Saturday, November 21, 2015
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Obama Wants to Defeat America, Not ISIS
By Daniel Greenfield
Last year at a NATO summit, Obama explicitly disavowed the idea of containing ISIS. "You can't contain an organization that is running roughshod through that much territory, causing that much havoc, displacing that many people, killing that many innocents, enslaving that many women," he said.
Instead he argued, "The goal has to be to dismantle them."
Just before the Paris massacre, Obama shifted back to containment. “From the start, our goal has been first to contain them, and we have contained them,” he said.
Pay no attention to what he said last year. There’s a new message now. Last year Obama was vowing to destroy ISIS. Now he had settled for containing them. And he couldn’t even manage that.
ISIS has expanded into Libya and Yemen. It struck deep into the heart of Europe as one of its refugee suicide bombers appeared to have targeted the President of France and the Foreign Minister of Germany. That’s the opposite of a terrorist organization that had been successfully contained.
Obama has been playing tactical word games over ISIS all along. He would “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS. Or perhaps dismantle the Islamic State. Or maybe just contain it.
Containment is closest to the truth. Obama has no plan for defeating ISIS. Nor is he planning to get one any time soon. There will be talk of multilateral coalitions. Drone strikes will take out key figures. And then when this impressive war theater has died down, ISIS will suddenly pull off another attack.
And everyone will be baffled at how the “defeated” terrorist group is still on the march.
The White House version of reality says that ISIS attacked Paris because it’s losing. Obama also claimed that Putin’s growing strength in Syria is a sign of weakness. Never mind that Putin has all but succeeded in getting countries that were determined to overthrow Assad to agree to let him stay.
Weakness is strength. Strength is weakness.
Obama’s failed wars occupy a space of unreality that most Americans associate with Baghdad Bob bellowing that there are no American soldiers in Iraq. (There are, according to the White House, still no American ground forces in Iraq. Only American forces in firefights on the ground in Iraq.)
There’s nothing new about any of this. Obama doesn’t win wars. He lies about them.
The botched campaign against ISIS is a replay of the disaster in Afghanistan complete with ridiculous rules of engagement, blatant administration lies and no plan for victory. But there can’t be a plan for victory because when Obama gets past the buzzwords, he begins talking about addressing root causes.
And you don’t win wars by addressing root causes. That’s just a euphemism for appeasement.
Addressing root causes means blaming Islamic terrorism on everything from colonialism to global warming. It doesn’t mean defeating it, but finding new ways to blame it on the West.
Obama and his political allies believe that crime can’t be fought with cops and wars can’t be won with soldiers. The only answer lies in addressing the root causes which, after all the prattling about climate change and colonialism, really come down to the Marxist explanation of inequality.
When reporters ask Obama how he plans to win the war, he smirks tiredly at them and launches into another condescending explanation about how the situation is far too complicated for anything as simple as bombs to work. Underneath that explanation is the belief that wars are unwinnable.
Obama knows that Americans won’t accept “war just doesn’t work” as an answer to Islamic terrorism. So he demonstrates to them that wars don’t work by fighting wars that are meant to fail.
In Afghanistan, he bled American soldiers as hard as possible with vicious rules of engagement that favored the Taliban to destroy support for a war that most of the country had formerly backed. By blowing the war, Obama was not only sabotaging the specific implementation of a policy he opposed, but the general idea behind it. His failed wars are meant to teach Americans that war doesn’t work.
The unspoken idea that informs his strategy is that American power is the root cause of the problems in the region. Destroying ISIS would solve nothing. Containing American power is the real answer.
Obama does not have a strategy for defeating ISIS. He has a strategy for defeating America.
Whatever rhetoric he tosses out, his actual strategy is to respond to public pressure by doing the least he can possibly do. He will carry out drone strikes, not because they’re effective, but because they inflict the fewest casualties on the enemy.
He may try to contain the enemy, not because he cares about ISIS, but because he wants to prevent Americans from “overreacting” and demanding harsher measures against the Islamic State. Instead of fighting to win wars, he seeks to deescalate them. If public pressure forces him to go beyond drones, he will authorize the fewest air strikes possible. If he is forced to send in ground troops, he will see to it that they have the least protection and the greatest vulnerability to ISIS attacks.
Just like in Afghanistan.
Obama would like ISIS to go away. Not because they engage in the ethnic cleansing, mass murder and mass rape of non-Muslims, but because they wake the sleeping giant of the United States.
And so his idea of war is fighting an informational conflict against Americans. When Muslim terrorists commit an atrocity so horrifying that public pressure forces him to respond, he lies to Americans. Each time his Baghdad Bob act is shattered by another Islamic terrorist attack, he piles on even more lies.
Any strategy that Obama offers against ISIS will consist of more of the same lies and word games. His apologists will now debate the meaning of “containment” and whether he succeeded in defining it so narrowly on his own terms that he can claim to have accomplished it. But it really doesn’t matter what his meaning of “containment” or “is” is. Failure by any other name smells just as terrible.
Obama responded to ISIS by denying it’s a threat. Once that stopped being a viable strategy, he began to stall for time. And he’s still stalling for time, not to beat ISIS, but to wait until ISIS falls out of the headlines. That has been his approach to all his scandals from ObamaCare to the IRS to the VA.
Lie like crazy and wait for people to forget about it and turn their attention to something else.
This is a containment strategy, but not for ISIS. It’s a containment strategy for America. Obama isn’t trying to bottle up ISIS except as a means of bottling up America. He doesn’t see the Caliph of the Islamic State as the real threat, but the average American who watches the latest beheading on the news and wonders why his government doesn’t do something about it. To the left it isn’t the Caliph of ISIS who starts the wars we ought to worry about, but Joe in Tennessee, Bill in California or Pete in Minnesota.
That is why Obama sounds bored when talking about beating ISIS, but heats up when the conversation turns to fighting Republicans. It’s why Hillary Clinton named Republicans, not ISIS, as her enemy.
The left is not interested in making war on ISIS. It is too busy making war on America.
Sultan Knish
Last year at a NATO summit, Obama explicitly disavowed the idea of containing ISIS. "You can't contain an organization that is running roughshod through that much territory, causing that much havoc, displacing that many people, killing that many innocents, enslaving that many women," he said.
Instead he argued, "The goal has to be to dismantle them."
Just before the Paris massacre, Obama shifted back to containment. “From the start, our goal has been first to contain them, and we have contained them,” he said.
Pay no attention to what he said last year. There’s a new message now. Last year Obama was vowing to destroy ISIS. Now he had settled for containing them. And he couldn’t even manage that.
ISIS has expanded into Libya and Yemen. It struck deep into the heart of Europe as one of its refugee suicide bombers appeared to have targeted the President of France and the Foreign Minister of Germany. That’s the opposite of a terrorist organization that had been successfully contained.
Obama has been playing tactical word games over ISIS all along. He would “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS. Or perhaps dismantle the Islamic State. Or maybe just contain it.
Containment is closest to the truth. Obama has no plan for defeating ISIS. Nor is he planning to get one any time soon. There will be talk of multilateral coalitions. Drone strikes will take out key figures. And then when this impressive war theater has died down, ISIS will suddenly pull off another attack.
And everyone will be baffled at how the “defeated” terrorist group is still on the march.
The White House version of reality says that ISIS attacked Paris because it’s losing. Obama also claimed that Putin’s growing strength in Syria is a sign of weakness. Never mind that Putin has all but succeeded in getting countries that were determined to overthrow Assad to agree to let him stay.
Weakness is strength. Strength is weakness.
Obama’s failed wars occupy a space of unreality that most Americans associate with Baghdad Bob bellowing that there are no American soldiers in Iraq. (There are, according to the White House, still no American ground forces in Iraq. Only American forces in firefights on the ground in Iraq.)
There’s nothing new about any of this. Obama doesn’t win wars. He lies about them.
The botched campaign against ISIS is a replay of the disaster in Afghanistan complete with ridiculous rules of engagement, blatant administration lies and no plan for victory. But there can’t be a plan for victory because when Obama gets past the buzzwords, he begins talking about addressing root causes.
And you don’t win wars by addressing root causes. That’s just a euphemism for appeasement.
Addressing root causes means blaming Islamic terrorism on everything from colonialism to global warming. It doesn’t mean defeating it, but finding new ways to blame it on the West.
Obama and his political allies believe that crime can’t be fought with cops and wars can’t be won with soldiers. The only answer lies in addressing the root causes which, after all the prattling about climate change and colonialism, really come down to the Marxist explanation of inequality.
When reporters ask Obama how he plans to win the war, he smirks tiredly at them and launches into another condescending explanation about how the situation is far too complicated for anything as simple as bombs to work. Underneath that explanation is the belief that wars are unwinnable.
Obama knows that Americans won’t accept “war just doesn’t work” as an answer to Islamic terrorism. So he demonstrates to them that wars don’t work by fighting wars that are meant to fail.
In Afghanistan, he bled American soldiers as hard as possible with vicious rules of engagement that favored the Taliban to destroy support for a war that most of the country had formerly backed. By blowing the war, Obama was not only sabotaging the specific implementation of a policy he opposed, but the general idea behind it. His failed wars are meant to teach Americans that war doesn’t work.
The unspoken idea that informs his strategy is that American power is the root cause of the problems in the region. Destroying ISIS would solve nothing. Containing American power is the real answer.
Obama does not have a strategy for defeating ISIS. He has a strategy for defeating America.
Whatever rhetoric he tosses out, his actual strategy is to respond to public pressure by doing the least he can possibly do. He will carry out drone strikes, not because they’re effective, but because they inflict the fewest casualties on the enemy.
