
Beyond Trump: It’s the Message That Matters
If you’ve only watched a steady diet of mainstream news for the last two weeks, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Donald Trump is experiencing a fall from grace that only Bill Cosby could relate to. His business deals are vanishing, he is being attacked from every angle, and even his fellow GOP candidates are doing everything they can to put sunshine between themselves and Trump’s blunt comments on immigration.
Yet even through the blinders of the media, a reasonable viewer can see that there’s more to this than meets the eye. In the wake of the controversy, Trump shot to second place in the presidential polls. Clearly, there are millions of Americans out there who are responsive to the mogul’s message, even if it is delivered in an indelicate way.
On his radio show this week, conservative legend Rush Limbaugh spoke of the “silent majority” in America that largely agrees with Trump when it comes to illegal immigration. “A vast majority of Americans oppose amnesty for all of the illegal immigrants in the country and the opposition is visceral; it’s angry and it is not haphazard and casual,” Limbaugh said.
Polls indicate that Limbaugh is right. A recent Rasmussen Reports survey showed that 63 percent of Americans want the United States to secure the border. 55 percent oppose Obama’s attempts to provide amnesty for up to five million illegals. 58 percent think that giving illegals a pathway to citizenship will only encourage more Mexicans and Central Americans to try crossing into the U.S.
Missing the Message
Unfortunately, Trump’s notoriety has overshadowed his message. Due to the ambiguity in his original speech, critics have assumed that Trump was accusing all Mexican immigrants – legal and non – of bringing criminality across the border. This has led to accusations of racism, drawing attention away from a topic that needs to be discussed at the national level. This has become about Trump, his business deals, and the spectacle of a candidate who doesn’t speak in political platitudes. Entertaining? Sure. But with Democrats inching ever closer to an open-borders policy, we can’t afford to waste time on diversions.
“Are we going to continue to let an endless flow of people into this country, and then after so many years make them citizens?” Limbaugh asked. “Is that the new immigration policy? Nobody wants to debate that.”
No, they don’t. They want to talk about Trump and his insensitive remarks, they want to talk about racism, and they want to talk about the illegals who come here to work hard, study, and become productive member of society. They don’t want to address the dark truth, which is that we’re losing our country one fence-jumper at a time.