In Thursday night’s debate, Donald Trump did something amazing: He gave a full-throated defense of hiring illegal aliens, on “jobs Americans won’t do” grounds.
I am intimately acquainted with the immigration-hawk Right. In fact, I am of them, pretty much. And if there’s one thing they/we can’t stand, it’s the suggestion that there are “jobs Americans won’t do,” necessitating the hiring of illegals.
Donald Trump’s popularity among voters has mainly to do with his tough stance on immigration. Or so I’m told, daily. And yet the populist Right (to use a term of convenience) will stand for his “jobs Americans won’t do” act? Here’s a candidate who says, I have no choice but to hire illegals because there are jobs that Americans just won’t do.
That’s okay with the Trump army?
Years ago, there was a movie called “A Day without a Mexican.” It made the taunting point that “Ha, ha, you whities couldn’t live without Mexicans, because there would be no one to clean your pools, cut your grass, wipe your babies’ butts, etc.” Man, did the Right hate that.
But it’s all cool now?
Another thing the Right has always hated: reaching across the aisle. A Republican’s boast that he can “reach across the aisle” to compromise with the other side.
“Reach across the aisle” was a phrase almost as radioactive as “jobs Americans won’t do.”
And yet, Trump brags about his ability and willingness to reach across the aisle. This is one of his pet points against Ted Cruz. Cruz, he says, is unable to play well with others. He can’t reach across the aisle.
This is cool with Trump fans?
Let’s have one more: Trump brags regularly — weekly, at least — that he is very well educated, having attended an Ivy League school. In normal circumstances, there is nothing the populist Right hates more! But in Trump? A-OK.
You wonder when Trump supporters will get the feeling that they’re being used. That their man has a certain contempt for them. Or a certain condescension toward them. I will illustrate what I mean.
Trump was talking to the New York Times — !!! — about his speeches. “You know,” he said, “if it gets a little boring, if I see people starting to sort of, maybe thinking about leaving, I can sort of tell the audience, I just say, ‘We will build the wall!’ and they go nuts.”
Uh-huh. A final thing — or a final final thing. Governor Chris Christie has come out for Trump. The day before yesterday, he was establishment, RINO, squish, cuck, K Street, GOPe, donor class, open borders, Wall Street, sellout, etc. You know the lexicon (or maybe you don’t, in which case you’re lucky).
And now he’s cool?
P.S. WFB liked to tell a story about Mrs. Robert A. Taft. It relates to the Ivy League thing. According to lore, she was addressing a ladies’ luncheon in Ohio. During the question period, someone asked her, “Mrs. Taft, would you say that your husband is a common man?” “Heavens no,” Mrs. Taft responded. “He went to Yale and Harvard.”
Heh.
(Disclosure.)