Somewhere around the 4th of July, Ann Coulter
casually remarked, on some show or other, that it would be easy for the
Republicans to get rid of Trump. “All
they have to do is take his issue away from him.”
And yet, no one will do it.
It wouldn’t be that difficult for a half dozen stalwarts of the
Republican Party (Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Priebus, McCain, Kasich, Walker and
Rubio, for example), to issue a joint statement along the following lines:
“OK. We finally get
it. Really. We’ve pretended to care about border
security, and we’ve pretended to care about changing the immigration protocols
so we get educated people from Belgium and Australia rather than people from
primitive cultures that think gang rape is a sort of party game, and we’ve
pretended to care about enforcing existing American laws, but of course, all we
really wanted was to please the Chamber of Commerce and the business guys who
give us money so they can hire cheap maids and gardeners. All we really cared about was granting
amnesty to anybody who managed to get here, so we could then encourage the next
squad of cheap illegals to sneak in.
“That’s still all we care about. There’s no point lying about that.
But here’s the deal. We promise
that we will enforce the law, we will patrol the border, we will build a wall,
we will deport illegals who commit crimes, and we will change the immigration
quotas and protocols so that civilized, educated people will have an advantage
in the who-gets-to-be-an-American sweepstakes.
You win. There will be no more
talk of “a path to citizenship” or “dreamers.”
Ever. We will suck it up and give
the nanny an extra $3.50 an hour. OK?
“Just lose Trump. We
get it. Now lose him. Maybe we’ve lied to you over the years, and
it’s pretty obvious you don’t trust us, but we can do better than him, can’t we? Do we really need a guy who, when he gets
pissed off at a woman, starts throwing tampons at her? We will do what we should have done years ago
and we will enforce the law.”
But the Republican Party won’t make this offer, will it? It will NOT abandon amnesty, at least not
yet. Trump rises and rises in the polls,
but still the Party will not give in to a majority of the American people, and
a large majority of Republicans. The
Party establishment won’t embrace the one issue that has propelled Trump to the
top in order to take that issue away from him.
At least not yet. With
more than four months to go until the Iowa Caucuses are held on February 1,
they are still holding out hope that Trump will melt down, or voters will tire
of him, or something will happen to restore what they view as the natural order
of things. And maybe they’ll get what
they wish. Aren’t we all a little
surprised the Trump phase of the 2016 presidential campaign has gone on as long
as it has?
But what happens if February 1 approaches and Trump is still
riding high in the polls? It’s fine to
hope for him to disappear, or snipe at him from the sidelines, but once he
actually starts collecting delegates, it may no longer be possible to stop him
from winning the Republican nomination. The
big question of this campaign season is whether, before the Iowa caucuses, the
Republican establishment will shout “Uncle” on the immigration issue and start promising
that our laws will be observed and enforced.
I suspect they will not. I believe the Bushes and McCains and Kasichs
and Priebuses and Walkers and Rubios would rather lose than give in on their
dreams of open borders and amnesty.
Rather than cede an inch to Trump and the American people on this issue,
they are willing to sit back and hope Hillary (or Biden, or somebody) beats Trump
in the general election.
****
****
In one of those quotations that is attributed to everybody because
nobody knows who said it first (I give the credit to Mark Twain), somebody once
said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
Donald Trump is not exactly Herbert Hoover, but he certainly
rhymes.
Hoover was a highly successful businessman who became
president, though he had no previous experience in elective office, because he
was the kind of guy who could “get things done.” As a Republican Progressive, he believed in “efficiency”
and in hiring experts who would tell us all what to do and how to do it.
When the stock market crashed in 1929, Hoover signed the
Smoot-Hawley Tariffs into law (the largest tariffs in our history), raised both
income and corporate taxes, and plunged the nation into the Great Depression. Even based on the economic science of the
day, what he did was foolish. As he
dragged the American economy into an abyss, economists were begging him to
reconsider.
Sound familiar? Trump
loves tariffs, and advocates them today.
He has always been in favor of increasing taxes, and talks about it a
lot in the campaign. And of course, his
appeal is the same as Hoover’s was. He’s
an “outsider,” not part of the political class, and a rich guy who can’t be
bought, but who cares about the little guy and knows how to cut through the
swamp and fix things.
Hoover regularly appears on lists of “America’s Worst
Presidents.” There is no other President
with whom Trump is even remotely similar.
Copyright2015MichaelKubacki
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment