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Title: The Trumping of Party
Source:
Steyn Online
URL Source: http://www.steynonline.com/7114/the-trumping-of-party
Published: Aug 17, 2015
Author: Mark Steyn
Post Date: 2015-08-17 22:27:55 by nativist nationalist
Keywords: None
Views: 661
Comments: 9
Donald Trump has now said that he would reverse President Obama's executive amnesty for "DREAMers" - illegal immigrants who've been here since they were children - and deport every last member of the Undocumented-American community. The amnesty for the kids was supposed to prefigure an amnesty for their parents - for what mean old politician would advocate breaking up families? But, as he told NBC's Chuck Todd, Trump plans to keep the families together by deporting every single one of them: "We're going to keep the families together, but they have to go," he said in the interview, which will air in full on NBC's "Meet the Press" this Sunday. Pressed on what he'd do if the immigrants in question had nowhere to return to, Trump reiterated: "They have to go." "We will work with them. They have to go. Chuck, we either have a country, or we don't have a country." Now there's a campaign slogan. But he's gone beyond that. Trump has - ta-da! - a policy paper: 1. A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border. 2. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced. 3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans. In other words, as every functioning society understood until two generations ago, immigration has to benefit the people who are already here. Government owes a duty to its own citizens before those of the rest of the planet - no matter how cuddly and loveable they might be. The fact that it is necessary to state the obvious and that no "viable" "mainstream" candidate from either party is willing to state it is testament to how deformed contemporary western politics is. Trump may not be a "real" Republican or a "real" conservative, but most of his rivals are not "real" - period, as Carly Fiorina would say. There seems to be some dispute among the consultant-industrial complex as to whether Trump's rise comes from his seizing the immigration issue or because folks are just enjoying the show - like "Breaking Bad" star Bryan Cranston: "I actually like his candor," Cranston said. "There's something so refreshing about shaking up that world that is all about being handled and here comes this loose cannon who has terrible ideas and would be a horrible president, but there's something great about his 'I-don't-give-a-shit' attitude that really kind of keeps others honest." On the other hand, when it's a subject that both parties are evasive and dishonest about, maybe the issue and the I-don't-give-a-sh*t candor are perfectly aligned. The retort that Trump is not a "real" Republican or a "real" conservative would of course be a devastating criticism had "real" Republicans and "real" conservatives" in Washington managed actually to "conserve" anything during their time in office. Fiscal prudence? Constrained welfare? Private health care? Religious liberty? There's no point to a purity test for a party that folds more reliably than the White House valet. As I've said, for the Republican establishment the issue is Trump; for a large part of the base the issue is the Republican establishment. And among the broader citizenry, where elections are decided, the GOP's complaint is entirely irrelevant. It's not often that I find the pajama boys of Vox.com worth reading, but this Ezra Klein column makes an interesting point: It's not that Trump is a moderate Republican. It's that he's a moderate, full stop. And he's the kind of moderate that really exists, not the kind of moderate Washington likes to pretend exists. What, after all, is a "moderate"? The way it works, explains David Broockman, a political scientist at the University of California at Berkeley, is that a pollster will ask people for their position on a wide range of issues: marijuana legalization, the war in Iraq, universal health care, gay marriage, taxes, climate change, and so on. The answers will then be coded as to whether they're left or right. People who have a mix of answers on the left and the right average out to the middle — and so they're labeled as moderate. But when you drill down into those individual answers you find a lot of opinions that are far from the political center. "A lot of people say we should have a universal health-care system run by the state like the British," Broockman told me in July 2014. "A lot of people say we should deport all undocumented immigrants immediately with no due process." Because the first position is "left" and the second position is "right", the pollsters split the difference and label such a person a "moderate". But he isn't actually a moderate, so much as bipartisanly extreme. In practice, most "moderates" boil down to that: They hold some leftie and some rightie positions. The most familiar type of "moderate" in American politics are the so-called "fiscally conservative, socially liberal" red governors of blue states - Christie Whitman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Pataki and (in his Massachusetts incarnation) Mitt Romney. In practice, they usually turn out to be not all that "fiscally conservative" because it turns out the social liberalism comes with quite a price tag. Suppose there were a countervailing force to the fiscally conservative, socially liberal type? Fiscally liberal, socially (or at any rate culturally) conservative. Recent elections in Europe suggest there's no shortage of voters who like their welfare checks, free health care, state pension plans ...but don't see what any of that has to do with letting the country fill up with fanatical Muslims hot for sharia and female genital mutilation. Once upon a time the old left-wing parties represented that interest, but the British Labour Party and most European social democratic parties abandoned that market when they got hot for multiculturalism and diversity. Is there a similar constituency in America? In other words, people who like their Medicare and food stamps ...but, like Trump, think there are too many unskilled Mexican peasants flooding into a country with ever diminishing social mobility and no hope of economic improvement without a credential that requires taking on a quarter-million dollars in debt. As Trump's detractors see it, he's just a reality-show buffoon with a portfolio of incoherent attitudes that display no coherent worldview. But very few people go around with a philosophically consistent attitude to life: Your approach to, say, health insurance is determined less by abstract principles than by whether you can afford it. Likewise, your attitude to the DREAMers may owe more to whether your local school district is collapsing under the weight of all this heartwarming diversity. Presumably, if you're one of these bipartisanly extreme moderates, which of your incoherent positions is more pressing on election day determines your vote. The question then is whether large numbers of the electorate are as concerned about immigration as Trump purports to be. Via Mickey Kaus, for example, I found this nugget in a new paper by that David Broockman fellow quoted up above: On immigration and abortion citizens tend to think the entire range of elite policy debate is too far to the left. But on abortion one of the two parties at least talks the talk, even if it does nothing. On immigration both parties are engaged in a conspiracy against the American people. One party gets cheap voters and Big Government dependents; the other gets cheap labor and a chocolate on its turned down coverlet in the junior suite. The Democrats made a smarter deal. The Republicans signed a demographic death warrant. Yet Jeb! and the other alleged non-buffoons in the race have to be dragged kicking and screaming to get beyond the most ludicrous sentimentalist pap on the subject. If a "real" Republican is someone who toes the party line on a suicide mission, why be surprised that voters seek reality elsewhere? The experts are still assuring us that the next Trumpian infelicity - after Mexicans, McCain and Megyn - will be the one that causes his campaign to self-destruct. You could be waiting a long time. As Ann Coulter says, the quickest way to get rid of Trump is to steal his issue and run with it.
