Washington Post (Plum Line)
By Paul Waldman
July 1, 2015
Donald
Trump is surging. In a field that has grown to 16 Republican
presidential candidates (once Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Ohio Gov.
John Kasich make their candidacies
official), Trump is now in second place pretty much wherever you look. A
new Quinnipiac poll of Iowa voters shows him tied for second with Ben
Carson; they each have 10 percent to Walker’s 18. The latest CNN/WMUR
poll in New Hampshire also puts Trump in second,
with 11 percent, behind only Jeb Bush at 16 percent. And in the
Huffington Post Pollster average of national polls, Trump comes in a
mere 0.7 percent behind Bush.
While
everyone has treated the Trump story as an amusing sideshow to the
campaign (which it certainly is), there’s a genuine danger for the GOP
in his presence that goes
beyond the simple fact that he makes the party look silly (which he
certainly does). More than any other candidate, Trump is telling Latinos
that the Republican Party doesn’t like them.
Now
let’s be clear: It isn’t as though Trump is going to be a serious
contender for the nomination. But he could also go significantly higher
than he is now. Just think
about what happened in 2012, when one ridiculous candidate after
another shot to the front of the Republican primary race. At one point,
Rick Perry was in the lead with 32 percent support. Herman Cain once led
with 26 percent. Newt Gingrich topped the field
with 35 percent. Rick Santorum was No. 1 with 34 percent. The 2016 race
may or may not be that volatile, but it will certainly have some ups
and downs, as one candidate or another will stumble and another will
rise. So it’s not inconceivable that at some point,
for a moment anyway, Trump might actually be ahead in the polls.
When
the primaries are over, repairing relations with Latinos will be one of
the central challenges the Republican nominee faces. It’s one that both
John McCain and Mitt
Romney failed to accomplish — McCain lost among Latinos by a margin of
36 points, while Romney trailed by 44. And every time Trump opens his
mouth, he makes that task more difficult.
Of
course, Jeb Bush or Scott Walker or Marco Rubio don’t bear
responsibility for the things Trump says. But Latinos are paying
attention to what he’s saying, and it can’t
help but taint his fellow Republicans. As you might recall, in his
announcement speech, Trump basically called every Mexican immigrant in
the United States a low-life. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not
sending their best,” he said. “They’re sending
people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems
with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re
rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” In response, Univision
pulled out of broadcasting the Miss Universe pageant,
which Trump co-owns, and NBC dropped him as well. In Mexico, people are
making Trump piñatas.
Given
the chance to clarify, Trump said in essence that there are perfectly
fine people in Mexico, it’s just the ones who come to the United States
who are so awful, and
also that these dangerous criminals come from other countries, too.
“I’m not just saying Mexicans, I’m talking about people that are from
all over that are killers and rapists and they’re coming into this
country,” he said. So it’s really all immigrants that
he has a problem with. Good to have that cleared up.
That
kind of rhetoric coming from a prominent Republican candidate (who will
almost certainly be included in the upcoming debates, by the way) makes
it all the more difficult
for the party to strike the tricky balance it needs to on the issue of
immigration. The nominee will have to make the case for the policies he
and every other Republican favors — increased border security above all,
and nothing more than the far-distant possibility
of a path to some vaguely defined legal status for the 11 million
undocumented immigrants currently in the United States — without
communicating hostility toward immigrants in general, and through them
to all Latinos (and to a lesser but still significant
extent, to Asian Americans).
Even
if all Republicans were acting welcoming and inclusive, it would be
hard enough. Those voters are paying attention to the policy positions
the candidates take, which
means that any Republican, even one with Cuban parents (like Rubio) or
one who speaks Spanish fluently and has a Mexican spouse (as Bush does),
starts with two strikes against him. Trump may be a comical buffoon who
stands almost no chance of getting the nomination,
but by the time he’s done, the bile he spews could get his fellow
Republicans dirty as well.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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