He may try to contain the enemy, not because he cares about ISIS, but because he wants to prevent Americans from “overreacting” and demanding harsher measures against the Islamic State. Instead of fighting to win wars, he seeks to deescalate them. If public pressure forces him to go beyond drones, he will authorize the fewest air strikes possible. If he is forced to send in ground troops, he will see to it that they have the least protection and the greatest vulnerability to ISIS attacks.
Just like in Afghanistan.
Obama would like ISIS to go away. Not because they engage in the ethnic cleansing, mass murder and mass rape of non-Muslims, but because they wake the sleeping giant of the United States.
And so his idea of war is fighting an informational conflict against Americans. When Muslim terrorists commit an atrocity so horrifying that public pressure forces him to respond, he lies to Americans. Each time his Baghdad Bob act is shattered by another Islamic terrorist attack, he piles on even more lies.
Any strategy that Obama offers against ISIS will consist of more of the same lies and word games. His apologists will now debate the meaning of “containment” and whether he succeeded in defining it so narrowly on his own terms that he can claim to have accomplished it. But it really doesn’t matter what his meaning of “containment” or “is” is. Failure by any other name smells just as terrible.
Obama responded to ISIS by denying it’s a threat. Once that stopped being a viable strategy, he began to stall for time. And he’s still stalling for time, not to beat ISIS, but to wait until ISIS falls out of the headlines. That has been his approach to all his scandals from ObamaCare to the IRS to the VA.
Lie like crazy and wait for people to forget about it and turn their attention to something else.
This is a containment strategy, but not for ISIS. It’s a containment strategy for America. Obama isn’t trying to bottle up ISIS except as a means of bottling up America. He doesn’t see the Caliph of the Islamic State as the real threat, but the average American who watches the latest beheading on the news and wonders why his government doesn’t do something about it. To the left it isn’t the Caliph of ISIS who starts the wars we ought to worry about, but Joe in Tennessee, Bill in California or Pete in Minnesota.
That is why Obama sounds bored when talking about beating ISIS, but heats up when the conversation turns to fighting Republicans. It’s why Hillary Clinton named Republicans, not ISIS, as her enemy.
The left is not interested in making war on ISIS. It is too busy making war on America.
Sultan Knish
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Trump is Right: Illegal Alien Crime is Staggering in Scope and Savagery
by FSM NATIONAL SECURITY TEAM
Non-Americans commit over five times more serious crimes per capita than Americans.
It is estimated that there are some 133,741 foreign criminals in prisons and jails in the USA (1). They are not there for spitting on the sidewalk or jaywalking, and very few are there for immigration violations, as those illegal alien criminals are typically deported in fairly short order or simply let go as we have seen time and time again. They are there in large part for molesting, raping, killing, maiming and murdering people in America, as you will see below.
Add in the 168,680 convicted criminal immigrants who have final orders of removal but who remain at large in the U.S., and another 179,018 convicted criminal aliens with deportation cases pending but who are also at large (2), and we have a total non-American felon population of 481,439...a number the size of our 35th largest city, Sacramento, California, and larger than the entire populations each of Atlanta, Kansas City, Omaha, Miami, Minneapolis - and more.
And remember, for most of these felons, there was a victim.
Looking at it another way, illegal aliens constitute 27% of the federal prison population (3). This means that a group which comprises less than 5% of the population nationally is committing 27% percent of the federal crimes. So just by that metric alone, illegal aliens commit over five times more serious crimes on a per capita basis than residents do.
But here's another fact. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in an April 7, 2005 report to Congress entitled "Information on Criminal Aliens Incarcerated in Federal and State Prisons and Local Jails", "The percentage of all federal prisoners who are criminal aliens has remained the same over the last 3 years--about 27 percent. * The majority of criminal aliens incarcerated at the end of calendar year 2004 were identified as citizens of Mexico." Sorry to report the truth here, but quite a few people owe Mr. Trump an apology.
That doesn't even include all the other criminal aliens that the government desperately tries to hide from the public even though they must announce it: according to Jessica M. Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, the 36,007 criminal immigrants that the Obama administration released in 2013 to prowl the streets of America even though they had a collective 88,000 convictions, including 193 homicides, 426 sexual assaults, 303 kidnappings and 1,075 aggravated assaults. And that was just one year's worth of criminal illegal aliens let go to continue to prey on the citizens of the USA.
In 2014, in a cynical move that can only be described as depraved especially because Mr. Obama ‘s most important job is to protect Americans, the Obama administration released another 30,558 criminal immigrants, who had a total of 79,059 convictions, into America to mingle with its unsuspecting, innocent, law-abiding citizens. Someone ought to tell the man what his job is.
To read all of the horrifying crimes these illegals commit click on the link Family Security Matters.
Family Security Matters
Non-Americans commit over five times more serious crimes per capita than Americans.
It is estimated that there are some 133,741 foreign criminals in prisons and jails in the USA (1). They are not there for spitting on the sidewalk or jaywalking, and very few are there for immigration violations, as those illegal alien criminals are typically deported in fairly short order or simply let go as we have seen time and time again. They are there in large part for molesting, raping, killing, maiming and murdering people in America, as you will see below.
Add in the 168,680 convicted criminal immigrants who have final orders of removal but who remain at large in the U.S., and another 179,018 convicted criminal aliens with deportation cases pending but who are also at large (2), and we have a total non-American felon population of 481,439...a number the size of our 35th largest city, Sacramento, California, and larger than the entire populations each of Atlanta, Kansas City, Omaha, Miami, Minneapolis - and more.
And remember, for most of these felons, there was a victim.
Looking at it another way, illegal aliens constitute 27% of the federal prison population (3). This means that a group which comprises less than 5% of the population nationally is committing 27% percent of the federal crimes. So just by that metric alone, illegal aliens commit over five times more serious crimes on a per capita basis than residents do.
But here's another fact. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in an April 7, 2005 report to Congress entitled "Information on Criminal Aliens Incarcerated in Federal and State Prisons and Local Jails", "The percentage of all federal prisoners who are criminal aliens has remained the same over the last 3 years--about 27 percent. * The majority of criminal aliens incarcerated at the end of calendar year 2004 were identified as citizens of Mexico." Sorry to report the truth here, but quite a few people owe Mr. Trump an apology.
That doesn't even include all the other criminal aliens that the government desperately tries to hide from the public even though they must announce it: according to Jessica M. Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, the 36,007 criminal immigrants that the Obama administration released in 2013 to prowl the streets of America even though they had a collective 88,000 convictions, including 193 homicides, 426 sexual assaults, 303 kidnappings and 1,075 aggravated assaults. And that was just one year's worth of criminal illegal aliens let go to continue to prey on the citizens of the USA.
In 2014, in a cynical move that can only be described as depraved especially because Mr. Obama ‘s most important job is to protect Americans, the Obama administration released another 30,558 criminal immigrants, who had a total of 79,059 convictions, into America to mingle with its unsuspecting, innocent, law-abiding citizens. Someone ought to tell the man what his job is.
To read all of the horrifying crimes these illegals commit click on the link Family Security Matters.
Family Security Matters
Monday, October 26, 2015
20 Reasons Why It Should Be Donald Trump in 2016
22 Oct 2015
It isn’t “acceptable” in polite society to support Donald Trump, I am told.
America’s bullies – the sneering, “we know better than you” establishment classes – have made many cower in silence rather than proclaim that Trump is a tremendous presidential candidate and has earned their support.It is a replay of the worst aspects of high school peer-pressure, about what’s OK and what isn’t, based on selfish interests and prejudices.
Well, enough of that. Trump is already changing America for the better – and is encouraging us to boldly stand up for our beliefs about what’s best for our nation and best for our fellow Americans.
So let’s get right to it. Shifting America back on course requires Donald Trump as the Republican nominee. Not only is he the only Republican candidate who could win the general election, but he is the only choice Republican voters should consider (and should consider themselves lucky to have on their side).
In no particular order, here are the top 20 reasons why:
1. He is not your ordinary politician. Yes, Trump is different. Guess what? That’s a good thing. His ideas – e.g., a sound immigration policy, returning manufacturing jobs to America, negotiating better trade deals – are not at all radical, but do go against the Washington status-quo. You see, we’re supposed to select another perfectly malleable politician – a Republican not unlike a Democrat – who won’t shake things up too much while in office. Same ol’, same ol’. And you, little person, you are supposed to vote for more of the same and like it. But the American public has reached a tipping point – we’d rather gouge out our eyes than select another career politician or Washington insider. That’s just electing the problem to fix the problem. Hence, this:
It’s make or break time – and drastic times call for, well, not drastic measures but certainly something different. America is headed towards demise. If the old adage is that ‘insanity is trying the same thing time and time again and expecting a different result,’ why would we nominate the usual type of politician?
2. Trump is not reliant on donors. This cannot be overstated enough. Not relying on donors – especially not following the Rubio-model of huge support from just a handful of individuals (as a Gawker piece rightly predicted last year) is crucial. No one will own Trump. Yet the Trump-attacking conservative pundits continue to scoff that he doesn’t have the cash to see this campaign through. This is an astonishing, frightening smear. Why? Because it means we no longer even bother with the pretense that money doesn’t buy an office.
The “he doesn’t have the big donors/funding-network to go all the way!” smirk is precisely why he should.
3. Yes, he doesn’t have much of a filter. Bravo. We keep hearing from the Trump-naysayers that’s Trump’s mouth is a problem. But where you see a loudmouth, I see candor. Where you see a lack of filter, I see transparency. Where you see a man who gaffes, I see a man who is willing to wipe the cancer of political correctness out of our society. Where you see a loose cannon, I see a man who says what he means and means what he says. Or, would we rather the typical Hollywood celebrity or establishment politician (the two are remarkably similar) who runs a statement by 20 handlers, 10 advisers, and a social-media team before making it? Do we wish to be led by an individual who does not speak from the heart but rather prefers to be advised on what to say and when to say it? Do we wish to be led by a politician who waits to see how the polls emerge on a subject before issuing an opinion? Do you seek a president…. or a ventriloquist puppet who’s views who you do not truly know?
