joy at his promises to be strong and manly. Nothing gets them as excited as talk of border walls and deportations, and he'll keep feeding them what they want — even if the electorate as a whole finds it repugnant.
UPDATE:
Conservative David Gerson:
In this election, we have seen something remarkable. A candidate who reflects the views and values of conservative media was able — with a plurality and a fractured field — to seize the presidential nomination of the Republican Party. But the political universe of conservative talk radio does not constitute anything close to a majority of voters in the general election.
In fact, this cartoon version of conservatism tends to alienate key groups of voters, including minorities, Republican women and the college-educated.
Much (not all, but much) of the new conservative establishment feeds outrage as its source of revenue and relevance. It is a model that has been good for Limbaugh and Fox News but bad for the GOP. Republicans are now caught in a complicated electoral dynamic. What their base, incited by conservative media, is demanding, the country is rejecting. A choice and a conflict are becoming unavoidable.
Trump’s angry nativism — newly restated in Arizona with a few twists — is a talk-radio shtick, correctly viewed by most of the electorate as impractical and cruel. It is less a proposal than an offensive, unhealthy form of ideological entertainment. And this show needs to close.
19 comments:
Damon Linker, "The Week":
The list of prominent Republicans humiliated by Trump is very, very long: from Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio on down to Paul Ryan and John McCain. That has left Trump with a smaller base of supporters than one would expect from a major party nominee in 2016. (Mitt Romney was averaging 2-3 percentage points higher than Trump at this point in the race.)
Now, many of those favoring Trump have been passionately devoted to the candidate. That is unlikely to persist through the trials that began roughly 10 days ago and are bound to continue over the coming weeks.
Trump has reversed himself on a long list of policies over the years. But the one constant since he announced his candidacy for president in June 2015 has been his anti-immigrant stance. He would build a wall along the southern border of the United States and forcibly deport as many as 11 million undocumented immigrants. He's made the point over and over again at countless campaign rallies and events and in dozens of interviews and debates over the past 14 months. He alone will fix the problem of illegal immigration, unlike the losers who support various forms of amnesty, including the path to citizenship contained in the Gang of 8's immigration bill, which Rubio co-wrote."
The first thing Trump will do when he becomes president is tear down the statute of Liberty.
Did you see this?
Report: Fifteen Trump Hispanic Advisors to Resign in Protest of Immigration Speech
Half of Trump's Hispanic advisors have left the stinking ship. Trump has 0% support from "the blacks" and he's coming close to that with "the Hispanics= yuou know, the ones he says he loves after he kicks their asses out of the country then makes them pay for his wall. So lets count the people who will not vote for Trumper: women, hispanics, "tahe blacks" POWs, disabled Americans, colleged educated, Muslims, young people, what's left? the people who think Trump is agoing to make Murica great again! Bwahahahaha! the Republican crazies the base!
We all know shit attracts flies. Here is video proof. Check out the video like below at about 1:50.
Twitter cracks up over Trump trip to Mexico
http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/09/01/trump-mexico-follies-moos-pkg-erin.cnn
For those who don't want to copy and paste into their browsers, HERE IT IS.
Thanks, Jerry!
There is much to dislike about Trumps latest address and his trip to Mexico and the fallout from his Hispanic advisors.
Many have resigned from his Hispanic Leadership group, but others, hoping to have some influence with him, have remained. I listened to one leader yesterday, a pastor. He felt it was important for him to stay in the hope that he, as an evangelical, could influence and maybe push Trump in a more compassionate direction. What struck me was what that leader said... Hillary has no group/council dedicated to evangelicals. She is not speaking to anyone in that camp.
I for one find that, if true, depressing. She has no outreach into the largest faith group in the US?
The way Trump has spoken about immigration is horrible. But at the heart of what he is saying is this... "America first." Isn't that a reasonable principle to have as a starting point? Shouldn't our immigration policies reflect a view that says we're taking care of our own first, before we look elsewhere in the world?
I realize the ways we get there can be tough, but is that patently offensive to people?
Immigration is an incredibly difficult issue to deal with and understand. It is multilayered and an effective solution will be hard to find. But I've yet to hear the Dems, or the left, propose any real solutions either, short of do nothing.
But at least that means their voices are not being offensive, like Trumps is.
