Trump is counting on them to be stupid enough to do whatever he says. And he’s counting on years of Republican brainwashing by Religious Right Pulpit Pimps to keep the base of the GOP dumber than a box of rocks.
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The headline is wrong. While Trumpf’s bullying on immigration has hurt him with Hispanic, Mormon, probably Jewish and other voters who favor reasonable immigration policy, softening of his stand will hurt him among some who have supported him for his hardness. That won’t be a large slice of the electorate, but at this point Trumpf can’t afford to lose a single voter.
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I think ‘divot’
please replace…
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Alonzo Aguilar, Kelly Ayotte, Paul Ryan, The Turtle O’Connell, John McCain, and many other GOPers understand the problem, which according to Gallup is the flocking and clustering of bigots and racists in the GOP. Bigots don’t like–at least outside of Trump’s new mouthpiece, Breitbart-- being called by their real names. Racism and religious bigotry remain mostly socially unacceptable, although it’s still going on, so they dress it up into something socially acceptable called “economic insecurity.” A Gallup studies says the adherents are almost all white, and generally better off financially than the groups they revile.
The offending GOPers really do think the general electorate is as stupid as they imagine, if they think the can square this by proclaiming that there are “bright lines” (Paul Ryan) that they cannot cross, but never specify the lines and plan to vote for Trump anyway.
You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.
“I am going to support him and vote for him, but I am not going to defend his comments that have certainly done damage with Latinos,” Aguilar said. “Republicans are going to realize they cannot win the White House if they continue to alienate Latino voters. How many elections will we have to lose to learn that lesson?”
The answer is “apparently more than just this one.”
Charles Blow, of the NYTimes said it best on TV last night when he said (I’m paraphrasing here) that this scheme won’t wash. That if you vote for Trump, you not only take on but own his racism, homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia and religious bigotry, and the stench will follow you to your grave.
These worthies will soon have time to contemplate their craven betrayal of all that made America great, some from the unemployment line, and others from beyond the grave.
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I agree but we shouldn’t get too cocky about it…
three Republican actors… George Murphy, demi-god RR, Ahnuld…
‘Sleepin’ Sam’ SI Hayakawa as Senator
probably a couple others I forgot but ALL within our lifetime…
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GOP Platform Posturing 101: cheat, retreat, rinse, repeat.
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And recently 60%+ of the Asian American vote as well…
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The real shame about Sam Hayakawa is that he is arguably the most important popularizer of semantics in the 20th C. His Language in Thought and Action is still a good introduction to semantics. He was 71 when he got to the Senate and pretty clearly past his sell-by date.
P.S. A semantic critique of Dishonest Don’s campaign would be worth doing, except that a more thorough and conciser job can be done in a single sentence:
This campaign is a hot, stinking mess.
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Strangely, the GOP’s dilemma with its nationalist base and outreach efforts always reminds me of this line from Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter:
you offer me the only thing I want…if I give up…the only thing I treasure.
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From the Pew study last month:
The size of the Hispanic electorate is expected to number 27.3 million eligible voters (adult U.S. citizens) in 2016, projected to make up 12% of all eligible voters, a share equal to that of blacks among eligible voters. But voter turnout among Hispanics has long lagged that of other groups.
We also need to talk here about the failure of Hispanic outreach on the Democrats’ part. A good example is the Southern San Joaquin Valley in California. Much of the decades-long entrenchment of the GOP reflects Hispanic Passivity. Kern County, for example, is 51% Hispanic today, yet due to the power of Big Ag and Big Oil, pretty much GOP at every level. And consistency low Hispanic turnout.
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But he does plan to vote for him.
IMHO that is the major problem the REPUGS have, the fact that Party comes before Nation. Until leaders work for the good of the Nation they have lost me. Lost me at every single level. Instead of, an ® after the name means a vote it is rather an ® after a name means an automatic NO vote. I grew up in a Republican household. I had members of my family elected as Republicans. I had worked elections as a Republican volunteer. I have actually been an Independent (non aligned) for 45 years however I continued to include Republicans in my vote, no more.
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The classic no-show job! Of course they hired people and put them on some payroll, but no work ever got done.
Nice work if you can get it.
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Scott Walker. The real life example of what happens when these people get control to enact their ideology.
He is leaving a swath of destruction that will take a generation to reverse.
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Trump’s the best pivoter, everyone says so. Trump is going to pivot so fast, you won’t even see he’s pivoting. Other people just pivot a 180, but Trump is so great at pivoting, he does a complete 360! It’s gonna be so awesome, you’re gonna be sick of pivoting. There’ll be so much pivoting, you’ll barf!
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And let’s not forget Sam Brownback.
Kansans will never forget forgive him.
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I am curious who his advisers are to think this would work. Even if he changes tone or his positions a bit all the Dems have to do is show clips from his past talks. Or the reactions of the GOP base.
This is an attempted hail marry pass as Trump is losing by yuge margins in nearly every demographic at this point. He is even doing poorly among many groups of white voters. He needs to try and decrease the gaps he has created, but it is probably going to be too hard. The best he can hope for is to win back some of the white vote.
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It’s on the way to Hell.
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I would deport any immigrant who votes for Trump. Too dumb.
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You have no way of proving this assertion.
Perhaps the scariest thing about this whole issue is that the GOP is extremely good at getting people to vote against their own best interests. They have been doing it for decades, and now they are appealing to a group that Trump has grossly denigrated with his talk about immigration by talk of moderating his harsher comments.
Consider that many, if not most, Hispanics are Catholics and the ultra-conservative US Council of Bishops has yet to weigh in on Trump. They are keeping their distance right now, but their strong anti-abortion and anti-same sex marriage and anti-women in the priesthood stands are still being pushed from the pulpits of the churches and are the first two are part of the GOP platform. The Democrats have the GOP beat on economic and immigration issues within the Hispanic communities, but far too many Americans, including Hispanics, fail to understand the effect of GOP policies on their cultural and social lives, not just their government, so the culture war issues resonate from the churches very successfully. While Hispanics do not like Trump, many of them will vote for him because their priests and GOP social issue activists will continue to spew their poison about the dangers to the communities by the Democrats.
With the Obama Administration having deported more Hispanics in the last 8 years than his GOP predecessor Bush, the GOP has a great talking point that will be pushed at the down ticket level, even if Trump is quiet on the subject. In fact, I am surprised that he has not used this factoid yet in his speeches, but I guess with an ego like his, letting Obama and Clinton take the fall for increased deportations is probably not part of the plan. By convincing the Hispanic communities that the GOP is actually working for them, supported by the culture warriors in their churches, the GOP could actually pull this one out of the fire at the local levels, which could ripple up to Trump votes. It is a sad commentary on our society that ignorance about government and policy issues, thanks in part to a lazy media, often leads to people voting against their own best interests - and sadly for many minorities, it makes them perfect targets for snake oil salesmen like Trump and the GOP monsters in people skins on the down ticket.
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