(Hannity show, October 9th, 2015)
Go ahead and call him a ‘bully.’ You almost say that as though it’s a bad thing –a “bully” in Washington is precisely what the doctor ordered. (And P.S.: he is no more a “bully” that those donors in the establishment who seek to sideline our preferences with a check, or smear us with epithets.)
4. He speaks for us little people. Hate to break it to ya’ – but we don’t have much of a voice. We have politicians who will throw us meaningless bones, corny platitudes about the “American dream”, and make big promises they will never keep. At the end of the day, all do their donors’ bidding, and the bidding of Big Business rather than ours. Try speaking up and you will be flattened. It takes someone powerful, who is beholden to no-one more powerful, to lift up our concerns. Thank heavens we have someone who understands those concerns and is willing to be that voice. Consider this online comment:
Trump actually discusses the concerns of the middle-class, blue-collar worker. Bringing jobs back to the American worker is something about which most politicians care little, if at all. Why? Because nearly all are crony-capitalists, tucked into the pockets of Big Business executives who want to outsource your job to China. The other GOP contenders will pay lip-service to middle-class concerns but, in reality, it’s all “wink-wink” behind closed doors in trade deals that ensure your job is lost, and immigration policies that ensure your wages remain stagnant and you’ll face stiff competition for housing or even a fast-food gig.
5. Make no mistake, there is an establishment plot against him. The establishment really, really doesn’t want him – but we really, really do.
(NY Post, October 17, 2015)
So their takedowns keep backfiring. Consider this quote from George Will, which doesn’t at all sound hysterical!
This Facebook commenter nails it:
The more the powers-that-be try to take Trump down with breathless: “Can you believe he said ____?!” the more the American public shrugs and says: “Eh, sorry, still love him” or, worse yet, as seems to be the case lately: “Hey, actually, we like him even more now! I’m glad someone finally said ___!”
Attempt after attempt on ‘Teflon Trump’ slides right off him and instead backfires and blows up in their collective faces. It reminds me of a scene in “Gladiator” (indulge me for a minute – there is a side of me that is a 19-year-old bro), where Commodus (after attempting to orchestrate Maximus’s death by forcing Maximus to fight the greatest living gladiator, only to have Maximus turn the tables by not only besting the opponent but showing him mercy), in a fit of frustration, exasperatedly wails: “And now they love Maximus for his mercy! So I can’t kill him or it makes him even more merciful. The whole thing is like a great nightmare!” That is not unlike what is happening right now in the smoke-filled rooms of the establishment.
Take the Megyn Kelly incident – naysayers said Trump would be doomed among conservatives by feuding with a fairly popular Fox News host. Except, conservatives didn’t care.
Ouch.
(USA Today, September 4, 2015
)
Yup.
And poor Jorge Ramos, who self-imploded when he tried to confront Trump, coming across as an unhinged, angry activist rather than a professional journalist.
Creepiest of all is the “let’s not attack him directly, let’s just keep saying his campaign is over in the hopes that it will stick.” They’ve been saying his campaign is over, every week (“no, this time it’s really, really is over!” only to have it thrive. Consider this from September 27, 2015:
Yet this is the Drudge Report banner on October 21st:
6. Diplomacy. We also keep hearing Trump isn’t “diplomatic.” Interestingly, though, it is Trump who is willing to sit across the table and actually talk to Vladimir Putin, while we have other GOP contenders calling a hugely popular First World nation’s leader a “thug.” (Free advice: It isn’t presidential to refer to another world leader, the elected leader of a first world nation, using ad hominem attacks. Not very Reagan-ite.) Remind me again who’s the diplomatic one? For an alleged blowhard, Trump sure is diplomatic when it counts. To that end, he’s also sensible. Despite describing the Iran nuclear agreement a “disastrous deal” and “horrible contract,” he said he would work it. Meanwhile, demagogue candidates were proclaiming they would (despite the impossibility of doing so) rip it up on “Day One” – sounds swell.
7. His business accomplishments. Shocker! Imagine having a president who has actually built and created things! Imagine having a president with a proven track record as an enormously successful businessman. But, silly me – why have that when we can have, for instance, a first-term senator, career-politician who’s never even passed any significant legislation or a governor whom, despite some laudable accomplishments, most of the nation, including Republicans, can’t stomach?
8. He’s pro-women. In the plot to take down Trump, one of the first tactics tried was to cast him as anti-women. But Trump has worked with many peers and sparred against many rivals – male and female alike – and thus actually shows he treats women as equals (e.g., Yes, he joked about Carly Fiorina – he also joked about
. Get it?). Or are we, as women, demanding to be coddled and spared the same treatment as the gents? Last week, an article by Yahoo!’s Chief National Correspondent found Trump has a history of building women up.
9. A stellar first family. We often forget that we are not only choosing a president but choosing a First Family. While the other candidates all have perfectly nice families, none has the potential for impact as the Trumps. (Before you say ‘the Bush family’ – stop. That family is more overexposed than Taylor Swift – go away for a while and maybe we can miss you.) Melania as First Lady? Absolutely. A poised, elegant, intelligent woman, already accustomed to the spotlight, who is an immigrant herself with a keen interest in women’s health issues. His children? Where to begin? Ivanka, for instance, would be a tremendous role model across the world – a working mother who is a thriving entrepreneur. And, in 2015, is it not time to consider having a ‘blended,’ modern family as the First Family?
10. A man of sound morals. For those who judge a man’s character based on whether he called someone a “loser” during a silly Twitter feud, well, there is no helping your stupidity so stop reading this. The rest of us, however, know to look at a man’s actions and his record in life. What is Trump’s? For one, he’s known for treating his workers well. Second, is there no ugly scandal or brush with the law – he seems to lead a fairly straight-arrow life. Then there’s his family life. Two divorces? Sure. Marriages sometimes don’t work out. Ask Newt Gingrich or even Ronald Reagan himself. He’s on friendly terms with both ex-wives, though. What does that tell you? And his children routinely express what a loving, supportive father he’s been. Point me to another businessman of Trump’s money with four adult children, all of whom have stayed away from scandal and disgrace despite growing up in the spotlight. We’d be hard pressed to find one – meaning, Trump clearly did something right. Heck, forget the “Art of the Deal” — Trump should write the “Art of Parenting.”
11. The celebrity factor is actually a huge plus. If you’re reading this article, you’re someone who follows politics and stays informed. Hey, congrats — proud of ya. But guess what? The majority of the American public does not. They’ll vote – if they can even be bothered to do so on election-day – for a candidate based on gut instinct or name recognition (how else do you think the Kennedy’s get elected?!). And, newsflash: Save for some parts of Texas, it isn’t OK to say you’re a Republican these days, thanks to years of liberal academia and Hollywood beating our image like a rented mule. But Trump can bridge that gap. It’s conservatism … but represented by a well-liked celebrity. How much clearer can this be? Trump is a God-send. Finally, we conservatives caught a break!
12. His policies are spot-on, particularly immigration. For brevity, this article is not meant to discuss the nuances of Trump’s proposed policies and positions. But he’s right on pretty much every position he espouses, first and foremost that of immigration, the most critical issue facing America.
In fact, if you vote based on one issue, make it that one, as it affects all others. And only Trump has the correct view, out of every GOP contender. Moreover, each time he makes an ‘inflammatory’ remark, the stats back him up.
And…
How about taxes? Trump is the only one willing to take on the hedge-fund managers and blast their ridiculously unfair tax rate. It’s the ideal position – someone with a conservative tax plan but who realizes attacking the hedge-funders’ sweet deal doesn’t make one a “liberal” – and simply shows an individual with an astute understanding of finance and a genuine sense of fairness.
How about a dedication to veterans? Check! A strong but sensible foreign policy? Check! (Trump admits Iraq wasn’t a great idea and thinks we are best off sitting back and letting the Syria mess play itself out, without sending our boys into harm’s way. Amen!) What does he not get right? He has the New York Times’ Paul Krugman praising him:
For heaven’s sake, there’s even this:
In a nutshell, the nation agrees with his policies, as noted here. Trump didn’t rise because of his personality but simply because his positions are popular ones, as noted in this August piece from VOX:
13. He can bring in independents. Consider this:
(Quartz, September 1, 2015)If you think any statistically-significant number of independents will vote for Bush or Rubio, I tip my hat to your ridiculous level of optimism. You should start a retreat in the mountains for manic-depressives. But simple math shows we cannot win without independents. So, even if you disagree with the rest of these reasons, Trump is the GOP’s only shot. And consider this online comment:
Want to see someone who will bring folks of all walks of life together? Trump. The war-hero? “Man do I love Trump….” The single mom down the block? “I actually like what Donald Trump says, I’d vote for him.” He’s a true populist. (P.S. Noticed how the Trump-attackers use that term as a pejorative? Odd. Apparently recognizing the needs and concerns of the masses, and of average Americans like you and me, is a negative.)
14. The naysaying is rooted in careerists’ self-interests. Too many conservative writers and conservative TV pundits are out for their career security and financial bottom line — not to save the nation or save conservatism.
Do you work at an outlet where the owners/donors/funders don’t like Trump? Here come the articles blasting him! (Because your career and your paycheck matter more than the good of conservatism, the nation, or your conscience, apparently.) Better yet, are you a network contributor or network TV host at a network whose top brass prefers another candidate? Tow that line! Ca-ching! (Ever notice how rarely some conservative pundits criticized the “Gang of 8” amnesty bill? Well, now ya’ know!) And, even above all that, do you want to fit in with the smarmy, snickering conservative writer/pundit so-called “smart set,” who simply can’t stomach the idea of having to publicly stump for, ewwww!, celebrity Donald Trump next year, should he win the nomination? Ridicule him! And, if you really want to earn a pat on the back, attack his supporters, too!
