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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...op-establishment-capitulates-to-donald-trump/
Here’s an interesting confluence of events. On the same day that the news is filled with accounts of the GOP establishment coming to terms with Donald Trump, the Donald releases his first attack ad against Ted Cruz — a spot that doubles down on exactly the same sort of immigration rhetoric the GOP establishment types had hoped the GOP would move away from, for the good of the party.
Numerous articles this morning chronicle the various ways that GOP establishment figures are beginning to accommodate themselves to the possibility of a Trump nomination. The Post reports that some in the GOP establishment are privately reaching out to Trump, and others are persuading themselves that Trump could actually win the general election. Bloomberg reports that deep-pocketed GOP donors are coming around to the view that Trump can be negotiated with.
Meanwhile, Trump released a new ad today that attacks Ted Cruz as soft on amnesty, and shows Trump saying this:
“We don’t have a country right now. We have people pouring in. They’re pouring in. And they’re doing tremendous damage, if you look at the crime, if you look at the economy. We want to have borders. To have a country, you have to have borders. We don’t have borders right now.”
Trump attacks Cruz as pro-amnesty, based on the claim that Cruz previously embraced legalization. That’s not true. In reality, not only did Cruz never embrace legalization; he has since flatly ruled it out. That said, it is true that Trump is nonetheless to Cruz’s right on the issue. While Cruz has only suggested that the 11 million should remain in the shadows, subject to deportation as the occasion arises under our current enforcement regime, Trump favors proactive mass deportations — i.e., rounding ’em up and shipping ’em out, through “good management,” as he puts it.
This is the candidate that pragmatic GOP aligned business elites appear to be coming around to accepting. For years, of course, many of those same GOP elites have urged the party to moderate on immigration. Some right-leaning writers have argued that this is exactly why Trump is succeeding; as wages have stagnated, GOP elites have favored immigration reform that include legalization; thus, many GOP voters (who believe immigration threatens them economically) no longer believe those elites have their true interests at heart. That may be, but the point for now is that GOP elites are coming to terms with the candidate who is farthest to the right on this issue by far.
How are they justifying this? Easy: By telling themselves that Trump doesn’t mean any of it.
One Republican-aligned business figure says some GOP elites will prefer Trump to Cruz because Trump “has no obvious core political values,” as if this is a positive, in that it makes it more likely that Trump will deal with them. One Republican donor says: “in the middle of the campaign a lot of people say things that they think are going to help them get elected.” Another donor says that while he finds Trump’s demagoguery to be wretched, that’s overshadowed by the fact that Trump is the only contender with the “entrepreneurial spirit” to solve our country’s “big problems.” Bob Dole says that Trump is preferable to Cruz because in reality, Trump is “kind of a deal-maker.” Translation: Trump won’t actually go through with all that crazy stuff he’s talking about.
As I noted the other day, the emerging argument is that Trump’s various pronouncements (even if these establishment types personally loathe Trump’s expressed values) merely reflect an entrepreneurial and adventurous spirit — they are the inevitable byproduct of thinking big, of a refusal to be constrained by convention. Come to think of it, that’s a good thing, isn’t it!
To be clear, Trump very well may not win the early states, and he may fade. If so, GOP establishment types will presumably rally to a far more acceptable alternative, if one emerges. But for now, the rhetoric coming from them suggests that they are willing to accept Trump’s framing of the immigration debate, on the grounds that he probably isn’t serious about any of it. It’s all a big gag.
Here’s an interesting confluence of events. On the same day that the news is filled with accounts of the GOP establishment coming to terms with Donald Trump, the Donald releases his first attack ad against Ted Cruz — a spot that doubles down on exactly the same sort of immigration rhetoric the GOP establishment types had hoped the GOP would move away from, for the good of the party.
Numerous articles this morning chronicle the various ways that GOP establishment figures are beginning to accommodate themselves to the possibility of a Trump nomination. The Post reports that some in the GOP establishment are privately reaching out to Trump, and others are persuading themselves that Trump could actually win the general election. Bloomberg reports that deep-pocketed GOP donors are coming around to the view that Trump can be negotiated with.
Meanwhile, Trump released a new ad today that attacks Ted Cruz as soft on amnesty, and shows Trump saying this:
“We don’t have a country right now. We have people pouring in. They’re pouring in. And they’re doing tremendous damage, if you look at the crime, if you look at the economy. We want to have borders. To have a country, you have to have borders. We don’t have borders right now.”
Trump attacks Cruz as pro-amnesty, based on the claim that Cruz previously embraced legalization. That’s not true. In reality, not only did Cruz never embrace legalization; he has since flatly ruled it out. That said, it is true that Trump is nonetheless to Cruz’s right on the issue. While Cruz has only suggested that the 11 million should remain in the shadows, subject to deportation as the occasion arises under our current enforcement regime, Trump favors proactive mass deportations — i.e., rounding ’em up and shipping ’em out, through “good management,” as he puts it.
This is the candidate that pragmatic GOP aligned business elites appear to be coming around to accepting. For years, of course, many of those same GOP elites have urged the party to moderate on immigration. Some right-leaning writers have argued that this is exactly why Trump is succeeding; as wages have stagnated, GOP elites have favored immigration reform that include legalization; thus, many GOP voters (who believe immigration threatens them economically) no longer believe those elites have their true interests at heart. That may be, but the point for now is that GOP elites are coming to terms with the candidate who is farthest to the right on this issue by far.
How are they justifying this? Easy: By telling themselves that Trump doesn’t mean any of it.
One Republican-aligned business figure says some GOP elites will prefer Trump to Cruz because Trump “has no obvious core political values,” as if this is a positive, in that it makes it more likely that Trump will deal with them. One Republican donor says: “in the middle of the campaign a lot of people say things that they think are going to help them get elected.” Another donor says that while he finds Trump’s demagoguery to be wretched, that’s overshadowed by the fact that Trump is the only contender with the “entrepreneurial spirit” to solve our country’s “big problems.” Bob Dole says that Trump is preferable to Cruz because in reality, Trump is “kind of a deal-maker.” Translation: Trump won’t actually go through with all that crazy stuff he’s talking about.
As I noted the other day, the emerging argument is that Trump’s various pronouncements (even if these establishment types personally loathe Trump’s expressed values) merely reflect an entrepreneurial and adventurous spirit — they are the inevitable byproduct of thinking big, of a refusal to be constrained by convention. Come to think of it, that’s a good thing, isn’t it!
To be clear, Trump very well may not win the early states, and he may fade. If so, GOP establishment types will presumably rally to a far more acceptable alternative, if one emerges. But for now, the rhetoric coming from them suggests that they are willing to accept Trump’s framing of the immigration debate, on the grounds that he probably isn’t serious about any of it. It’s all a big gag.
