“I won’t trade my principles for a chance to win because even if we win, we still lose.”
I’m personally of the opinion that if we don’t do something drastic about the illegal immigration problem soon, then conservatives can permanently kiss goodbye any hope of winning future national elections. The left is importing in future Democrat voters, but some Dems realize the illegals are actually costing and hurting them, so they move toward Trump. Even if Trump turns liberal on health care or whatever, so long as he deals with immigration and border security then that will not be a “loss” to me. I recently read the chapter, “It’s Called Illegal Immigration for a Reason,” from his 2011 book, Time to Get Tough. Even if he just implements the ideas that he wrote about then (border walls, deporting criminals, not considering anchor babies as citizens, etc.), we will be making a big step forward.
Of course, Cruz is also pretty strong on the border/illegals, but I’ve never come across a single Democrat or even Independent who supports him (or has even expressed a liking for him as a human being). I think he’s only doing well in the polls against Hillary at the moment because he’s relatively unknown to so many still. I just don’t see how he can win with only the pure conservative vote, which means no wall, eVerify, stepping up of deportations, etc.—and so demographics will soon kill the conservative movement. Remember Cruz himself has praised Trump. Trump will be so superior to the Democrats (and establishment Repubs) on several key issues that I frankly don’t feel inclined to sweat the other stuff. The progressive left is not going positively insane over Trump because he’s one of them.
At any rate, I still want moderates, as well as socially conservative, pro-American working-class Dems (and I know several), to vote with us instead of the Democrats. I don’t see how we can ever win again without them—and we’ll be a lot worse off because of that.
“I’m personally of the opinion that if we don’t do something drastic about the illegal immigration problem soon, then conservatives can permanently kiss goodbye...”
I agree with most of what you’re saying and I do like Trump’s brashness and ability to get many of our concerns out into the light, but what concerns me is if Trump changes back to his previous liberal position from 2012-2013 and he is the next president to appoint judges. We can’t afford to be fooled this time.
If he appoints 2-3 more Sotamayors then our country will be ruined with or without the wall. The wall is a partial fix to a much larger problem and a liberal SCOTUS, which will last much longer than the wall, can undermine any hope of getting immigration under control.
I do trust Cruz to appoint conservatives, but I don’t trust Trump to. After all, Trump has previously praised Oprah, Obama, and even the NK leader.