Aside from this, there is the political consultant class, whose entire cushy livelihoods are threatened by Trump’s rise. Why? He’s shown you can make it without their useless input and advice. The pointless wizard behind the curtain is revealed – uh-oh. Standing up for Trump is also standing up against these Pharisees.
15. Negotiation skills. Presidents have the benefit of being surrounded by highly talented experts in their respective fields – it’s the entire basis for the Cabinet appointments. But, what’s the one area on which a president is on his own? Negotiations. When our leader walks into an international forum, or that one-on-one meeting with the British PM, there is no adviser that can speak for him. It’s the one time the president sinks or swims on his own merits. As such, a stern – even arrogant — president with negotiating expertise is of paramount importance. Governors have keen negotiating skills, sure – so do CEO’s. Trump is so good at it, though, he – literally – wrote the ‘bible’ on it.
16. Many Latinos love him. Speaking of Jorge Ramos…. The media keeps insisting Latinos despise Trump. Except, we don’t. In fact, many of us love him. Myriam Wichter, the Columbian immigrant from the recent Las Vegas Trump rally, is not an anomaly. Hang-onto-your-horses for this whopper of a ‘revelation’: America’s Latinos have the same wants, needs, and concerns as other Americans! Our priorities are the same as “Anglos”: jobs, healthcare, and so on! A truly novel concept!
Here’s more from the Pew Research Center;
Oops! Or how about this?:
Or, this!
Or, there’s more (we could do this all day…)
According to the media, however, Latinos’ main issue is not just immigration but illegal immigration, because, this argument goes, (1) Latinos all came to this country by breaking the law and (2) unlike every other American concerned about the economy or education, of course immigration is their number-one concern!
That line of thinking is what’s borderline racist, not Trump’s remark.
When VOX’s editor in chief tweets that “Donald Trump’s immigration plan reads like a plot to make sure Republicans never get another Hispanic vote,” as a genuinely-hurt Latina I have to wonder if the media realizes that is far more offensive to America’s Latinos than anything Trump has uttered.
I am a hard-working, taxpaying, American who has the same concerns as other hard-working, taxpaying Americans. Yes, “immigration” is on my list of concerns – but as a huge problem, and not something of which we need more.
17. African-Americans love him, too. Trump is the first Republican who actually has a chance at obtaining a huge chunk of the African-American vote. The main reason is simple – African-Americans are angry, and rightly so, about immigration and what it’s doing to this nation and to their job prospects. Here are just a few (out of countless) examples of the passionate support for Trump among the African-American community:
I would nod and take it all in and this larger-than-life, Andrew Carnegie/Dodge-brothers type of figure, felt like a living testament of the capitalism’s greatness in action. While, even a year ago, I never would have envisioned myself writing an article about Trump and the GOP nomination, perhaps, reflecting on this, it makes perfect sense.
19. By process of elimination. If for no other reason, consider the other GOP options one by one. The flip-flopping, amnesty-pusher? Or Jeb? (I truly tried to get excited about Jeb – but one can only try for so long.) The failed technology CEO? The governors who crashed before they’d even begun? There aren’t any other options.
20. If he doesn’t earn the nomination, there is no hope for American politics. Not going to sugar-coat it: if Trump does not secure this nomination, despite his undeniable, widespread support across the nation, you should just give up. We should all just give up. That’s right, throw in the towel. It’s all a farce – your voice and your opinion really mean nothing. The jig will be up on the illusion of American democracy, for if a candidate with Trump’s enormous support cannot secure the nomination, then there really is no political process to speak of. And I’m not the only one who’s noticed this:
We all want to make America great again. Every candidate, even
, want what’s best for America. But only one candidate has the appeal, the nerve, the commitment, the ideas, the sheer will to actually accomplish it. And Americans know who that is — the icon, business tycoon, husband, father, and lovable loudmouth. This week a Washington Post piece noted:
Let that sit for a minute and think about it. “They know who and what he is and that’s why they’re behind him.” In politics, what can be purer – and more beautiful — than that?
In August, CNN contributor and former Obama advisor, Dan Pfeiffer, wondered:
Well, lo and behold, two months later, the ever-so-insulting inquiry continues:
To answer this pestering question, though…
Yes, American voters did come to their senses about Donald Trump…
that’s why he’s at the top.
- A.J. Delgado is a conservative columnist who’s writings have appeared in Breitbart, National Review, American Conservative, Fox News, and various other sites and publications. She holds a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School and often writes about politics and pop culture.
Breitbart
Saturday, October 10, 2015
The minority of Muslim invaders: women and children.
By Carol Brown
October 10, 2015
Much has been written on conservative news sites about the large percentage of young males invading Europe. There is a great deal to be concerned about regarding this demographic. But the women and children should not be ignored, as they bring their own kind of threat. Because while Muslim men are far more likely to be physically aggressive, Muslim women are not without responsibility for the myriad ways hate against us is nurtured and expressed – hate that is codified in the Quran.
And while Muslim males are more likely to inflict physical harm, it would be dangerous to underestimate the potential of Muslim women to do the same, because increasing numbers of them do, as was the case with this Muslim teenage girl whose greatest desire was to be a martyr for Allah.
And so she set out to achieve her dream. And stabbed an Israeli man in the back.
Jew hatred is endemic and crops up just about everywhere in the Muslim world. This video documenting life for women in a Jordanian refugee camp ends with the words of a veiled Syrian woman (who, by the way, sells women into sham marriages that amount to nothing more than legalized rape): “I hope we don’t have the same destiny as the Palestinians who fled their country and never got it back again.”
Ah, yes. The poor “Palestinians” and those evil Jews who stole their land (the latter part is inferred).
Like the woman in this interview, it appears the majority of Muslim woman in refugee camps are wearing traditional garb that covers just about every inch of their body in the blistering desert sun.
This suggests they are anything but secular. (And even secular people in Islamic countries marinate in a culture of hate.)
In fact, Muslim women in Syria were on the forefront in pushing for an “Islamic revival” as reported in 2006 by the NY Times: “[16-year-old] Enas al-Kaldi stops in the hallway of her Islamic school for girls and coaxes her 6-year-old schoolmate through a short recitation from the Koran…‘Skip to next paragraphIt’s true that they don’t understand what they are memorizing at this age, but we believe that the understanding comes when the Koran becomes part of you’….
“When the Koran becomes a part of you.”
And therein lies the rub.
Here’s what happens when “the Koran becomes a part of you.” You wind up with a little tot giving a Hitler salute on a German train (how apt).
[The screen shot was taken from this video, as reported at Atlas Shrugs.]
Perhaps the greatest threat of Muslim women is that they bear Muslim children who become the next generation to spread death, darkness, and destruction across the globe.
Many Muslim children are raised to hate non-believers, with a special hatred for Jews. Anti-Semitism is a constant theme in the Quran. And Muslim families waste no time in getting their children on board with a hatred as vicious as that of Nazis, except unlike Nazism, this has been going on for 1400 years. (See here, here, here, here, and here for videos of Muslim children preaching Jew hatred, interviews with young Muslims of various ages talking about their hatred for Jews, and programs geared for young Muslims that teach them to be martyrs and to kill Jews, including anti-Semitic cartoons.)
Now, backing up for a moment, consider that after these aggressive Muslim male invaders are settled in their new home in the West, the next step is to bring their family. Enter: women and children. In this way, the already huge numbers of invaders expands exponentially, especially since Muslims tend to have large families. So each male invader becomes a family of 7, 8, or 9. As Daniel Greenfield writes (emphasis is mine): “…the number of migrants invading Europe this year might reach 1.5 million. And that bad news gets much worse because…each migrant will bring in as many as eight family members once they’re settled in….”
So here’s the simple math: Every male invader coming to Europe or the United States = nearly 10 Muslims.
That makes an outrageous, unacceptable, dangerous situation an imminent threat to our culture, to our very survival.
American Thinker
October 10, 2015
Much has been written on conservative news sites about the large percentage of young males invading Europe. There is a great deal to be concerned about regarding this demographic. But the women and children should not be ignored, as they bring their own kind of threat. Because while Muslim men are far more likely to be physically aggressive, Muslim women are not without responsibility for the myriad ways hate against us is nurtured and expressed – hate that is codified in the Quran.
And while Muslim males are more likely to inflict physical harm, it would be dangerous to underestimate the potential of Muslim women to do the same, because increasing numbers of them do, as was the case with this Muslim teenage girl whose greatest desire was to be a martyr for Allah.
And so she set out to achieve her dream. And stabbed an Israeli man in the back.
Jew hatred is endemic and crops up just about everywhere in the Muslim world. This video documenting life for women in a Jordanian refugee camp ends with the words of a veiled Syrian woman (who, by the way, sells women into sham marriages that amount to nothing more than legalized rape): “I hope we don’t have the same destiny as the Palestinians who fled their country and never got it back again.”
Ah, yes. The poor “Palestinians” and those evil Jews who stole their land (the latter part is inferred).
Like the woman in this interview, it appears the majority of Muslim woman in refugee camps are wearing traditional garb that covers just about every inch of their body in the blistering desert sun.
This suggests they are anything but secular. (And even secular people in Islamic countries marinate in a culture of hate.)
In fact, Muslim women in Syria were on the forefront in pushing for an “Islamic revival” as reported in 2006 by the NY Times: “[16-year-old] Enas al-Kaldi stops in the hallway of her Islamic school for girls and coaxes her 6-year-old schoolmate through a short recitation from the Koran…‘Skip to next paragraphIt’s true that they don’t understand what they are memorizing at this age, but we believe that the understanding comes when the Koran becomes part of you’….
