Conservative columnist and author Mona Charin is among some other Republicans who say the Donald Trump movement (and critics do think of it as a movement — in more than one meaning of the word) a)isn’t going anywhere b)doesn’t represent the view of many Republicans c)is not going anywhere. Here’s a chunk of her piece in RealClearPolitics:
Ah, they say, but Republicans are seething with hatred for Hispanics, especially illegal immigrants, and this accounts for Trump’s hot-air liftoff. Illegal immigration does enrage some portions of the base, but only some. In a recent Pew poll, fully 66 percent of Republicans said illegal Mexican immigrants are “mostly honest,” while only 19 percent said they are “mainly undesirable.”
There is a talk-radio drumbeat about illegal-immigrant criminals. Still, most Republican voters are not strongly anti-immigration. They’re ambivalent, with 56 percent favoring a path to legal status for aliens living here, according to a Pew poll, but 63 percent viewing immigrants as a burden.
And here she answers Trump, conservative talkers and some conservative bloggers who echo, enable or applaud Trump’s most inflammatory comments:
Whatever one’s views about immigration, the very worst way to broach the topic is to smear all Mexican illegals as “rapists” and criminals. It’s obviously false. It’s not even true that illegal immigrants commit a disproportionate share of crimes. Honest anti-immigration groups like the Center for Immigration Studies agree that first-generation immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-borns. (And immigration rates are falling.)
Well, we’re told, people are choking on political correctness, and Trump is a breath of fresh air. So the best way to discredit political correctness is to embody the worst stereotype of an aggressive bigot?
And then she commits a sin that will likely cause some conservatives to say she’s selling out, is really a RINO:
Trump’s moment is probably fading, but his little balloon ride is disturbing nonetheless. It’s evidence that political intemperance is not limited to the left.
Uh, oh, the False Equivilancy Police — called out by left and right (wait, now they’re knocking on my door) — have just been called out. YES left and right DO behave the same in some of the most tiresome, trite and predictable political behaviors.
She argues that the Democrats ” and its allies in the press,” have fanned the flames of racial hatred, and presents a conservative-perspective on the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner the Charleston massacre,” — arguing the left and press have been “inciting” racial tensions by saying its like tyhe 1960s. After some criticism of Barack Obama, etc. she writes this:
The only answer to division and hatred on the left is inclusion and unity on the right. A number of Republican candidates for president have been seeking to recast the Republican Party as the party of reform and outreach. They recognize that a party that lost not just the Hispanic vote, the black vote, the women’s vote and the youth vote, but also the Asian vote has an image problem. As any number of successful Republican senators and governors have shown, it isn’t necessary to adopt any particular policy (e.g., amnesty) to attract the votes of more Hispanics or Asians. It is necessary for the party to convey a welcoming spirit. Such a tone may even attract fence-sitting white voters who are left cold by a party that appears uninterested in the plight of the poor.
That is the Republican challenge and opportunity. Success beckons — but only post-Trump.
And — whether individual readers like or hate her analysis of where the U.S. is in racial matters and why or not — she nails it.
The Republican party must go beyond preaching to a choir that’s given music that choir members love and members of the general audience may not like or are even border with or tired of hearing again and again and again (and again).
The worst part about the Trump rise in the polls is it shows how partisans can be turned into virtual lemmings, repeating, incorporating, enabling and defending someone who they might not normally parrot or support because that person mouths great zingers against their political enemies or groups they don’t like or fear.
And t-h-a-t is what’s scary for the American political system as we head into a 21st century where the quality of our political debate has become increasingly cheapened, debased and downgraded.
FOOTNOTE: The one area where I disagree with most analysts on Trump. No one has a crystal ball. All these statements made with such certainty that there’s no way he could get the nomination beg the question: so where’s your proof? If he wins enough votes he most assuredly could get the nomination and American and world history is filled with examples of political types who were underestimated or not taken seriously enough when they burst onto a national stage — and eventually won power. Then the conventional wisdom is quietly swept under the rug or downplayed.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.