Dropping The H-Bomb On Trump

In their anti-Trump frenzy the Times has reached for the H-word:

But it’s The Donald who is on the airwaves the most these days. His unapologetic xenophobia has helped to push his presidential campaign to the top of the fractured Republican field. Like certain politicians in the Weimar Republic, he’s found a largely defenseless group to pick on — who also happen to be reviled by a bankable minority of the electorate.

See what the author - a certain Hector Tobar - did there? Clever. He didn't outright call Donald Trump the second coming of Hitler. That would be - you know - tasteless and absurd. Being the classy intellectual that he is Tobar merely implied it in so leaden manner you'd be left reaching for the Aspirin.

Of course by writing "certain politicians in the Weimar Republic" it's entirely possibly that Tobar could have been comparing Donald Trump to Gustav Streseman, Hans Luther or Wilhem Marx. Names that quickly leap from memory when talking about the Weimar Republic.

Then there's the terminology. Notice how Tobar uses Weimar Repubic rather than "Germany in the 1920s and 1930s." That's so those stupid Republicans won't figure out that he's calling them racists for supporting Trump. Whatever the Times is paying Tobar - and given freelance rates these days I doubt it's much - it simply isn't enough. It'll be years before members of the "stupid party" figure out that they're being insulted and condescend toward. 

Now implying that America's most badly coiffed billionaire is Hitler sounds like a show stopper. This is the moment when Tobar should just drop the mic and walk off stage, the roar of the crowd filling his ears as his editors slaps him on the back and tells him how brilliant a column it was. But that's not how Hector Tobar rolls. Nope. Like Alice Cooper in his prime, he's going to do something even more outrageous.

Any monsters and ghosts haunt the dreams of Latino children. There is “La Llorona,” who is said to moan for her dead children. And more recently, the Chupacabra, which sucks the blood from farm animals and maybe a boy or a girl if he or she doesn’t behave.

Now we can add a new boogeyman to the repertoire of scary Latino bedtime stories.

His name is The Donald.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, The New York Times has just called Donald Trump the bogeyman. Adolf eat your heart out. The newspaper of record has resorted to childish name calling. The piece even features an interview with a 7 year old Latino boy. Apparently he's not a Trump supporter. So there goes the Hispanic vote in 2028. 

But that's not all. Why would it be really?

Sheriff Arpaio, who joined Mr. Trump at an Arizona rally in July, is famous for his aggressive pursuit of undocumented immigrants. I like to think of him as our Cucuy (a kidnapping boogeyman also known as El Cuco). The Fox News host Bill O’Reilly is El Cadejo (an angry being with sharp canines), and the conservative pundit Ann Coulter is a Llorona screaming “¡Adiós, América!” — the title of her recent anti-Mexico polemic, which refers to the country as “a third world hellhole.”

We can debate the merits of calling Mexico a "hellhole," however you'd be hard pressed to confuse it with Switzerland or even New Jersey. There's a reason the foot traffic is mostly one way. The recurring theme of the article is that Trump is a bigot. He's not a bigot. Not even a tiny little bit of a racist. There are many terrible things you can saying about Donald Trump, harbouring racial animus ain't one of them. 

The issue that Trump is raising is illegal immigration, not legal immigration from any particular country. Nor is it inherently racist to argue that reducing low skilled immigration at a time of mass unemployment is a bad idea. Trump has made his arguments in a tactless and offensive manner, what do you expect from a man who builds things like this?

I'm hardly a fan of the Donald, who's comebacks aren't much more sophisticated than those of Hector Tobar. I draw your attention to his recurring spats with Jonah Goldberg, in particular his accusation that Mr Goldberg is incapable of buying his own pants. It's not quite your mother wears combat boots but it's close. The absurdity of the man shouldn't distract from the importance of the issue.

The problem with the Donald isn't the Donald, it's some of his detractors. The Left has turned Trump into such a bogeyman - literally - that many on the Right now feel obliged to defend him. A certain partisan logic is taking hold, this is creating a reflexive pro-Trump stand among people who might otherwise think twice about backing a pro-choice, pro-socialized health care conservative of convenience.

What made Trump a viable candidate is hitting upon - almost by accident - the issue of illegal immigration. What has kept him as a viable candidate is the Trump Derangement Syndrome of the Left. 

 

Comments

[Cytotoxic]

Trump has accused Mexican illegal immigrants of being rapists and murders with no evidence. That's racism. Even if Trump is not racist, his supporters are. There is no difference between this current bout of xenophobic insanity and the one in the early 1900s. It is not the fault of Trump's opponent's that the GOP is largely composed of aneuploidy-stricken trogs. They should not have to temper their criticism to compensate for the reactionary stupidity of many conservatives either anymore than opponent's of Obama should not call out his followers as a personality cult.