“When the Koran becomes a part of you.”
And therein lies the rub.
Here’s what happens when “the Koran becomes a part of you.” You wind up with a little tot giving a Hitler salute on a German train (how apt).
[The screen shot was taken from this video, as reported at Atlas Shrugs.]
Perhaps the greatest threat of Muslim women is that they bear Muslim children who become the next generation to spread death, darkness, and destruction across the globe.
Many Muslim children are raised to hate non-believers, with a special hatred for Jews. Anti-Semitism is a constant theme in the Quran. And Muslim families waste no time in getting their children on board with a hatred as vicious as that of Nazis, except unlike Nazism, this has been going on for 1400 years. (See here, here, here, here, and here for videos of Muslim children preaching Jew hatred, interviews with young Muslims of various ages talking about their hatred for Jews, and programs geared for young Muslims that teach them to be martyrs and to kill Jews, including anti-Semitic cartoons.)
Now, backing up for a moment, consider that after these aggressive Muslim male invaders are settled in their new home in the West, the next step is to bring their family. Enter: women and children. In this way, the already huge numbers of invaders expands exponentially, especially since Muslims tend to have large families. So each male invader becomes a family of 7, 8, or 9. As Daniel Greenfield writes (emphasis is mine): “…the number of migrants invading Europe this year might reach 1.5 million. And that bad news gets much worse because…each migrant will bring in as many as eight family members once they’re settled in….”
So here’s the simple math: Every male invader coming to Europe or the United States = nearly 10 Muslims.
That makes an outrageous, unacceptable, dangerous situation an imminent threat to our culture, to our very survival.
American Thinker
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
An Open Letter To Jonah Goldberg – RE: The GOP and Donald Trump
September 7, 2015
A few days ago I took the time to read your expressed concerns about the support you see for Donald Trump and the state of current conservative opinion. Toward that end I have also noted additional media present a similar argument, and I took the time to consider.
While we are of far lesser significance and influence, I hope you will consider this retort with the same level of consideration afforded toward your position.
The challenging aspect to your expressed opinion, and perhaps why there is a chasm between us, is you appear to stand in defense of a Washington DC conservatism that no longer exists.
I hope you will indulge these considerations and correct me where I’m wrong.
On December 23rd 2009 Harry Reid passed a version of Obamacare through forced vote at 1:30am.
The Senators could not leave, and for the two weeks previous were kept in a prolonged legislative session barred returning to their home-state constituencies. It was, by all measures and reality, a vicious display of forced ideological manipulation of the upper chamber. I share this reminder only to set the stage for what was to follow.
Riddled with anxiety we watched the Machiavellian manipulations unfold, seemingly unable to stop the visible usurpation. Desperate for a tool to stop the construct we found Scott Brown and rallied to deliver $7 million in funding, and a “Kennedy Seat” victory on January 19th 2010.
Unfortunately, the trickery of Majority Leader Harry Reid would not be deterred. Upon legislative return he stripped a House Budgetary bill, and replaced it with the Democrat Senate version of Obamacare through a process of “reconciliation”. Thereby avoiding the 3/5ths vote rule (60) and instead using only a simple majority, 51 votes.
Angered, we rallied to the next election (November 2010) and handed the usurping Democrats the single largest electoral defeat in the prior 100 years. The House returned to Republican control, and one-half of the needed Senate seats reversed. Within the next two election cycles (’12 and ’14) we again removed the Democrats from control of the Senate.
Within each of those three elections we were told Repealing Obamacare would be job #1. It was not an optional part of our representative agreement to do otherwise.
From your own writing:
Why not? According to you it’s the “core tenet of American conservatism”.
If for nothing but to accept and follow the will of the people. Despite the probability of an Obama veto, this was not a matter of option. While the method might have been “symbolic”, due to the almost guaranteed veto, it would have stood as a promise fulfilled.
Yet you speak of “core tenets” and question our “trust” of Donald Trump?
We are not blind to the maneuverings of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and President Tom Donohue. We are fully aware the repeal vote did not take place because the U.S. CoC demanded the retention of Obamacare.
Leader McConnell followed the legislative priority of Tom Donohue as opposed to the will of the people. This was again exemplified with the passage of TPPA, another Republican construct which insured the Trans-Pacific Trade Deal could pass the Senate with 51 votes instead of 3/5ths.
We are not blind to the reality that when McConnell chooses to change the required voting threshold he is apt to do so. Not coincidentally, the TPP trade deal is another legislative priority of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Yet you question the “trustworthiness” of Donald Trump’s conservatism?
Another bill, the Iran “agreement”, reportedly and conveniently not considered a “treaty”, again we are not blind. Nor are we blind to Republican Bob Corker’s amendment (Corker/Cardin Amendment) changing ratification to a 67-vote-threshold for denial, as opposed to a customary 67 vote threshold for passage. A profound difference.
Yet you question the “ideological conservative principle” of Donald Trump?
Perhaps your emphasis is on the wrong syllable. Perhaps you should be questioning the “ideological conservative principle” of Mitch McConnell, or Bob Corker; both of whom apparently working to deny the will of the electorate within the party they are supposed to represent. Of course, this would force you to face some uncomfortable empirical realities. I digress.
Another example – How “conservative” is Lisa Murkowski? A senator who can lose her Republican primary bid, yet run as a write-in candidate, and return to the Senate with full seniority and committee responsibilities?
Did Reince Preibus, or a republican member of leadership meet the returning Murkowski and demand a Pledge of Allegiance to the principles within the Republican party?
Yet you question the “allegiances” of Donald Trump?
Perhaps within your purity testing you need to forget minority leader Mitch McConnell working to re-elect Senator Thad Cochran, fundraising on his behalf in the spring/summer of 2014, even after Cochran lost the first Mississippi primary?
Perhaps you forget the NRSC spending money on racist attack ads? Perhaps you forget the GOP paying Democrats to vote in the second primary to defeat Republican Chris McDaniel. The “R” in NRSC is “Republican”.
Perhaps you forget. We do not.
Yet you question the “principle” of those who have had enough, and are willing to support candidate Donald Trump.
You describe yourself as filled with anxiety because such supporters do not pass some qualified “principle” test? Tell that to the majority of Republicans who supported Chris McDaniel and found their own party actively working against them.
Principle? You claim “character matters” as part of this consideration. Where is the “character” in the fact-based exhibitions outlined above?
Remember Virginia 2012, 2013? When the conservative principle-driven electorate changed the method of candidate selection to a convention and removed the party stranglehold on their “chosen candidates”. Remember that? We do.
What did McConnell, the RNC and the GOP do in response with Ken Cuccinelli, they actively spited him and removed funding from his campaign. To teach us a lesson? Well it worked, we learned that lesson.
Representative David Brat was part of that lesson learned and answer delivered. Donald Trump is part of that lesson learned and answer forthcoming – yet you speak of “character”.
You speak of being concerned about Donald Trump’s hinted tax proposals. Well, who cut the tax rates on lower margins by 50% thereby removing any tax liability from the bottom 20% wage earners?
While simultaneously expanding the role of government dependency programs?
That would be the GOP (“Bush Tax Cuts”)
What? How dare you argue against tax cuts, you say. The “Bush Tax Cuts” removed tax liability from the bottom 20 to 40% of income earners completely. Leaving the entirety of tax burden on the upper 60% wage earners. Currently, thanks to those cuts, 49% of tax filers pay ZERO federal income tax.
But long term it’s much worse. The “Bush Tax Cuts” were, in essence, created to stop the post 9/11/01 recession – and they contained a “sunset provision” which ended ten years later specifically because the tax cuts were unsustainable.
The expiration of the lower margin tax cuts then became an argument in the election cycle of 2012.
And as usual, the GOP, McConnell and Boehner were insufferably inept during this process.
The GOP (2002) removed tax liability from the lower income levels, and President Obama then (2009) lowered the income threshold for economic subsidy (welfare, food stamps, ebt, medicaid, etc) this was brutally predictable.
This lower revenue higher spending approach means – lower tax revenues and increased pressure on the top tax rates (wage earners) with the increased demand for tax spending created within the welfare programs. Republicans focus on the “spending” without ever admitting they, not the Democrats, lowered rates and set themselves up to be played with the increased need for social program spending, simultaneously.
Is this reality/outcome not ultimately a “tax the rich” program?
As a consequence what’s the difference between the Republicans and Democrats on taxes? All of a sudden Republicans are arguing to “broaden the tax base”. Meaning, reverse the tax cuts they created on the lower income filers? This is a conservative position now? A need to “tax the poor”? Nice of the Republicans to insure the Democrats have an atomic sledgehammer to use against them.
This is a winning strategy? This is the “conservatism” you are defending because you are worried about Donald Trump’s principles, character or trustworthiness.
Here’s a list of those modern conservative “small(er) government” principles:
• Did the GOP secure the border with control of the White House and Congress? NO.
• Did the GOP balance the budget with control of the White House and Congress? NO.
• Who gave us the TSA? The GOP
• Who gave us the Patriot Act? The GOP
• Who expanded Medicare to include prescription drug coverage? The GOP
• Who created the precursor of “Common Core” in “Race To the Top”? The GOP
• Who played the race card in Mississippi to re-elect Thad Cochran? The GOP
• Who paid Democrats to vote in the Mississippi primary? The GOP
• Who refused to support Ken Cuccinnelli in Virginia? The GOP
• Who supported Charlie Crist? The GOP
• Who supported Arlen Spector? The GOP
• Who supported Bob Bennett? The GOP
• Who worked against Marco Rubio? The GOP
• Who worked against Rand Paul? The GOP
• Who worked against Ted Cruz? The GOP
• Who worked against Mike Lee? The GOP
• Who worked against Jim DeMint? The GOP
• Who worked against Ronald Reagan? The GOP
• Who said “I think we are going to crush [the Tea Party] everywhere.”? The GOP (McConnell)
And, you wonder why we’re frustrated, desperate for a person who can actually articulate some kind of push-back? Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are what the GOP give us? SERIOUSLY?
