Trump’s Unspeakable Strategy to Erase His Past
Many commentators claim that this wild rhetoric helps Trump suck up media oxygen or appear like a straight-talking political outsider. But the most important benefit of the anti-immigrant language is that it inoculates Trump against the charge of being a closet liberal.
Trump has a seemingly fatal vulnerability in the Republican primary: His past support for a host of moderate and liberal positions. In recent years, Trump said he would “press for universal health care,” claimed that he was “pro-choice in every respect,” remarked that “I hate the concept of guns,” stated that Hillary Clinton would “do a good job” in negotiating with Iran, asserted that the GOP was “just too crazy right,” and even said, “In many cases, I probably identify more as a Democrat.”
.. For Trump, the solution has been to announce something so outrageously offensive to liberals, so contrary to every progressive shibboleth, that its utterance immediately disqualifies him from being a leftist.
.. What Trump needs is something that is literally unspeakable for a liberal. Trump’s immigration policy is just the ticket. Virtually no progressive would dream of banning the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims from visiting the United States. The very idea represents a kind of exclusionary nativism that is anathema to liberals. Trump’s anti-immigrant language is an efficient way of proving that he has abandoned the left. In a single glorious moment of illiberal demagoguery, he can achieve what would otherwise take months of debate and rebuttal.
.. Once Republican voters identify with Trump, it unleashes what psychologists call “cognitive consistency.” People will rearrange their beliefs to produce an unswervingly positive view of the candidate.
.. The anti-immigrant language is therefore central to Trump’s political rise and to his victory in New Hampshire. Strip it away and Trump would be widely criticized as a conservative in name only.