WHY TRUMP TRIUMPHED!

ANN COULTER’S IN TRUMP WE TRUST

Rev. by Hugh Murray

            Ann Coulter’s most recent book was christened amid a storm.  On p. 3 she wrote, “…there’s nothing Trump can do that won’t be forgiven.  Except change his immigration policies.”  The very day following release of her book, adoringly titled In Trump We Trust, E Pluribus Awesome!, Trump seemingly changed his immigration policy!  A day or so later, Trump was again campaigning in his familiar style, “We are going to build a wall.  And who’s going to pay for it?”  “Mexico!”  Coulter could breathe more easily.

            This is not one of her deeper books, but Coulter does expose the media, and especially that which most required exposure – Fox News.  She discusses the actions of the Fox News “moderators” at the first Republican debate among the major presidential contenders.  The debate is memorable with one of the first questions coming from Fox’s Bret Baier, asking if the candidates would take an oath to support the eventual nominee of the GOP convention.  All raised their hands except Donald Trump.  His evasive response put him on the spot, especially with the Republican audience.  Then Megyn Kelly ripped into Trump by quoting his earlier remarks on various women.  Though Trump attempted to deflect the thrust by joking that all he was referring to was Rosie O’Donnell, Kelly pressed the women’s issue harder.  Coulter contrasts the grilling that Trump received, with the pass that the moderators gave to Marco Rubio.  Rubio had run for election as an opponent of amnesty for illegal aliens, but once elected, he joined the “gang of eight” in proposing an amnesty bill.  Rubio’s flip on this important issue was not deemed important enough to elicit a question by the Fox staff.  “Indeed there was no question but that Fox News was trying to take out Trump at that first debate.  One of the moderators, Bret Baier, later admitted as much…”(62)

            Coulter emphasizes, what made Trump’s candidacy stand apart from his 16 rivals for the GOP nomination was his stance on immigration.  The Democratic Party had long ago become a party of expanded immigration, especially after Sen. Ted Kennedy had led the fight for the 1965 Immigration Act.  That law effectively reversed American immigration policy set in the 1920s, which had greatly restricted immigration.  Major elements of the Democratic Partyat the time, like trade unions and the Ku Klux Klan, favored restriction.  Republicans, suspicious of the anarchists and Bolsheviks among the newcomers, also favored the restrictionist policies of the 1920s law.  However, in the more liberal 1960s, symbolized by the rise and martyrdom of two Kennedy brothers, it seemed natural that Sen. Ted Kennedy would become a major spokesman of the new immigration law that sought to end racial quotas of the old one.  In the debate for the 1965 law, Sen. Kennedy assured Americans that millions of immigrants would not enter New York each year, and the proposed legislation would not alter the ethnic population of the US (Kennedy’ assurance was similar to Pres. Obama’s decades later: - you can keep your doctor and keep your plan and save about $2,500 a year on your insurance with Obamacare).  Like Obamacare, the 1965 Celler-Hart immigration bill passed and became law.  Despite Kennedy’s assurances, the 1965 greatly changed the racial and ethnic composition of the US.

But America was changing in other ways too.  While trade unions remained a major constituency of the Democratic Party, the unions were changing.  As trade policies caused the closing of ever more factories, the high-wage union jobs in those factories evaporated over the years.  The factory belt became the rust belt, and a depressed belt.  Those unions had usually opposed widespread immigration realizing that it would depress their wages.  The law of supply and demand meant that vastly increasing the numbers of low-skilled workers meant lower wages.  But members of those unions were in decline due to trade policies.  Meanwhile, the unions that grew were often those for government workers, teachers unions, office workers, and service workers.  Many more of these were ideologically on the left, and some were illegal aliens themselves.  By the 1990s, union leaders changed their positions and became favorable to immigration and in line with the general thrust of the Democratic Party.  They also hoped that these new Americans would vote Democrat once they became citizens (if not before).

            Meanwhile, in the Republican Party, while many on the ground level were not happy about the changes they saw in “Dial 1 for English,” different languages, customs, religions, there appeared no intensity on the issue.  The media comforted their fears showing how the immigrants were really just like us.  And Republican businessmen were quite happy to have more potential workers to compete for lower wages.  Farmers found this to be a good solution too.  Though Republican Pres. Eisenhower had permitted a round-up and deportation of many illegal Hispanics in the 1950s, Reagan actually signed an amnesty for about 2-3 million illegal aliens.  In theory, the Reagan approach was a compromise, a one-time amnesty followed by strict border controls.  The amnesty happened, but no one was willing to enforce strict border controls.  So now we had what is said to be 11 million invaders in the nation.

While some Republican aspirants for the nomination spoke of roads to citizenship, paying taxes, some minor penalties, they all amounted to amnesty for the invaders.  Jeb Bush, who had raised over $100 million for his campaign chest, was considered the presumed nominee by many.  To Jeb, the invader is not committing a crime by entering the nation illegally; he is committing “an act of love.”  The Bush family is married into one of the wealthiest families of Mexico.

Into the fray of 17 Republican aspirants for the Presidential nomination, only Trump made it emphatically clear, he planned to end illegal immigration.  And he said it in a most politically incorrect manner – he would deport the Mexican drug dealers and rapists.  The media were horrified, as was most of the GOP political flock.  But Trump rose in the polls.

Coulter presents (162-63) a case of how immigration costs America – a case one would never see spotlighted on the major TV networks.  A Mexican illegal had 13 children, and all receive welfare and other services that American citizens must pay for to support them.  The parents have been in the US for over 20 years, but neither they nor their teen-age children speak English.  Our taxes must support the translators too.

Coulter is also excellent at exposing how the major media cover up for Muslim terrorists.(134)  “While at Walter Reed Medical Center, Major Nidal Malik Hasan gave what was supposed to be a medical lecture on how non-Muslims should be decapitated, set on fire, and have burning oil poured down their throats…He shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ before gunning down soldiers at Ft. Hood.”  Yet, Pres. Barack Hussein Obama’s Administration concluded Hasan’s shooting and killing was a case of work-place violence – not Muslim terrorism – and the major media went along.  Coulter provides other examples of the liberal media attempt to obfuscate, distort, lie, excuse, anything but admit to the real threat of Muslim terrorism in the US.  Coulter quotes Jeh Johnson, Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Security (143-44) on why the US cannot ban Muslim immigration.  Coulter’s point – without a ban (or proper vetting, which is currently impossible in areas like Syria), we will be importing more terrorists.

Coulter’s final chapter, “Geniuses,” is a compilation of quotations by media figures revealing why Trump’s race for the nomination is a joke, why he is a clown, why Trump has no chance, why he cannot win, etc.  Coulter exposes the bias and errors of the media.

Coulter includes a share of her funny zingers, but she does not include an index.  Her book provides readers with insight into why Donald Trump won the GOP nomination in the summer of 1916 and the Presidential election later that fall.