-By Warner Todd Huston
Let’s face it, Donald Trump has tapped into a very serious concern that most Americans have and that is illegal immigration. But the fact that he’s become a rising star in this GOP primary race at this time isn’t because he’s so great. It’s because the GOP is so damn bad on the issue. For Trump’s current success, the whole thing is Jeb Bush, John Boehner, and Mitch McConnell’s fault.
First off, let’s be frank. Donald Trump is not a conservative. He is a recent supporter of single payer healthcare, has claimed in the past that he supports blanket amnesty, and has been all over the map on such important topics as guns and abortion. So, please let’s stop pretending he is a conservative. He absolutely has no such track record.
But his denunciation of Obama’s failed–in fact dangerous–immigration policy is exactly what angers and frightens GOP voters along with a fair portion of Democrats.
Likely without doing the requisite research for statistics to prove the matter, Trump innately understands that what we have going on in immigration is a dangerous and wrong headed policy, one that seems to have a twin purpose: to destroy this country and to set up a permanent Democrat majority through creating automatic Democrat voters after a presidential amnesty.
Trump has been absolutely fearless in speaking out against this dangerous policy that is turning America into a third world nation. He has taken the fight straight to Obama on numerous occasions and that is exactly what Republican voters want to see.
Trump has, however left himself open to attack along race lines and has not sufficiently explained himself on the matter nor has his rhetoric been geared to do anything but anger Americans at Mexico and the immigrants themselves. This was the absolute wrong track to take.
Of course the bulk of immigrants, even illegal ones, are not maniacal, violent rapists and murderers. It is obvious if you look exactly at what Trump said that he never said that *all* immigrants are violent thugs. But the way he’s made his point can too easily be construed in such a way.He lacks the finesse of Reagan on his message and a happy warrior like Reagan is something we sorely need right now.
Trump has also made a mistake to attack the government of Mexico over the matter. Mexico has severe problems, granted, but the country is still one of our biggest trade partners–both in importing and exporting–and serves as a major tourist and ex-pat destination. Not that Trump should be gentle when criticism is due just because of economic reasons, but no candidate for president should be making such harsh condemnations of a major trading partner before even entering the White House.
Besides, the main problem with illegal immigration is Obama’s fault, not Mexico’s. Mexicans come here to work and to take advantage of our over indulgent welfare state. If we pare both of those back we will begin to choke off this flow of illegals.
But Trump being a *thing* in the political milieu right now is as much the establishment GOP’s fault as Obama’s.
Trump’s success is in inverse relationship to the establishment GOP’s own failed immigration record.
We have the purported front runner, Jeb Bush, constantly acting more like an immigrant from Guadalajara than a Republican. He’s self destructively pro-amnesty, idiotically in favor of the US Chamber of Commerce’s desire to unleash a wave of cheap labor that will create a permanent underclass in America, and even often thinks more like a Mexican than an American.
Then we have the GOP leadership in Congress that has refused to do the right thing on immigration, namely end Obama’s constant open door policies, begin deporting more criminal aliens, build the fence, and stop any and all freebies like education and healthcare to illegals. Instead they mealy mouth the issue, refuse to attack Obama and do nothing to stop wave after wave of illegals crashing across our border.
The American people do not want what Obama is doing to this country on immigration. They just don’t. And Trump has tapped into those fears.
The fact that Trump has gotten a toe hold in this primary right now is the GOP’s fault. It just isn’t because Trump is so great. It’s because the GOP is so bad.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing news, opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that wrote articles on U.S. history for several American history magazines. Huston is a featured writer for Andrew Breitbart’s Breitbart News, and he appears on such sites as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, Wizbang.com, and many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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