Which leads to the next of your GOP talking points. Where you opine on Fox:
The last federal budget was passed in September of 2007, and EVERY FLIPPING INSUFFERABLE YEAR we have to go through the predictable fiasco of a Government Shutdown Standoff and/or a Debt Ceiling increase specifically because there is NO BUDGET!
That’s a strategy?
That’s the GOP strategy? Essentially: Lets plan for an annual battle against articulate Democrats and Presidential charm, using a creepy guy who cries and another old mumbling fool who dodders, knowing full well the MSM is on the side of the other guy to begin with?
THAT’S YOUR GOP STRATEGY?
Don’t tell me it’s not, because if it wasn’t there’d be something else being done – there isn’t.
And don’t think we don’t know the 2009 “stimulus” became embedded in the baseline of the federal spending, and absent of an actual budget it just gets spent and added to the deficit each year, every year. Yet this is somehow smaller fiscal government?
….And you’re worried about what Donald Trump might do?
Seriously?
Conservative Treehouse
A few days ago I took the time to read your expressed concerns about the support you see for Donald Trump and the state of current conservative opinion. Toward that end I have also noted additional media present a similar argument, and I took the time to consider.
While we are of far lesser significance and influence, I hope you will consider this retort with the same level of consideration afforded toward your position.
The challenging aspect to your expressed opinion, and perhaps why there is a chasm between us, is you appear to stand in defense of a Washington DC conservatism that no longer exists.
I hope you will indulge these considerations and correct me where I’m wrong.
On December 23rd 2009 Harry Reid passed a version of Obamacare through forced vote at 1:30am.
The Senators could not leave, and for the two weeks previous were kept in a prolonged legislative session barred returning to their home-state constituencies. It was, by all measures and reality, a vicious display of forced ideological manipulation of the upper chamber. I share this reminder only to set the stage for what was to follow.
Riddled with anxiety we watched the Machiavellian manipulations unfold, seemingly unable to stop the visible usurpation. Desperate for a tool to stop the construct we found Scott Brown and rallied to deliver $7 million in funding, and a “Kennedy Seat” victory on January 19th 2010.
Unfortunately, the trickery of Majority Leader Harry Reid would not be deterred. Upon legislative return he stripped a House Budgetary bill, and replaced it with the Democrat Senate version of Obamacare through a process of “reconciliation”. Thereby avoiding the 3/5ths vote rule (60) and instead using only a simple majority, 51 votes.
Angered, we rallied to the next election (November 2010) and handed the usurping Democrats the single largest electoral defeat in the prior 100 years. The House returned to Republican control, and one-half of the needed Senate seats reversed. Within the next two election cycles (’12 and ’14) we again removed the Democrats from control of the Senate.
Within each of those three elections we were told Repealing Obamacare would be job #1. It was not an optional part of our representative agreement to do otherwise.
From your own writing:
[…] If you want a really good sense of the damage Donald Trump is doing to conservatism, consider the fact that for the last five years no issue has united the Right more than opposition to Obamacare. Opposition to socialized medicine in general has been a core tenet of American conservatism from Day One. Yet, when Republicans were told that Donald Trump favors single-payer health care, support for single-payer health care jumped from 16 percent to 44 percent. (link)With control of the House and Senate did Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or House Speaker John Boehner use the same level of severity expressed by Harry Reid to put a repeal bill on the desk of Obama for veto? Simply, NO.
Why not? According to you it’s the “core tenet of American conservatism”.
If for nothing but to accept and follow the will of the people. Despite the probability of an Obama veto, this was not a matter of option. While the method might have been “symbolic”, due to the almost guaranteed veto, it would have stood as a promise fulfilled.
Yet you speak of “core tenets” and question our “trust” of Donald Trump?
We are not blind to the maneuverings of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and President Tom Donohue. We are fully aware the repeal vote did not take place because the U.S. CoC demanded the retention of Obamacare.
Leader McConnell followed the legislative priority of Tom Donohue as opposed to the will of the people. This was again exemplified with the passage of TPPA, another Republican construct which insured the Trans-Pacific Trade Deal could pass the Senate with 51 votes instead of 3/5ths.
We are not blind to the reality that when McConnell chooses to change the required voting threshold he is apt to do so. Not coincidentally, the TPP trade deal is another legislative priority of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Yet you question the “trustworthiness” of Donald Trump’s conservatism?
Another bill, the Iran “agreement”, reportedly and conveniently not considered a “treaty”, again we are not blind. Nor are we blind to Republican Bob Corker’s amendment (Corker/Cardin Amendment) changing ratification to a 67-vote-threshold for denial, as opposed to a customary 67 vote threshold for passage. A profound difference.
Yet you question the “ideological conservative principle” of Donald Trump?
Perhaps your emphasis is on the wrong syllable. Perhaps you should be questioning the “ideological conservative principle” of Mitch McConnell, or Bob Corker; both of whom apparently working to deny the will of the electorate within the party they are supposed to represent. Of course, this would force you to face some uncomfortable empirical realities. I digress.
Another example – How “conservative” is Lisa Murkowski? A senator who can lose her Republican primary bid, yet run as a write-in candidate, and return to the Senate with full seniority and committee responsibilities?
Did Reince Preibus, or a republican member of leadership meet the returning Murkowski and demand a Pledge of Allegiance to the principles within the Republican party?
Yet you question the “allegiances” of Donald Trump?
Perhaps within your purity testing you need to forget minority leader Mitch McConnell working to re-elect Senator Thad Cochran, fundraising on his behalf in the spring/summer of 2014, even after Cochran lost the first Mississippi primary?
Perhaps you forget the NRSC spending money on racist attack ads? Perhaps you forget the GOP paying Democrats to vote in the second primary to defeat Republican Chris McDaniel. The “R” in NRSC is “Republican”.
Perhaps you forget. We do not.
Yet you question the “principle” of those who have had enough, and are willing to support candidate Donald Trump.
You describe yourself as filled with anxiety because such supporters do not pass some qualified “principle” test? Tell that to the majority of Republicans who supported Chris McDaniel and found their own party actively working against them.
Principle? You claim “character matters” as part of this consideration. Where is the “character” in the fact-based exhibitions outlined above?
Remember Virginia 2012, 2013? When the conservative principle-driven electorate changed the method of candidate selection to a convention and removed the party stranglehold on their “chosen candidates”. Remember that? We do.
What did McConnell, the RNC and the GOP do in response with Ken Cuccinelli, they actively spited him and removed funding from his campaign. To teach us a lesson? Well it worked, we learned that lesson.
Representative David Brat was part of that lesson learned and answer delivered. Donald Trump is part of that lesson learned and answer forthcoming – yet you speak of “character”.
You speak of being concerned about Donald Trump’s hinted tax proposals. Well, who cut the tax rates on lower margins by 50% thereby removing any tax liability from the bottom 20% wage earners?
While simultaneously expanding the role of government dependency programs?
That would be the GOP (“Bush Tax Cuts”)
What? How dare you argue against tax cuts, you say. The “Bush Tax Cuts” removed tax liability from the bottom 20 to 40% of income earners completely. Leaving the entirety of tax burden on the upper 60% wage earners. Currently, thanks to those cuts, 49% of tax filers pay ZERO federal income tax.
But long term it’s much worse. The “Bush Tax Cuts” were, in essence, created to stop the post 9/11/01 recession – and they contained a “sunset provision” which ended ten years later specifically because the tax cuts were unsustainable.
The expiration of the lower margin tax cuts then became an argument in the election cycle of 2012.
And as usual, the GOP, McConnell and Boehner were insufferably inept during this process.
The GOP (2002) removed tax liability from the lower income levels, and President Obama then (2009) lowered the income threshold for economic subsidy (welfare, food stamps, ebt, medicaid, etc) this was brutally predictable.
This lower revenue higher spending approach means – lower tax revenues and increased pressure on the top tax rates (wage earners) with the increased demand for tax spending created within the welfare programs. Republicans focus on the “spending” without ever admitting they, not the Democrats, lowered rates and set themselves up to be played with the increased need for social program spending, simultaneously.
Is this reality/outcome not ultimately a “tax the rich” program?
As a consequence what’s the difference between the Republicans and Democrats on taxes? All of a sudden Republicans are arguing to “broaden the tax base”. Meaning, reverse the tax cuts they created on the lower income filers? This is a conservative position now? A need to “tax the poor”? Nice of the Republicans to insure the Democrats have an atomic sledgehammer to use against them.
This is a winning strategy? This is the “conservatism” you are defending because you are worried about Donald Trump’s principles, character or trustworthiness.
Here’s a list of those modern conservative “small(er) government” principles:
• Did the GOP secure the border with control of the White House and Congress? NO.
• Did the GOP balance the budget with control of the White House and Congress? NO.
• Who gave us the TSA? The GOP
• Who gave us the Patriot Act? The GOP
• Who expanded Medicare to include prescription drug coverage? The GOP
• Who created the precursor of “Common Core” in “Race To the Top”? The GOP
• Who played the race card in Mississippi to re-elect Thad Cochran? The GOP
• Who paid Democrats to vote in the Mississippi primary? The GOP
• Who refused to support Ken Cuccinnelli in Virginia? The GOP
• Who supported Charlie Crist? The GOP
• Who supported Arlen Spector? The GOP
• Who supported Bob Bennett? The GOP
• Who worked against Marco Rubio? The GOP
• Who worked against Rand Paul? The GOP
• Who worked against Ted Cruz? The GOP
• Who worked against Mike Lee? The GOP
• Who worked against Jim DeMint? The GOP
• Who worked against Ronald Reagan? The GOP
• Who said “I think we are going to crush [the Tea Party] everywhere.”? The GOP (McConnell)
And, you wonder why we’re frustrated, desperate for a person who can actually articulate some kind of push-back? Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are what the GOP give us? SERIOUSLY?