Hi Dave,
I did some research on Hillary and Evangelicals, and this came up immediately:
Hillary Clinton Woos Catholic and Evangelical Leaders With Global Development
Elizabeth Dias @elizabethjdias Aug. 2, 2016
Pro-Life Evangelicals Better Off With Hillary Clinton, Christian Writer Rachel Held Evans Says
June 21, 2016, 03:05 pm
Evangelical leader says Trump is ‘un-Christian,' endorses Clinton
Evangelicals for Hillary? Democrat Targets Religious Conservatives
By Danny Cannon on June 16, 2016
In addition to Hillary's outreach to Evangelicals, it is a fact that she's a lifelong Christian (Methodist) who reads and can quote scripture. Whereas, Donald Trump is not, by any measure, a devoted Christian, and he's shown he knows nothing about the Bible. But what's worse is the idea that people would question Hillary's faith (Trump has -- of all people!) and her outreach to Evangelicals -- which by the looks of the links, she and her team have been doing.
Dave, I backed Bernie in the primaries, but am supporting Hillary in the general election. Certainly Hillary has her problems, as any pol who's been in politics for as long as she has. But she is not the demon or the "beast" the Goopers make her out to be. And she certainly is far and away a better Christian than Donald Trump. She did, afterall, honor her marital vows -- "for better or for worse didn't she? And what could be worse than a philandering husband? But she stayed with him. Cynics will give all sorts of stories about why, but they're not privy to what went on in that marriage. The only thing we know is that the marriage is still there. Trump? The Evangelical "Christians" apparently have no trouble with a man who cheated on Wife #1 with Wife #2, and from what I've read, cheated on Wife #2 with Wife #3. Trump has also, himself, bragged about affairs with married women.
Yet all we hear is criticism about Hillary's faith. Really? REALLY? Can we all step back and look at that? Because I find it astounding that the Family Values Christians have no problem with the philanderer Trump and every problem with a woman who forgave her husband and kept her marriage vows.
Dave,
It's not "America First" that's the problem, although I think the nativist sentiment behind that is troubling, it's Trump's demonizing all immigrants illegal and otherwise.
The conservatives conveniently forgot that their hero, Ronald Reagan, believed in amnesty-- granted it to thousands of illegals, and he believed in immigrants as vital to this country.
The reason illegals are here and have flourished in this country is because corporations made money by employing them while authorities looked the other way. We all know this. Now we have the problem of the children who came here with them and the children who were born here when the non-documented were employed by American corporations. (They would not have stayed if they hadn't been able to find employment.)
What do we do with those children, the Dreamers, who have known nothing but America? Trump says throw them the hell out of here and for those they don't throw out, throw their families out.
As you said, a fair and compassionate immigration policy would be complex, nuanced, and humane. A fair, humane immigration policy would not be mass deportation of 11 million people.
Anyone with a functioning brain knows that there will be no wall and Trump will NOT deport 11 million people. Trump is a con artist and he knows how to appeal to the worst in human nature. We've seen many of our fellow Americans embrace this inhumane idea, and it's sickening and nothing to do with American ideals.
We can do two things at the same time: Think of America first and be decent to human beings. Human beings that this country has taken advantage of -- corporations who've employed them, encouraged them -- to work here, knowing they have no leverage to work toward citizenship.
"America First" is an insult to our heritage. Virtually all of us are descended from immigrants. If America First had been the policy when this country was founded, Native Americans would be the majority ethnic group.
Hi Dave, I don't think Hillary has a formal outreach team but looking at Trump's, I don't think she needs one. Michele Bachmann, A.R. Bernard, Mark Burns, Tim Clinton, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jr., et al. A who's who of American homophobia. She probably does fine with the Jim Wallace, Tony Campolo wing of Evangelicals. I think it's obvious to most Christians that Trump is pandering. Shaw has some good links.
Re immigration, Dems have been consistent on comprehensive reform. Hillary's plan is available to anyone interested. Immigration isn't that big an issue with most Americans, not even most Republicans.
In 18 of the 20 states where Republican primary exit polls have asked the question, GOP primary voters supported offering undocumented immigrants legalization instead of deportation
In 25 of the 26 states with Republican primary or caucus entrance/exit polls, immigration ranked last in the “what is your most important issue priority” test (behind jobs/economy; government spending; and terrorism) Source
It's good strategy for Hillary to sit back and let Donald hang himself with the issue in front of the general electorate.
Twink: Trump is already succeeding in motivating Latinos to self-deport. Unfortunately for him, it's from his campaign, not from the country.
