Day: August 28, 2016

Republicans who think their problems will go away once Donald Trump has left the national stage haven’t been paying attention this week. Trump’s shifting position on immigration this week perfectly illustrates why the issue is nearly impossible for Republicans. Greg Sargent explains:

Trump’s rhetoric right now reflects a search for a magic formula. He wants to reassure suburban white swing voters — who essentially favor mass assimilation because they see most undocumented immigrants as largely making a positive contribution — that he isn’t proposing to cruelly ship out millions, which would be costly and disruptive to families and communities. So he says, don’t worry, we’re only starting with the bad ones, and the status of the good ones may be subject to negotiation later. In other words, he compassionately recognizes that many of them are good people — they’re not all merely criminals. But he also wants to reassure the hardliners, so he indicates that they all are still subject to removal, which is code for indicating that he is not making mass assimilation the goal. In the end, though, Trump’s actual position, for now at least, is defined by the latter. The prospective goal is not mass assimilation. It’s shrinkage and removal — beyond just the “bad ones.” There is no straddle that works. There is no magic formula here.

As Democratic pollster Geoff Garin notes, wherever Trump lands on immigration, he’ll be out of step with Americans. Over 60% favor a path to citizenship and oppose his border wall. But Trump's success in the GOP primary proves that the GOP base are opposed to that. They want mass deportation of all the brown Latinos, no matter if they are good or bad. That garners 30-40% of the GOP vote, enough for Trump to win in a massively crowded field. But that position, expressed with all the hate and vitriol found on Brietbart and Stormfront, is a guaranteed loser in a general election. Hence, the Catch-22 for the GOP, a problem that existed before Trump and will exist after Trump. The only way the GOP will get out of this trap is for them to tell their base to go fuck their racist selves, no matter the electoral consequences in the short term.