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#1. To: nativist nationalist, Vicomte13, A Pole (#0)
(Edited)
Is there a similar constituency in America? In other words, people who like their Medicare and food stamps ...but, like Trump, think there are too many unskilled Mexican peasants flooding into a country with ever diminishing social mobility and no hope of economic improvement without a credential that requires taking on a quarter-million dollars in debt. As Trump's detractors see it, he's just a reality-show buffoon with a portfolio of incoherent attitudes that display no coherent worldview. But very few people go around with a philosophically consistent attitude to life: Your approach to, say, health insurance is determined less by abstract principles than by whether you can afford it. Likewise, your attitude to the DREAMers may owe more to whether your local school district is collapsing under the weight of all this heartwarming diversity. They now notice? It seems some of us have been arguing this for years. Especially after the Bush years showed the standard GOP economic ideology was a failure.
They've had due process when they invaded across the border illegally. Due process is a code phrase employed by pro immigration advocates meaning "to jam the process of repelling the invasion and reconquista so far behind with lawyers and arguments on an individual case by case basis that doing anything will be made impossible." We're at war and being invaded. It must be dealt with as such.
We're at war and being invaded. It must be dealt with as such. .....is something he has in common with all the alleged Republican nominees since that evil bastard Poppy Bush won the nomination. The media is going to have to do better than that if they want to take him down. Fiscal prudence? Constrained welfare? Private health care? Religious liberty? There's no point to a purity test for a party that folds more reliably than the White House valet. I would have thought "drops to their knees like a 5 dollar crack whore" would have been more accurate and illustrative,but the writer does make his point. As I've said, for the Republican establishment the issue is Trump; for a large part of the base the issue is the Republican establishment. And there is the "money shot". Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
Not really because there are no real negative consequences for invading our country. They get a few days in a holding center with free medical care,free food,and air-conditioning in a room with a bed,and them they are released back into the wild to do it again. There needs to be negative consequences for both the invaders for invading and for Mexico for not doing anything to stop them,or this will continue. Due process is a code phrase employed by pro immigration advocates meaning "to jam the process of repelling the invasion and reconquista so far behind with lawyers and arguments on an individual case by case basis that doing anything will be made impossible. Another part of what I call "The Lawyers Full Employment Act". This too will continue for as long as taxpayers are paying the attorney fees. The FACTS are their guilt is proven by all doubt because we caught them here and they are not citizens. There is never any doubt about their guilt,so if we go to a system where the lawyer vultures are only paid when they win the case,the lawyers will go back to chasing ambulances. Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
That is in fact the bottom line! People better get their heads out of their rear ends and face that reality! Si vis pacem, para bellum
Yep, you are correct. I really like your idea about taxpayers not paying the lawyers. That would go a looooong way to correcting all this! Si vis pacem, para bellum
WTF??? What's so terrible about enforcing our immigration laws? That's all Trump is doing. There's nothing new here beyond that. Loose cannon? Then what does Bryan Cranston think about a President who ignores Congress and writes his own laws? Hey. If people don't like Trump enforcing the law then they can tell their Congressmen to vote for the repeal of our immigration laws and open the border. Just like that. But don't act tough, thump your chest, and pass strict laws ... then ignore them. Don't be surprised if after a while the citizens start doing the same.
Who cares what the GOP wants? I want to see the 2012 Republican platform upheld.
Suppose there were a countervailing force to the fiscally conservative, socially liberal type? Fiscally liberal, socially (or at any rate culturally) conservative. Recent elections in Europe suggest there's no shortage of voters who like their welfare checks, free health care, state pension plans ...but don't see what any of that has to do with letting the country fill up with fanatical Muslims hot for sharia and female genital mutilation. Once upon a time the old left-wing parties represented that interest, but the British Labour Party and most European social democratic parties abandoned that market when they got hot for multiculturalism and diversity.
#2. To: nativist nationalist (#0)
"A lot of people say we should deport all undocumented immigrants immediately with no due process."
#3. To: rlk (#2)
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
#4. To: nativist nationalist (#0)
The retort that Trump is not a "real" Republican or a "real" conservative ......
#5. To: rlk (#2)
They've had due process when they invaded across the border illegally.
#6. To: rlk (#2)
" We're at war and being invaded. It must be dealt with as such. "
#7. To: sneakypete (#5)
" There needs to be negative consequences for both the invaders for invading and for Mexico for not doing anything to stop them,or this will continue. "
#8. To: nativist nationalist (#0)
"and here comes this loose cannon who has terrible ideas"
#9. To: Pericles (#1)
the standard GOP
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