Which leads to the next of your GOP talking points. Where you opine on Fox:
“Politics is a game where you don’t get everything you want”Fair enough. But considering we of questionable judgment have simply been demanding common sense, ie. fiscal discipline, a BUDGET would be nice.
The last federal budget was passed in September of 2007, and EVERY FLIPPING INSUFFERABLE YEAR we have to go through the predictable fiasco of a Government Shutdown Standoff and/or a Debt Ceiling increase specifically because there is NO BUDGET!
That’s a strategy?
That’s the GOP strategy? Essentially: Lets plan for an annual battle against articulate Democrats and Presidential charm, using a creepy guy who cries and another old mumbling fool who dodders, knowing full well the MSM is on the side of the other guy to begin with?
THAT’S YOUR GOP STRATEGY?
Don’t tell me it’s not, because if it wasn’t there’d be something else being done – there isn’t.
And don’t think we don’t know the 2009 “stimulus” became embedded in the baseline of the federal spending, and absent of an actual budget it just gets spent and added to the deficit each year, every year. Yet this is somehow smaller fiscal government?
….And you’re worried about what Donald Trump might do?
Seriously?
Conservative Treehouse
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
How Illegal Immigration Finally Turned Off the Public
by Victor Davis Hanson
Why did the illegal-immigration issue launch Donald Trump’s campaign? Why did his recent tense press conference exchange with Univision’s Jorge Ramos please even some of Trump’s liberal critics? What is it about illegal immigration that has finally turned off so many Americans?
1. Race
Over the years immigration activists successfully deconstructed the complex issue of illegal immigration into a race and class morality tale of privileged whites picking on poor brown people. The operative buzzwords were “racism,” “nativism,” and “xenophobia.” That theme is now mostly bankrupt given that every great lie eventually falls from its own weight.
It was rarely the host, but more often the activists on behalf of the guests, who framed illegal immigration in racial terms. Activists foolishly fabricated the controversy as “we noble Latinos” against “you prejudiced non-Latinos.” They forgot apparently two obvious truths: one, thirty percent of Americans are not so-called white; and, two, most people resent ethnic chauvinism. Is an unemployed African-American sympathetic to the argument that someone has a birthright to illegally cross into the United States and find instant employment? Is a Punjabi-American, waiting patiently for his engineer cousin to get a green card, eager to be told the United States must make special concessions to the Latino lobby? Does a third-generation Mexican-American prefer that his neighborhood school and emergency room be flooded with indigent illegal Mexican nationals?
Sometime in the last five years, the public woke up and grasped that Latino elite activists were not so much interested in illegal immigration per se, but only to the degree that the issue affected other Latinos. Were 3,000 Chinese illegally entering California per day by ship on the Northern California coast, Latino activists and politicians would probably be the first to call for enforcement of federal immigration law.
It is difficult for the National Council of La Raza to attempt to airbrush away vocabulary like “anchor baby” and “illegal immigration,” while insisting that its own nomenclature “La Raza” has nothing to do with race. The public knows that La Raza means “The Race,” and that those who founded that organization chose that racially charged noun for the precise purpose of ethnic triumphalism — in the way that every infamous 20th-century Latinate racist demagogue from Mussolini to Franco found a use for Raza/Razza, a mostly taboo term in Mediterranean Europe today. In an age when the Washington Redskins earn a presidential rebuke, it is inconceivable that the chief illegal-immigration advocate is a federally subsidized group known as the National Council of La Raza. No other organization would dare use such a term. In the public mind illegal immigration has gone from the old narrative that racists were enforcing the law to keep out mostly brown people to a new generation of racists who are trying to subvert the law to bring in mostly brown people.
2. The Law
The old canard that without law there is nothing did not resonate with voters in connection with illegal immigration until the 21st century. As long as there were only one or two million illegal immigrants apparently the public turned a blind eye. No longer. Extremists took legal noncompliance to an entirely new level of Orwellian arrogance. Suddenly, as if by fiat, the illegal-immigration lobby banned the term “illegal alien” — as if they had never read a word of 1984 or Animal Farm. They dreamed up “sanctuary city,” a reactionary, neo-Confederate idea of legal nullification, whose logical trajectory is the implosion of the entire idea of federal laws constitutionally supreme to state and local statutes. They lied by insisting that entering the United States illegally was simply a minor misdemeanor, when most Americans knew such unlawful entry was the beginning, not the end, of negating the law — inaugurating years of fake IDs, false Social Security numbers, second and third identities, and deliberate filing of untruthful federal and state documents.
Then the myth arose that criminality among illegal aliens was in fact lower that found in the general population, as if it mattered not at all that a quarter of all federal prisoners were in the United States illegally, or that some states reported that more than a fourth of their felonies were attributable to illegal aliens, or that around 20,000 illegal aliens from south of the border were routinely incarcerated in California prisons alone. Completely lost in the back and forth was the old notion that an immigrant, legal or illegal, was supposed to be a guest, whose behavior should be the model, rather than defended as no worse than those whom he joined.
The public tired of the unfairness in the applicability of the law. How had it come to pass that illegal aliens were not subject to enforcement of federal laws in the manner that all citizens most surely were? All Americans file through passport control when flying home; they are met by stern uniformed bureaucrats who are not an especially forgiving bunch for missing or lost documents. How could it be that millions by virtue of their ethnic fides were not subject to the same scrutiny? And if one law were to be waived, why, the public wonders, not others equally inconvenient?
People finally tired of the postmodern notion that to stop endemic illegality we were supposed to change the language rather than the reality. Americans are not quite yet ready to be Soviet subjects who are to embrace Newspeak, and apparently resented the assumption that they were.
3. Mexico
Mexico itself has become quite unpopular. Accordingly to recent polls, never have Americans had more negative views of Mexico than during the era of Obama. Americans tired of being told that Mexico did not like the U.S., when the real truth was increasingly the opposite. It is not just the daily news of cartels, beheadings, and corruption that made Mexico unattractive, but the cynicism of the Mexican government itself.
Mexico and Central American nations receive $50 billion a year in remittances from their expatriate citizens in the United States. But if illegal aliens were impoverished and exploited as their home countries alleged, how could they transfer such monumental sums back home — and why would not their mother countries worry about the ensuing burdens placed upon their low-wage-earning citizens abroad?
Hypocrisy became synonymous with the idea of Mexico. Its constitution defines illegal immigration in racialist and chauvinist terms — barring those it finds unhealthy or an economic burden or even prone to upset “the equilibrium of the national demographics.” If American emulated Mexican law, almost all illegal aliens would face immediate deportation if not prison sentences. When Mexico deliberately has exported ten percent of its population and lectures the U.S. on their ensuing welfare, then the vocabulary of hypocrisy fails.
During the last two-decade influx of illegal aliens, a huge number was from the Mexican hinterlands, often indigenous peoples from Oaxaca or Chiapas who have long suffered racial discrimination inside Mexico. That Mexico for the first time champions their cause when they leave Mexican soil is the sort of racism of which Mexico habitually accuses the U.S. In some sick sense, Mexico has been ethnically cleansing its own country and then seeking moral cover for its human rights violations by slurring as racist the only refuge for its own unwanted who often were fleeing endemic racist attitudes.
4. Politics
The Obama-age progressive political narrative was that an old, too-white America was changing largely due to immigration and that this was a much-needed antidote to oppressive white privilege. Activists proudly pointed to California and New Mexico’s suddenly solidly blue politics and promised that Texas, Colorado and Nevada were soon to follow. In 2008 and 2012 the so-called “Latino vote” went nationally at about 70% for Democratic candidates. This was deemed a noble thing — but in a way 70% of the white vote not voting for a Democratic candidate would have been seen as proof of “racism” and “backlash.” Conservative cynics alleged a cruel cycle: welcome in millions of indigenous people driven from their racist homelands, offer them public assistance by virtue of the Democratic-sponsored welfare state, and teach them that only liberals care for their welfare while insisting that their families remember who were their patrons at the polls. Yet what was surreal about the charge was not Republican crassness in making it, but the shameless acknowledgment by Democrats that they were not only using illegal immigration as a political tool, but should be praised for doing so. They even warned that their success would doom Republicans unless the latter emulated their strategies!
5. Illegal Immigrants
The illegal-immigration movement only recently has sought to finesse its public relations. For a decade illegal immigration was oversold as an arrival of “dreamers,” various future brain surgeons and physicists whose innate talent could now be tapped if only the U.S. would wave the cruel legal details. But illegal aliens are not all dreamers any more than they are all criminals. They are what they are — good, bad, and neither: poor oppressed people who flee racist Third World governments in hopes of jobs and/or U.S. government support, with the further assumption that their illegality, lack of English, absence of education, and dearth of skills and capital will not only not matter, but earn them coveted victim status in the U.S. So far they have been proven prescient.
It is still common to find at immigration rallies thousands of Mexican flags, with far fewer — if any — American flags. Illegal aliens do not just root for visiting Mexican sports teams, but go the extra mile of booing the American opposition.
The message is incoherent: “I will salute the country that drove me out but less so the one that welcomed me in.” In fact, the entire narrative of illegal immigration has become unhinged. The vocabulary of protest is never aimed against the nation that forced them out, only against the one that most generously welcomed them in.
