Yes, Trump Won Largely on the Strength of Opposition to Open Borders and Amnesty

Ramesh Ponuru looks at the issue and I generally agree.

Here's my question:

How come in a field of 17 candidates, only two declared any kind of opposition to the Establishment's pro-amnesty/easy-H1B/increase immigration levels/no wall position?

I don't know if all the candidates believed this or were told they had to believe it by their billionaire sponsors. (I know Scott Walker tried to stray into a more restrictionist position, but had his collar yanked hard by his well-heeled and sharply-heeling master, and then stayed on the pro-Amnesty Sidewalk.)

So, lesson for the Establishment and Establishment-friendly donors and would-be candidates:

When there's ONE GUY chiefly identified with an issue out of 17 people, and 14 or 15 of those 17 people are basically Amnesty With Nothing But Token Preconditions, maybe it's going to be easy for that ONE GUY to win to with 40% of the vote.

Maybe you rich establishment motherf***ers should maybe back away from your gonzo archlibertarian embrace of open borders and cheap labor for your first-world location/third-world labor market dreams.

Exactly: Anon Y. Mous writes:

This was the thing that surprised me. Almost always in national politics, if an outsider comes in and starts making hay with an issue, lots of others jump in to steal the issue from him. Instead of one guy having the issue to himself, you get lots of guys with all kinds of variations, so the issue gets fractured up.

The GOP just couldn't bring themselves to do it. Their motto was (and is!), Damn the torpedoes; open borders ahead!

Yes, exactly. I kept hoping for others -- sane people, I mean -- to adopt some better position on the issue, but all they did was make their rhetoric sound scaaaaarier while still doing the George W. Bush/Lindsey Graham/Marco Rubio/Paul Ryan Amnesty Boogie.

I had on Carly and Jindal on the podcast. I'd hoped for them to change their message; they didn't. They talked tougher, but they were still doing the Amnesty Boogie.

posted by Ace at 06:10 PM

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