About last night ...
by digby
I wrote about last night's GOP primary for Salon this morning:
I’ve been writing about the Donald Trump phenomenon several times a week for seven months now. As his candidacy evolved from a bizarre spectacle to a serious campaign, it’s become clear that this is a pivotal moment in American politics. It’s not just that we have a shocking demagogue or a profane performer topping the polls in the Republican presidential race. It’s the alarming notion that a crude authoritarian white nationalist is appealing to a very large section of the American people. Even worse is the realization that there is a path for him to actually win the presidency.
Last night he won the New Hampshire primary and he won decisively. His effect on the GOP electorate is already profound:
Only 40 percent of New Hampshire Republicans support deporting millions of Latinos, so that’s what passes for good news in all this. They didn’t ask about summary execution or torture or killing terrorist suspects’ families, but it stands to reason that at least the 35 percent who voted for Trump are for it. Those aren’t the kind of issues people easily overlook when they vote for someone.
Most surprisingly, he won substantial support across all classes, educational status, gender and ideology. He is a true frontrunner now and is highly likely to gain support as people see him as actually able to pull it off. After all, he may be crude, but when you strip away the bluster, many of his proposals and promises — particularly when it comes to law and order, immigration and national security — are supported by a whole lot of Republicans.
Last night in his victory speech, Trump proclaimed,
“We’re going to make America great again but we’re going to do it the old fashioned way. We’re going to beat China, Japan, beat Mexico at trade. We’re going to beat all of these countries that are taking so much of our money away from us on a daily basis. It’s not going to happen anymore.”
Essentially, he has promised to kick out foreigners who are here, ban foreigners from coming here and beat foreigners that are “taking so much of our money.” But then, if he and his followers believe real unemployment is possibly above 40 percent as he claimed last night, drastic action would understandably be in order. The number is completely daft, of course. He undoubtedly got it from
sources like World Net Daily which commonly flog ridiculous statistics such as that.
There's more at the link.
.