Two Conservatives Weigh In For Trump

Edward Luttwak here Suffering from Trumpfobia? Get Over It reminds us that in 1980 the press regularly accused Reagan of being so crazy he would get us into a nuclear war.  Eamonn Fingleton here Rubio a Disgrace praises Trump for his willingness to expose how East Asia still puts considerable barriers on our exports.  

He is right that Rubio went beyond Trump in taking the low road.  I was thinking of voting for him at one point but he turned me off.

Both writers see Trump as willing to challenge the conventional wisdom that somehow free trade has been a big benefit for America.  In fact, our main trading partners China and Japan don't practice it. 

Fingleton constantly points out how American infrastructure is going to seed. It is hard to disagree with him when one sees the sorry state of our airports and roads.  I keep reading in the American press about Japan's doldrums economy.  I visited Tokyo in 2014--it was like a gleaming Futurama. Everything new. 

Many parts of the US aren't prospering at all; the Midwest is being hollowed out.  Fracking has made some areas prosperous again--the start of an American industrial renaissance--but the Democrats want to kill it for good. 

How free trade and immigration, both of which put downward pressure on American wages, are benefiting the country should be items for national discussion.  

The Great Wall of Mexico

Trump has been doubling down on his call for a wall--now fifteen feet high--to protect the US from illegal aliens.  He also has demanded the Mexicans pay for it. 

As you know from reading this blog, our problem with illegal entry is actually improving.  And in the case of Mexicans themselves, more might be heading back to Mexico than are coming in. 

Personally, I doubt Trump is serious about his great wall idea.  This is typical rhetoric for him.  He starts out with an extreme position, and like the deal maker he is, he walks back to something more acceptable. 

Such a wall would be impossible, of course, and will never happen. We have 45 official points of entry on our southern border with Mexico.  These range from big bridges and highways to, in one case, a hand-pulled ferry in Los Ebanos, Texas. (I've seen it.  This must be one of the poorest communities in the US.)   Improving security at these entry points is an ongoing matter.  Border security actually extends miles inland.  

Hardly perfect, but the border has been more of a security priority since 9/11.

Ex-Mexican presidents took the bait and reacted predictably to Trump's proclamations, likening him to Hitler. Certainly Trump has been most discourteous.  Also it isn't fun to be reminded by your northern neighbor that millions of Mexicans have had to flee north just to make an adequate living. 

The ferry at Los Ebanos, TX

Rubio Too Unreliable on Immigration

Senator Rubio now is being called the Republican "establishment" candidate.  This label seems based on his support for making citizens of illegal immigrants.  Rubio sees no problem with more immigrants lowering wages for Americans.  He wants more immigrants to support the cruise ship industry in his native Florida.  This is based on the fallacy that Americans can't be found who will do these jobs. 

His signature immigration legislation failed in the Senate two years ago, but Rubio apparently hasn't changed his views that legalization must precede stricter immigration controls.  See Rubio's Immigration Dilemma  This piece is a must-read if you are considering voting for Rubio this Tuesday.

Trump's rise has to do with his sense that Americans no longer see our immigration policies as making any sense for the realities of the nation's economy.  And it is frankly ridiculous to claim that Americans won't do these jobs, as many of the open borders advocates claim.  

The recent Disney case, in which the popular Florida resort decided to fire 250 IT workers in favor of cheaper immigrants on H-1B visas--and make them train those immigrants in order to receive  their severance packages--demonstrates how out-of-step many big businesses are with the American common good. See Disney Fires American Workers

No wonder so many average Americans are flocking to a huckster like Trump who at least says he has the interests of working Americans at heart.  

Boris Backs BREXIT

The UK bought into the Common Market but now many see the encroachment of sovereignty by Brussels as just too much.  Fundamentally, deeper EU integration means less democracy. Conservative MP and former London Mayor Boris Johnson strongly argues here for the British Exit, and it is worth reading in full. To Get the Change We Need, Vote to Leave EU

Mexican Immigration to US Declining

We have noted in this space before that Mexican immigration to the US is well past its peak.  When illegal immigration really was an issue 15-20 years ago, it wasn't a very hot political topic.  Now that Mexican illegal immigration has gone way down, it has been.

Pew Research notes that the flow has basically reversed.  More Mexicans have been returning home.
This has more to do with our lousy economy and their own realization that they are not actually living better here. Mexicans returning

Good to know that our poor economic policy has an unintended benefit!

My wife and I recently volunteered for a local charity that assists recent immigrants all the time.  It is quite clear that many of these folks can't possibly make ends meet, and they don't assimilate.  Remarkably, so many of them have been here for years without learning any English.

We are getting a lot of illegals from Central America, but Mexican authorities (with our help) are stopping more at the southern frontier. See the second chart below.

Trump's America

Right now,  Donald Trump is ahead by 20 points in South Carolina, the next primary.  For the Republicans, the vote is February 20.  If he dominates this vote, and then wins Super Tuesday on March 1, this race is over.

Some conservative thinkers are getting around to the idea that Trump probably will be the next Republican presidential candidate.   It is astonishing how out of touch the elites of the party have been with its base.  As Charles Murray describes here, this is in part due to the growing acceptance of inequality and class division in what used to be egalitarian America.  See Trump's America

Here Bill Donohue likens Trump supporters to the Reagan Democrats of the 1970s and 80s:  Elites Don't Get Trump  Donohue is right that the GOP leadership will blow the party up if it tries to block Trump's nomination.

Ironic that a billionaire New Yorker can reach out to working America and the disenfranchised Republican base.  The big reason is that Trump actually focuses on issues that matter: the unfairness of current immigration and trade policies, the foreign policy debacles, etc.   But FDR, once upon a time, was able to build a broad coalition that dominated American politics for 20 years.

Maybe as Trump's nomination looks inevitable, he'll start to make some serious policy statements. Hard for me to believe that Trump will ever be presidential or will actually govern as a reasonable conservative.

We now have a very important vacancy on the Supreme Court:  whom would Trump chose to fill it? Filling positions on the federal bench have enormous long term impact.  Obama's lasting legacy will be putting two rock-solid liberals on the SC, who will be there for decades.

Distorted Black History

February is Black History Month.   I think black history would be a good idea!  Too bad it is being twisted beyond recognition.

First we have Beyonce's weird and wrongheaded Black Panther/Malcolm X tribute during the Super Bowl halftime show.  I give her credit:  she's probably the only entertainer in America who can dress as a fascist and get away with it.  Here's a link with some pictures:  Black Panther tribute

For the record, the Black Panthers during the 1960s were criminals and murderers masquerading as revolutionaries..  David Horowitz exposes his long encounters with them in his memoir Radical Son and details how they raped and murdered a friend of his.

As for Malcolm X,  he was a schismatic from the the Nation of Islam who preached black and white separatism.  He ran entirely counter to where the mainstream was heading.   Meanwhile, civil rights leaders were getting real work done.

(In fairness to Beyonce, she probably knows nothing about this history.  She's knows something about making money though.  This is a woman who auctioned off the rights to take the first pictures of her baby.)

The distortion of Black History appears even at the local level.  For a seventh grade history project, my son had to answer this question:  "How did President Eisenhower crush the spirit of freedom for African Americans?"  (Bonus question: And when did he stop beating his wife?" )

I made my son read the chapter on "Little Rock" in Jean Smith's outstanding biography of Ike.  In his answer, he noted the Eisenhower administration's strong support of overturning Plessy v. Ferguson and how federal troops enforced desegregation of the schools in Little Rock.

He earned a 100 on his paper.  Common sense still lives.