* Have y’all seen that Obama is skipping Nancy Reagan’s funeral to appear at South by Southwest? That guy has no class.
* I’m starting to believe in the new Trump coalition. I was surprised to hear some Muslim store keepers supporting him, and last night I went into a store and the Indian owner complemented me by saying I looked like a “young Donald Trump.”
* Here is what Trump released today – glad to see they are getting it together.
“Record rates of immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for U.S. workers. Pew polling shows 83 percent of all voters – Democrats, Republicans and Independents – think immigration should be frozen or reduced. The biggest beneficiaries of allowing fewer foreign workers into our country would be minority workers, including all immigrants now living here, who are competing for jobs, benefits and community resources against record waves of foreign workers. Limiting job competition would reopen pathways to middle-class stability and shrink welfare rolls. In addition, it would relieve overcrowding in our schools and hospitals that afflict our poorest communities. Yet, Senators Cruz and Rubio have led the charge for even higher immigration rates – a policy supported by only 7 percent of the Republican electorate. When I am President we will listen to the people – not the special interests – and get immigration numbers under control, as the voters have demanded.”
Where is the media?
* For a while now, Limbaugh has been saying that the Republican establishment doesn’t believe things have gone seriously wrong in this country. They think politics should be conducted in the usual mealy-mouthed manner, making lofty promises that won’t be kept (but preserved as issues for the next campaign) and candidates taking care not to offend anyone.
Then there are people like myself who believe that we’re battling for our national survival on the edge of a precipice. We can’t afford to give ground. We can’t pretend if we lose this election, maybe the voters will see things our way next time. It’s too late for the Mitt Romneys, John McCains, and Bob Doles. No more General McClellans, waiting for “ideal conditions” to take on the enemy. We need someone to attack, someone who has already burned his bridges behind him. We would like it if he were a courteous, well-informed, articulate spokesman for our views, but that person hasn’t come along since 1992, when Pat Buchanan lost the primary to Bush I. Perhaps the voters weren’t ready yet for Pat or perhaps Pat just didn’t excite them. We can’t afford to wait any longer for another courteous, well-informed, articulate candidate. We’ll settle for the brash, rude, egotistical vulgarian. He has shown he’s willing to fight and at this point that’s all that counts.
* LOST IN AMERICA sums up the Neocon mentality. A perverse combo of radicalism, bourgeois materialism, urban ambition, and sham paean to Americana. In the end, the guy returns to NY. Neocons see the hoi polloi of American Conservatism and wanna ‘go back’.
* The media is doing what they’re told – trashing Trump using the issue that works. He supports the goals and interests of white people (among others), and that makes him racist, racist, racist.
This past week has been a disaster for his campaign. I hate to say it, but I think that they finally got him.
* Trump is light on theory … Which leaves him with pragmatism. Not perfect, but common sense counts plus balls is cutting through a lot of crap. He has excellent advisers but needs a coach to tone down the narcissism. (Do we really want to hear about his businesses once he’s in the White House?) Admittedly, it’d be infinitely preferable to Hillary’s shrieking.
* I’ve also interesting encounters with immigrant Trump supporters.
Last week a woman named Tatjana picked up my baby and me from the gym. I was glad it was a woman, since our driver earlier that morning was either Osama bin Laden or his twin. Scary! The conversation turned to Tatjana’s origin in Macedonia (or Yugoslavia, as she put it … she immigrated here 30 years ago). She mentioned that she was planning a trip to Europe over the summer to see “what was going on there.” I guessed correctly that she was referring to the migrant crisis and asked her what she thought of it. She was hesitant at first, clearly not wanting to “vice signal” her xenophobia and islamophobia. When I identified myself as a migrant skeptic, she unloaded. Tatjana wanted to see Europe one last time before it was destroyed by another Muslim invasion. Pointed out that she, as a Macedonian, appreciated the threat of Islam since her country had suffered the Muslim yoke for 500 years (as part of the Ottoman Empire). Stressed the horrible treatment of women under Islam, and the flourishing of radical Islam terrorism. Supports Trump mainly because of his proposed ban of Muslims.
My impression was that Uber drivers were supposed to be younger and whiter than your average cab driver. Uptown is full of Arab cab drivers who gives me the creeps, and I started using Uber in part to avoid them. But half of my Uber drivers have been Arab. I’ve had only one natural born Uber driver. An American black who was born in Chicago but lives in Urbana. He drives two hours every day up to Chicago to be an Uber driver. Used to work at a factory that made the styrofoam cups for McDonald’s Coffee. But the factory closed, and now he’s doing odd jobs and Ubering. Said it’s impossible to find work in Urbana. I wish I had thought of a nice way of asking him who he was supporting in the presidential election.
