Reality television star and real estate mogul Donald Trump is leading the pack among Republican candidates for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination. A USA Today/Suffolk University poll last week found that 17 percent of U.S. adults supported Trump, with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush placing second at 14 percent.
Trump’s candidacy has made news, flummoxed Republicans and drawn enormous controversy, thanks to his loud denunciations of illegal immigration from Mexico, China’s unfair trading practices and his declaration that Sen. John McCain, a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, was not a war hero.
Is Trump the man to beat among GOP contenders? Will he influence the outcome of the 2016 election? Joel Mathis and Ben Boychuk, the RedBlueAmerica columnists, debate.
To advance, GOP must dump Trump, supporters
Racists. Republican can’t live with them and they can’t live without them! If you need proof, just look at how the GOP is trying to handle Donald Trump at the moment: Very, very carefully.
Yes, Macy’s and Univision and a host of other business partners have decided Trump views on Mexican immigrants are too hot to handle, and it’s apparent that not many Republican leaders actually like the views all that much, either. But it’s hard for them to say so because, well, they can’t really win the elections without the angry white people — let’s be kind and call them “nativists” instead of the “r-word” — who think Trump makes sense.
“It turns out, interviews show, that the mathematical delicacy of a Republican victory in 2016 — and its dependence on aging, anxious white voters — make it exceedingly perilous for the Republican Party to treat Mr. Trump as the pariah many of its leaders now wish he would become,” The New York Times reported last week.
Problem is, the math is shortsighted and everyone knows it. Following the GOP’s defeat in the 2012 presidential campaign, Republicans commissioned a study that told them what any Democrat could’ve: That their inability to attract minority votes was starting to make it impossible to win elections — that they needed to broaden the conservative base beyond older white guys.
So what do you do, Republicans? Stick with Trump and try to eke out another election or two? Or go cold turkey on the race hustling, resign yourself to short-term losses, and reposition yourself as a party with broad appeal?
The Confederate flag came down in South Carolina last week. It was a Republican governor and Republican legislature that brought it down. Eventually, nativism and racism lose their electoral appeal.
Thus it will be with Trump and Trumpism. Shedding him isn’t just the right thing to do for the GOP — someday soon, it’ll help Republicans win the White House again.
— Joel Mathis
Ignore the polls; likely voters will reject Trump
Donald Trump will not be the Republican nominee. He won’t even affect the outcome of the 2016 election. By the time the Iowa caucuses come around, the former “Celebrity Apprentice” host will be on to his next gig.
He’s arrogant, loud and notably thin-skinned for a guy who’s supposedly worth $10 billion and a tough negotiator. He’s not even a Republican, from what I can tell. Over the years, he has come out in favor of unfettered abortion, single-payer health care and a national wealth tax.
Trump is a crony capitalist first, last and always. His name is — or ought to be — synonymous with the worst abuses of eminent domain and property rights by private developers.
As for that USA Today/Suffolk University survey, here are a couple of pointers about public opinion polls 16 months ahead of a general election: First, unless the pollsters are talking to likely Republican voters, as opposed to self-identifying Republican adults who may or may not be registered to vote, the poll is worthless.
Second, 16 months might as well be 16 years. So many pundits were certain that the Republican-led effort to shutdown part of the federal government in 2013 would doom their prospects in the 2014 midterms. How did that work out again?
Now, the tricky part. Trump’s rhetoric resonates with some voters — mostly low-information types who aren’t paying much attention and know him from TV. Why? Because Trump a showman who is unashamed to pound the demagogue’s drum on immigration, the economy and much else besides.
Trump’s role in this campaign is to make an intelligent conversation about illegal immigration impossible. The adjective is important. Neither the Obama administration nor the Republican Party leadership in Congress seems to care very much about the consequences of illegal immigration: crime, poverty, illness and a disdain for assimilation.
Trump has no business in this contest, and he won’t last. But his noxious bluster on immigration might have lasting consequences. That would be bad for the GOP and the country.
— Ben Boychuk
Ben Boychuk is associate editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. Joel Mathis is associate editor for Philadelphia Magazine.
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