“The movement to end discrimination in America was led by a man who was willing to stand alone,” he said. “He was a flawed guy, a really flawed guy…. How could he have been selected by the Lord to do something great? … My theory is because God ran out of righteous people. … He got down to the list and was like, ‘I’m down to Martin Luther King.’ Just like he says, about us, ‘Crap, I’m down to Glenn Beck and his listeners.’ ”
What Donald Trump Understands About Republicans
The Trump phenomenon arguably represents a culmination of the 50-plus-year transformation of the Republican Party.
That transformation was set in motion in 1964, when Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential nominee, opposed the newly enacted Civil Rights Act. What remained of longstanding black support for the Republican Party disappeared overnight.
.. By 1981-82, in large part because of the enfranchisement of blacks after passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Southern Democrats, once the hard-core backers of segregation, moved sharply to the left on racial issues. By 1982, Southern Democrats in the House voted 66 to 6 in favor of legislation strengthening the Voting Rights Act. In the Senate, every Democrat from the Confederate South voted for the legislation.
.. In January of that year, Bush promised to expend political capital to pass comprehensive immigration reform that included a path to legal status and, ultimately, to citizenship. The Republican controlled House instead passed the Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. That bill amounted to a direct repudiation of the Bush proposal; it included only anti-immigrant and tough border provisions. The bill passed the House with Republicans voting 203 to 36 in favor and Democrats opposed 164 to 17. The bill died in the Senate.
.. Trump’s vitriol expresses the degree to which the American debate over immigration has grown ugly, even hideous. At the same time, Trump’s followers are motivated, and enraged, by what they see as a breakdown of law and order and the erosion of norms and standards they believe should be upheld. They are frustrated by the poor performance of the public schools their children attend, by cities and suburbs they believe to be under siege, by a criminal justice system they perceive as dysfunctional, and by a government they view as incompetent.
.. Trump clearly finds this endeavor personally gratifying, even as his odds of winning the nomination remain slim. To his followers, the letdown of defeat could be brutal, leaving them stranded, without a candidate who can successfully capture the intensity of their beliefs.
Video: Sister-in Law Uses White Privilege to Educate Safeway Cler
A Safeway clerk allowed a black woman’s white-looking sister-in law to pay by check, but asked for two forms of ID and checked them against a register of bad check cashers.
The Trump Doctrine: “We Want Deal”
When he talks about Mexico “sending people that have lots of problems,” including drugs, crime, and “rapists,” he echoes Francis Walker, the administrator of the 1870 and 1880 censuses, who described new arrivals as “beaten men from beaten races, representing the worst failures in the struggle for existence.”
.. But, for the moment, he remains consistent, and faithful to the political credo of Roger Stone, the former Nixon aide who has advised Trump over the years (and who left the campaign earlier this month). Stone likes to say, “Hate is a stronger motivator than love.”