Nowhere is this disconnect more evident than in the university, where two antitheses are promulgated. Even as the various Chicano and Ethnic Studies departments indoctrinate students with the supposedly sinister history of the United States, they simultaneously champion the rights of the illegal aliens to enter, reside, and stay in the odious country they have just damned. The message makes little sense. Millions of Americans have finally caught on to the incoherence, and feel that ingratitude is among the worst of all sins.
It is alleged that Donald Trump is a demagogue who whips the ignorant up. Perhaps. But on matters of immigration he came late and often in antithesis to his own former positions. The truth is that the illegal-immigration lobby was its own worst enemy, its message couched in racism, illegality, untruth — and finally incoherence. People are tired of being called racists by racial chauvinists, of being dubbed insensitive by unfeeling opportunists, and of being called politically naive by political manipulators.
If there were not a Donald Trump, he would likely have had to have been invented.
PJ Media
 |
| Shot and chaser: Democrat activist Jorge Ramos of Univison badgers Donald Trump; is (temporarily) deported from presser by Trump’s security. (AP Photos/Charlie Neibergall) |
Why did the illegal-immigration issue launch Donald Trump’s campaign? Why did his recent tense press conference exchange with Univision’s Jorge Ramos please even some of Trump’s liberal critics? What is it about illegal immigration that has finally turned off so many Americans?
1. Race
Over the years immigration activists successfully deconstructed the complex issue of illegal immigration into a race and class morality tale of privileged whites picking on poor brown people. The operative buzzwords were “racism,” “nativism,” and “xenophobia.” That theme is now mostly bankrupt given that every great lie eventually falls from its own weight.
It was rarely the host, but more often the activists on behalf of the guests, who framed illegal immigration in racial terms. Activists foolishly fabricated the controversy as “we noble Latinos” against “you prejudiced non-Latinos.” They forgot apparently two obvious truths: one, thirty percent of Americans are not so-called white; and, two, most people resent ethnic chauvinism. Is an unemployed African-American sympathetic to the argument that someone has a birthright to illegally cross into the United States and find instant employment? Is a Punjabi-American, waiting patiently for his engineer cousin to get a green card, eager to be told the United States must make special concessions to the Latino lobby? Does a third-generation Mexican-American prefer that his neighborhood school and emergency room be flooded with indigent illegal Mexican nationals?
Sometime in the last five years, the public woke up and grasped that Latino elite activists were not so much interested in illegal immigration per se, but only to the degree that the issue affected other Latinos. Were 3,000 Chinese illegally entering California per day by ship on the Northern California coast, Latino activists and politicians would probably be the first to call for enforcement of federal immigration law.
It is difficult for the National Council of La Raza to attempt to airbrush away vocabulary like “anchor baby” and “illegal immigration,” while insisting that its own nomenclature “La Raza” has nothing to do with race. The public knows that La Raza means “The Race,” and that those who founded that organization chose that racially charged noun for the precise purpose of ethnic triumphalism — in the way that every infamous 20th-century Latinate racist demagogue from Mussolini to Franco found a use for Raza/Razza, a mostly taboo term in Mediterranean Europe today. In an age when the Washington Redskins earn a presidential rebuke, it is inconceivable that the chief illegal-immigration advocate is a federally subsidized group known as the National Council of La Raza. No other organization would dare use such a term. In the public mind illegal immigration has gone from the old narrative that racists were enforcing the law to keep out mostly brown people to a new generation of racists who are trying to subvert the law to bring in mostly brown people.
2. The Law
The old canard that without law there is nothing did not resonate with voters in connection with illegal immigration until the 21st century. As long as there were only one or two million illegal immigrants apparently the public turned a blind eye. No longer. Extremists took legal noncompliance to an entirely new level of Orwellian arrogance. Suddenly, as if by fiat, the illegal-immigration lobby banned the term “illegal alien” — as if they had never read a word of 1984 or Animal Farm. They dreamed up “sanctuary city,” a reactionary, neo-Confederate idea of legal nullification, whose logical trajectory is the implosion of the entire idea of federal laws constitutionally supreme to state and local statutes. They lied by insisting that entering the United States illegally was simply a minor misdemeanor, when most Americans knew such unlawful entry was the beginning, not the end, of negating the law — inaugurating years of fake IDs, false Social Security numbers, second and third identities, and deliberate filing of untruthful federal and state documents.
Then the myth arose that criminality among illegal aliens was in fact lower that found in the general population, as if it mattered not at all that a quarter of all federal prisoners were in the United States illegally, or that some states reported that more than a fourth of their felonies were attributable to illegal aliens, or that around 20,000 illegal aliens from south of the border were routinely incarcerated in California prisons alone. Completely lost in the back and forth was the old notion that an immigrant, legal or illegal, was supposed to be a guest, whose behavior should be the model, rather than defended as no worse than those whom he joined.
The public tired of the unfairness in the applicability of the law. How had it come to pass that illegal aliens were not subject to enforcement of federal laws in the manner that all citizens most surely were? All Americans file through passport control when flying home; they are met by stern uniformed bureaucrats who are not an especially forgiving bunch for missing or lost documents. How could it be that millions by virtue of their ethnic fides were not subject to the same scrutiny? And if one law were to be waived, why, the public wonders, not others equally inconvenient?
People finally tired of the postmodern notion that to stop endemic illegality we were supposed to change the language rather than the reality. Americans are not quite yet ready to be Soviet subjects who are to embrace Newspeak, and apparently resented the assumption that they were.
3. Mexico
Mexico itself has become quite unpopular. Accordingly to recent polls, never have Americans had more negative views of Mexico than during the era of Obama. Americans tired of being told that Mexico did not like the U.S., when the real truth was increasingly the opposite. It is not just the daily news of cartels, beheadings, and corruption that made Mexico unattractive, but the cynicism of the Mexican government itself.
Mexico and Central American nations receive $50 billion a year in remittances from their expatriate citizens in the United States. But if illegal aliens were impoverished and exploited as their home countries alleged, how could they transfer such monumental sums back home — and why would not their mother countries worry about the ensuing burdens placed upon their low-wage-earning citizens abroad?
Hypocrisy became synonymous with the idea of Mexico. Its constitution defines illegal immigration in racialist and chauvinist terms — barring those it finds unhealthy or an economic burden or even prone to upset “the equilibrium of the national demographics.” If American emulated Mexican law, almost all illegal aliens would face immediate deportation if not prison sentences. When Mexico deliberately has exported ten percent of its population and lectures the U.S. on their ensuing welfare, then the vocabulary of hypocrisy fails.
During the last two-decade influx of illegal aliens, a huge number was from the Mexican hinterlands, often indigenous peoples from Oaxaca or Chiapas who have long suffered racial discrimination inside Mexico. That Mexico for the first time champions their cause when they leave Mexican soil is the sort of racism of which Mexico habitually accuses the U.S. In some sick sense, Mexico has been ethnically cleansing its own country and then seeking moral cover for its human rights violations by slurring as racist the only refuge for its own unwanted who often were fleeing endemic racist attitudes.
4. Politics
The Obama-age progressive political narrative was that an old, too-white America was changing largely due to immigration and that this was a much-needed antidote to oppressive white privilege. Activists proudly pointed to California and New Mexico’s suddenly solidly blue politics and promised that Texas, Colorado and Nevada were soon to follow. In 2008 and 2012 the so-called “Latino vote” went nationally at about 70% for Democratic candidates. This was deemed a noble thing — but in a way 70% of the white vote not voting for a Democratic candidate would have been seen as proof of “racism” and “backlash.” Conservative cynics alleged a cruel cycle: welcome in millions of indigenous people driven from their racist homelands, offer them public assistance by virtue of the Democratic-sponsored welfare state, and teach them that only liberals care for their welfare while insisting that their families remember who were their patrons at the polls. Yet what was surreal about the charge was not Republican crassness in making it, but the shameless acknowledgment by Democrats that they were not only using illegal immigration as a political tool, but should be praised for doing so. They even warned that their success would doom Republicans unless the latter emulated their strategies!
5. Illegal Immigrants
The illegal-immigration movement only recently has sought to finesse its public relations. For a decade illegal immigration was oversold as an arrival of “dreamers,” various future brain surgeons and physicists whose innate talent could now be tapped if only the U.S. would wave the cruel legal details. But illegal aliens are not all dreamers any more than they are all criminals. They are what they are — good, bad, and neither: poor oppressed people who flee racist Third World governments in hopes of jobs and/or U.S. government support, with the further assumption that their illegality, lack of English, absence of education, and dearth of skills and capital will not only not matter, but earn them coveted victim status in the U.S. So far they have been proven prescient.
It is still common to find at immigration rallies thousands of Mexican flags, with far fewer — if any — American flags. Illegal aliens do not just root for visiting Mexican sports teams, but go the extra mile of booing the American opposition.
The message is incoherent: “I will salute the country that drove me out but less so the one that welcomed me in.” In fact, the entire narrative of illegal immigration has become unhinged. The vocabulary of protest is never aimed against the nation that forced them out, only against the one that most generously welcomed them in.
Nowhere is this disconnect more evident than in the university, where two antitheses are promulgated. Even as the various Chicano and Ethnic Studies departments indoctrinate students with the supposedly sinister history of the United States, they simultaneously champion the rights of the illegal aliens to enter, reside, and stay in the odious country they have just damned. The message makes little sense. Millions of Americans have finally caught on to the incoherence, and feel that ingratitude is among the worst of all sins.
It is alleged that Donald Trump is a demagogue who whips the ignorant up. Perhaps. But on matters of immigration he came late and often in antithesis to his own former positions. The truth is that the illegal-immigration lobby was its own worst enemy, its message couched in racism, illegality, untruth — and finally incoherence. People are tired of being called racists by racial chauvinists, of being dubbed insensitive by unfeeling opportunists, and of being called politically naive by political manipulators.
If there were not a Donald Trump, he would likely have had to have been invented.
PJ Media
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