Villagers reassure us that the Republican Party isn't extreme
by digby
One of the scary aspects of the Trump candidacy is the fact that he's moving the goalposts so far to the right that the beltway media, in their unending quest to portray the Republican Party as Real Americans who represent the great middle of the country, is redefining GOP "moderate" to mean people who don't think we should start a mass deportation program:
Newly released numbers from the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll reveal not only the very clear differences between Iowans who back Donald Trump and those who support any of the other 16 GOP presidential candidates, but also how the real estate mogul's call for a hard-line immigration policy has resonated with a certain sector of the electorate.
Asked whether rounding up the 11 million people in the country illegally and deporting them is a good or a bad idea, almost three in four Trump backers said it was a good idea. By contrast, just four in 10 Republicans who are supporting another candidate said the same.
See? Only 40% of Republicans who don't back Trump think we should be deporting millions of people! Huzzah! Sanity reigns!
Here's some more moderation from the PPP poll this week:
Republicans who say they’re with the real-estate kingpin and former reality show star were also substantially more supportive of changing the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to all American-born children regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
About half of GOP voters told the survey they would support amending the Constitution to bar the children of undocumented immigrants from claiming “birthright” citizenship.
Only half of Republicans think the nation is threatened by babies born in America being citizens. It's all good.
It's just Trump, the crazy kooky guy whose entertaining everybody. It's not serious. No need to worry that the party itself is becoming a far-right extremist political faction. Nothing to see here.
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