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News Sunday, Dec 27 2015

The Year Trump Took Over, Pt. 1: Anti-Immigrants

Dec 27, 2015

Year Trump Took Over

He may not have won “Person of the Year,” but as far as the Republican Party is concerned, Donald Trump is the center of the universe. The Summer of Trump turned to autumn, then winter, and he’s continued to thrive through pundit-predicted fall, after fall, after fall — because the GOP base loves him and everything he stands for.

To commemorate the year Trump took over — his dominance and uncanny ability to influence the rhetoric and policy positions of the rest of the GOP field — American Bridge is closing out 2015 with a five-day countdown of the extreme, far-right policies that Donald Trump has reinforced and left as his legacy.

Donald Trump was late to the party when he called Mexicans “rapists.” Trump’s campaign kick-off might have crystallized the GOP’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, but he’s definitely not the first one to espouse far-right conservative policies against immigrants.

If anything, Trump was playing catch up in June to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz to compete for out-of-touch immigration stances. Jeb Bush even got in on the action by going after “anchor babies,” which forced Trump to match Bush’s rhetoric.

But now that it’s December 2015, it’s the rest of the field trying to match Trump — and causing further damage to the GOP in the process. Building the yugest, classiest wall with a giant door and making the Mexican government pay for it is now the de facto position of the Republican Party.

No Republican candidate supports a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants now that Lindsey Graham is out. Conservative Tea Partiers have such a stranglehold on the Republican Party that Donald Trump has become their chief spokesperson on anti-immigration policy and everything else.

This is the year Trump took over:

  • Jeb Bush opposes a path to citizenshipDACA, and spent a week in August denigrating American citizens as “anchor babies” — kickstarting the conversation on ending birthright citizenship.

 


Published: Dec 27, 2015

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