Posted on 07/12/2015 12:30:53 PM PDT by semimojo
Donald Trump is trolling the GOP.
The real-estate mogul vaulted into the top tier of Republican presidential candidates by becoming a megaphone for immigration hard-liners. That's revealed an ugly truth that party leaders have been trying to suppress in their pursuit of Latino voters: Anti-Hispanic bigotry plays well with a chunk of the Republican primary electorate.
Mexican immigrants are "bringing drugs and bringing crime, and they're rapists," he said last month. On Saturday, at a rally in Phoenix that had to be moved to the city's convention center to accommodate the crowd, Trump "tripled down," as Politico put it. "They’re taking our jobs. They’re taking our manufacturing jobs. They’re taking our money. They’re killing us," he said. He invited the father of a young man slain by an unauthorized immigrant to the podium to speak.
Trump's a natural showman — the man who turned "You're fired" into a TV catchphrase — but he's given no indication that he's anything but serious as he whips up nativist passions. The danger for the GOP is that Trump's pitch-perfect parroting of anti-immigration forces — and their support for him in polls — will suggest to Latino voters and others that the whole party is intolerant.
GOP leaders and candidates have no idea what to do about it. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus tried the nice-guy route, asking Trump in a private conversation to tone down his rhetoric. Instead, as he increasingly gets under the skins of his rivals and top GOP officials, Trump is pumping up the volume.
"The silent majority is back, and we’re going to take the country back," he said Saturday, casting himself as the voice for Republican primary voters who feel that their views are getting short shrift. He's also taken to attacking his Republican rivals harshly, by name and, at least in the case of Marco Rubio on immigration, for shifting stances.
It would be hard for Trump to find tacks more damaging to the GOP than the ones he's pursuing now, which is why his candidacy looks like an elaborate trolling of the Republican Party.
To assess whether Trump is trolling the GOP, it's necessary to have a working definition of the term.
The perfect troll involves taking a position and insisting on it in a way that enrages those who think — but can't prove — that you don't really believe it. The angrier they get, the more you dig in, perpetuating a cycle that leads them to escalating stages of anger. If you ever let on that you're just baiting them, you've failed. For more on trolling, Urban Dictionary provides some good context.
While it's impossible to know what he's thinking, the effects of Trump's candidacy track the definition of a troll pretty well.
He's infuriated Republican leaders by convincing a significant chunk of the primary electorate that he means what he says about immigration. The leaders are getting madder and madder because of the fix that puts them in: They can't afford to let Trump make a mockery of the party, but they can't openly rip their own voters for supporting him or try to tear him down publicly. If anything, that might trigger a pro-Trump backlash.
There's good reason for Republican leaders to doubt Trump's authenticity: He has flip-flopped on a variety of positions he's held on public policy in the past. Among them, he supported abortion rights, universal health care and raising taxes on the rich.
But Trump clearly isn't running to win an award for consistency or, for that matter, to win the presidency. If his candidacy is, in fact, a well-executed troll, Trump will never let on that it was all an act.
The Republican leadership's best hope is that he implodes — or that they can find a way to undermine him with the very voters to whom he's appealing.
That is, the best way to deal with The Donald is a counter-troll operation. Democrats couldn't be more giddy. Trump's even threatening to run a third-party candidacy, which could rob Republicans of needed votes in swing states in 2016.
If Hillary Clinton didn't put him up to that — if emails planning Trump's candidacy weren't on the server she wiped clean — she really missed out on a Machiavellian way to sabotage the GOP.
None of us can claim to know Trump's thinking, but we can judge his actions. Right now, The Donald looks a lot like a troll.
It would feel good but I'm not sure it's going to get him elected. The reality is any Republican president will fire all of the same people.
It is inconceivable to these ignoramuses
I don’t like Donald Trump, but he’s better than a Bush.
There ya go!
Vox. Home of Ezra Klein.
I’m sure they have nothing but best wishes for the GOP.
...that was the plan..
You are correct about a plan. The winning plan when you are running for President IS to get the other candidates ignored.
Absolutely!
McConnell and Boehner = their leaders!
Shameful!
Immigration my butt...talking about criminals not immigrants. Immigrants are invited.
Notice how Ted and the other candidates are being ignored by the press right now.
That was the plan.
Gotta say, if it wasn't the plan it was at least really bad luck for the non-GOPe candidates.
Of course you did - you’re not stupid!
I’m so sick of MSM!
May I be honest? I want a Republican Party that is intolerant of those who come to the US and have no intention of following our laws and traditions, and intending to work hard and be self-sufficient. Anyone who came here illegally starts off in a way that makes it impossible.
Trump is pulling from lotsa dems, blacks, and legal immigrants too. No American wants to have our Country lost. We love it.
Do you really think the Pillsbury Dough Boy from FL will fire the EPA?
VOX. ‘Nuff said.
That is not a flaw, Trumps own words were that an illegal stealing a job illegally and working hard should be able to stay. That was last week.
His words are meaningless, this is all an act.
No, but you can bet he has a long list of his own political sycophants to put in at the top.
No need to read beyond this sentence to see that the writer is a propagandist. Illegal aliens was replaced by illegal immigrants was replaced by undocumented immigrants, was replaced by immigrants, like no one would notice.
Just ignore the plight of the legal immigrants. Just ignore the difference between legal and illegal immigrants. Pretend that the illegal aliens are undocumented immigrants. What does "undocumented" mean? Just call them immigrants.
There is very little real journalism any more.
A person who posts on a blog thread, in the guise of "concern," to disrupt dialogue or undermine morale by pointing out that posters and/or the site may be getting themselves in trouble, usually with an authority or power. They point out problems that don't really exist. The intent is to derail, stifle, control, the dialogue. It is viewed as insincere and condescending.Example - A concern troll on a progressive blog might write, "I don't think it's wise to say things like that because you might get in trouble with the government." Or, "This controversy is making your side look disorganized."
I had the same concerns in the beginning about Trump being another Perot. But I think Trump's ego is just too big to allow himself to be used like a tool.
Hearing him speak in Arizona yesterday, I was encouraged to see him speak passionately for more than an hour without a script or a teleprompter. And it wasn't just illegal immigration but about trade, factories by American companies being built abroad, ISIS, Iran, oil, the economy and so on.
Trump is no Churchill when it comes to orating but you can tell that what he said came from the heart and he's serious about winning this campaign. Actually, I think he's rather taken aback that this campaign has caught fire so fast, but I think his ego prevents him from turning back now.
No, that's not what he said last month.
He is forcing the establishment to admit that to even have an America as a nation is bigoted in their minds. The truth revealed, is killing them.
All Trump is doing is proving what I have always said.
At the core, ex-Mexican nationals view illegal immigrations as abhorrently as we do.
It’s their people who’s jobs are lost first to them. It’s their neighborhoods that suffer from the crime. It’s their children that die. It’s their family members who are killed, raped, molested... and on and on it goes.
Trump will get the vast majority of the Hispanic vote.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.