At this moment in the
long-distance race of the Republican nomination for President, the leader is
Donald Trump. Leading the pack at this point doesn’t require much support,
because there are so many candidates. In the most recent polls, taken by USA
Today and by FOX
News, Trump leads with only 17-18%, among 15 men and Carly Fiorina. Scott
Walker (15%) and Jeb Bush (14%) also scored in double digits. Trump’s share has
quadrupled over the past 2 months, Walker and Bush have stayed about the same,
and the most conservative also-rans, like Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, and Mike
Huckabee, have lost voters to Trump.
Unlike every other entrant,
he is not a politician and has never held public office. Just a few years ago,
he wasn’t even a Republican. What could it mean that he is in the lead?
When Trump pretended to be a
Republican presidential candidate in 2011, his history
of political donations leaned Democratic, including sizable donations to
Harry Reid, Rahm Emanuel, and John Kerry. He gave often to Hillary
Clinton and to the Clinton Foundation.
His behavior and public
statements are most un-presidential. Trump was able to use student and medical
deferments to avoid
service in Vietnam. Yet he
claimed to Bill O’Reilly, “There’s nobody bigger or better at the military
than I am.” At a Republican gathering on Saturday, he
disparaged John McCain’s well known Vietnam service record: “He’s not a war
hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t
captured.”
Trump’s personal
life appears to be the opposite of what conservatives prefer. He was
married three times. In 2004, he
told the Daily News, “All of the women on ‘The Apprentice’ flirted with me,
consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.” In his 2007 book, Trump
boasted, “Oftentimes when I was sleeping with one of the top women in the
world I would say to myself, thinking about me as a boy from Queens, ‘Can you
believe what I’m getting?’ ”
Those things appear not to
matter as much to conservatives as his recent remarks about immigrants, which
have catapulted him in the polls. In his June announcement that he was a
candidate, Trump
claimed that Mexico is “sending people that have lots of problems. They’re
bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume,
are good people.”
When conservatives explain why
they like Trump, they often use the word “truth”. What does it mean when
Trump’s supporters say that he tells the truth? People who labeled themselves
Tea Party supporters in the recent FOX poll were the LEAST likely to vote for a
candidate who is “sometimes less than honest and would lie to cover up the
truth.” No age group, racial group, gender group, or income group put a higher
value on truth than Tea Party supporters.
Extreme conservatives want
the truth as they believe it, and Trump gives it to them.
Here is that truth as shown
in that FOX poll. Tea Party supporters see the least benefit in any kind of
immigration and the most danger. When asked several questions about possible
benefits of LEGAL immigration, Tea Party people had the least interest. When
asked a series of questions about concerns they might have about ILLEGAL
immigration, Tea Party supporters consistently gave the highest negative
answers. 76% are “very concerned” about an increase in crime, and 80% about “overburdening
government programs and services”. Other possible issues, such as “taking jobs
away from U.S. citizens”, are of much less concern. Over half, much more than
any other group, wanted to deport as many illegal immigrants as possible.
Less than half of Americans
think Donald Trump was correct in his claims about whom Mexico is “sending”
over the border, but three-quarters of Tea Party supporters agree with him.
Donald Trump is a vain,
self-promoting, amoral man, whose focus on himself and his money would make an
awful President. I think most of the people who say they support him now, more
than six months before the Iowa Caucuses on February 1, already know that. By
picking Trump, they are sending a message to the Republican Party, and to us all,
about their distaste for immigration and especially Hispanic immigrants. Trump
is saying what they want to hear about immigration. Right-wing Americans don’t
want him – they want the other Republicans to listen up, to learn their truth.
Trump is just riding that
wave. Soon he’ll go down. What matters is what other Republicans do with their
most vocal and extreme voters.
We all need to pay attention.
And we must keep saying, as often as possible, that just like everything else
Trump says about political issues, this too is a lie.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
Published in the Jacksonville
Journal-Courier, July 21, 2015
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