7/7/2015 - Pat Buchanan Townhall.com
In the 2016 race, June belonged
to two outsiders who could not be more dissimilar.
Bernie Sanders is a socialist senator from VermoDnt
and Donald Trump a celebrity capitalist and legendary entrepreneur and builder.
What do they have in common? Both have tapped into
what the bases of their respective parties believe is wrong with America.
Bernie is the Willie Nelson of national
politics, a leftist voice of a working class whose jobs and factories have been
exported and whose wages have stagnated as banksters and the Davos-Doha crowd
amass mammoth fortunes by playing games of three-dimensional Monopoly. The
73-year-old Sanders may have no chance of beating Hillary. But the size of his
crowds testifies that he speaks for millions.
Trump's success comes from the issues he has
seized upon -- illegal immigration and trade deals that deindustrialized
America -- and brazen defiance of Republican elites and a media establishment.
By now the whole world has heard Trump's
declaration:
"When Mexico sends its people, they're not
sending their best. ... They're sending people that have lots of problems, and
they're bringing those problems to us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing
crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
Politically incorrect? You betcha. Yet, is Trump
not raising a valid issue? Is there not truth in what he said? Is not illegal
immigration, and criminals crossing our Southern border, an issue of national
import, indeed, of national security? Women and girls crossing Mexico on trains
are raped by gangs. The "coyotes" leading people illegally across the
U.S. border include robbers, rapists and killers, who often leave these people
to die in the desert.
"State of Emergency: The Third World
Invasion and Conquest of America" by this writer in 2006 cited researcher
Heather Mac Donald of Manhattan Institute. She reported that two-thirds of the
17,000 outstanding fugitive felony warrants in Los Angeles were for illegal
immigrants, as were 95 percent of 1,200-1,500 outstanding warrants for homicide.
Of 20,000 members of the 18th Street Gang
operating across Southern California, 12,000 were illegal immigrants. One of
the Beltway Snipers, who terrorized the D.C. area, shooting 13 and killing 10,
was a 17-year-old illegal immigrant from Jamaica, John Lee Malvo.
The reaction to Trump's comments has been
instructive. NBC and Univision dropped his Miss USA and Miss Universe contests.
Macy's has dropped the Trump clothing line. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is
talking of terminating city contracts with Trump.
The reaction of Trump's Republican rivals has
been even more instructive. Initially, it was muted. But when major media began
to demand that GOP candidates either denounce Trump or come under suspicion or
racism themselves, the panic and pile-on began.
As The Washington Times relates, at a July 4
parade in New Hampshire, Jeb Bush said Trump "doesn't represent the
Republican Party or its values. "I don't assume that he thinks that every
Mexican crossing the border is a rapist. ... So he's doing this to inflame and
to incite and to draw attention, which seems to be his organizing principle of
his campaign."
Sen. Marco Rubio also found his voice. Trump's
comments "were not just offensive and inaccurate, but also divisive."
Imagine that, "divisive" politics.
Ex-Gov. Rick Perry said Trump's remarks were
"offensive," as "Hispanics in America and Hispanics in Texas,
from the Alamo to Afghanistan, have been extraordinary ... citizens of our
country." But most of the Hispanics at the Alamo were in the Mexican army
of Santa Anna, not under Col. Travis, and hardly "extraordinary citizens
of our country" as Texas did not even belong to the USA then.
Sen. Ted Cruz on NBC's "Meet the
Press" took a different stance: "I salute Donald Trump for focusing
on the need to address illegal immigration." "The Washington cartel
doesn't want to address that. The Washington cartel doesn't believe we need to
secure the border. The Washington cartel supports amnesty, and I think
amnesty's wrong."
Trump "has a colorful way of
speaking," said Cruz, "It's not the way I speak. But I'm not going to
engage in the media's game of throwing rocks and attacking other
Republicans." Cruz might have added, "like Jeb and Rick and Marco are
doing."
What Trump has done, and Cruz sees it, is to
have elevated the illegal immigration issue, taken a tough line, and is now
attacking GOP rivals who have dithered or done nothing to deal with it. Trump
intends to exploit the illegal immigration issue, and the trade issue, where
majorities of middle-class Americans oppose the elites. And he is going to ride
them as far as he can in the Republican primaries.
In the coming debates, look for Trump to take
the populist and popular side of them both. And for Cruz to stand by him on
illegal immigration. Americans are fed up with words; they want action. Trump
is moving in the polls because, whatever else he may be, he is a man of action.
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