I know of only one case in modern times of a mass deportation similar in scale to what Trump is proposing -- the expulsion, immediately after World War II, of about fifteen million ethnic Germans from the eastern German provinces which were transferred to Poland and the USSR (a further three million ethnic Germans were expelled from the Sudetenland at the same time). The chaos, upheaval, and brutality involved certainly merited the label of "hellscape" -- about three million of the expellees died during the process. Considering what the Poles and Russians had just suffered at the hands of the Nazis, they were in no mood to be sympathetic, but if similar scenes were played out across the roads and fields of Texas and California, I think mass public horror and revulsion would quickly force the government to abort the whole campaign. The enthusiasm aroused by mass deportation as an abstract concept would whither quickly under exposure to the ghastly reality.
And don't forget what Trump's plan would do to the name and reputation of the United States long into the future, especially in Latin America. The Cherokee "Trail of Tears" and the Arab/Jewish population exchange at the establishment of Israel involved miniscule numbers of people compared with eleven million, but the resentments evoked still linger among many people even today, generations later.
rump is getting crushed 70%-19% with Latino voters, and he is on pace to receive a record low amount of Latino support, but what should give Republicans nightmares is the long-term damage that Trump is doing to the GOP brand with Latino voters.
According to the new poll done by Latino Decisions:
"Approximately 3-of-4 Latino voters (73%) say the Republican Party “doesn’t care too much about Latinos” (45%) or that the GOP is “sometimes hostile towards Latinos” (28%), while just 21% say the Republican Party “truly cares about the Latino community.” When asked if Trump has made the Republican Party more welcoming to Latinos, less welcoming, or has had no effect, 70% of Latinos say “more hostile” vs. only 10% who say “more welcoming” (16% said “no effect”). Meanwhile, 58% of Latino respondents say that Hillary Clinton has made the Democratic Party “more welcoming” to Latinos vs. 10% who say “more hostile,” and 28% who say she hasn’t had an effect."
Can we have a few positive post pertaining to Ms.Clinton's attributes and successes rather then just picking nits on Trump.
I mean we should be extolling all the successful triumphs Mrs.Clinton has had the past 30 years.
I believe we could get more voters out by pointing to Mrs.Clinton's many successes rather then constantly pitching stones at her opponent.
Anon: "...rather then just picking nits on Trump."
Picking nits or nitpicking is a metaphor for criticizing small or insignificant faults or errors. I disagree. Donald Trump's flaws and errors are anything but insignificant. And as I've stated here and on other blogs, his presidential campaign poses a clear and present danger to our democracy.
Those voters who support Secretary Clinton and who come here to read this blog already know her successes and failures; and according to the polls, so do the American people who support her ahead of Donald Trump. That there are so many Americans who support Trump is more than disturbing, it's a wake-up call to everyone who cares about our country that so many of our fellow countrymen and women can be so easily duped by a demagogue and a con man.
Anyone who's honest knows we are not rounding up and deporting 11 million folks...
Craig... You're right in that she will get the votes of "my side" of the evangelical ledger.
But we, if I may, because I know this side, are more anti Trump then pro Hillary. There's no way on earth Tony is all in for Hillary. Supportive? Yes. To a degree.
But in this election, no one is exciting either wing of Christianity.
Some may think that's good. Not me.
Dave: "Anyone who's honest knows we are not rounding up and deporting 11 million folks..."
And yet that is a centerpiece of Trump's promise to the American people, a promise that sane Americans know he will never be able to keep -- the other promise is the wall that will never be built.
He is conning his supporters by making those two promises. Between his absurd promises he'll never keep and his terrible record as a faithful husband and Christian, I wish someone would tell us what is so appealing to the Evangelical Christians who do support him.
"I wish someone would tell us what is so appealing to the Evangelical Christians who do support him." Especially since the majority of them are Christians. Perhaps they are a little too brown or speak with an accent?
Jerry,
The Trump Evangelicals have unequivocally shown the rest of America that they will overlook a guy who pretends to be a Christian, a guy who brags about breaking one of their religion's 10 Commandments several times over, according to Trump himself -- they have unequivocally shown the world that their religious values are shallow and easily discarded once some con artist promises to deliver them unattainable dreams.
There are many Evangelicals with unassailable religious convictions, but the Trump Evangelicals are not among them -- they've attested to that in front of the world.
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