Year: 2015

Majority of GOP Voters Support Trump on Muslims

Buck Banks

65%

Of likely 2016 Republican primary voters favor Donald Trump’s call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the U.S., while more than a third say it makes them more likely to vote for him, according to a new Bloomberg/Purple Strategies poll. “This indicates that, despite some conventional wisdom expressed in the last 48 hours, this is unlikely to hurt Trump at least in the primary campaign,” said pollster Doug Usher.

Majority Thinks U.S. Takes in Too Many Middle East Immigrants

Buck Banks

54%

Of Americans, including about three-quarters of Republicans, about half of independents and over a third of Democrats, say the United States takes in too many immigrants from the Middle East, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. By contrast, 46% of Americans, including 6 in 10 Republicans, slightly under half of independents and 3 in 10 Democrats, said the U.S. takes too many immigrants from Latin America.

White House Calls on Rivals to Denounce Trump

Buck Banks

I think the question for other candidates for president is simply this, do they have the courage of their convictions to simply stand up to Mr. Trump’s supporters and say that they’re going to side with the constitution over Mr. Trump even if Mr. Trump is the Republican nominee? … If they don’t have that much courage, if they are so cowed by Mr. Trump and his supporters that they are not willing to stand by the values enshrined in the constitution, than they have no business serving the president of United States themselves.

— >White House spokesman Josh Earnest, saying that Donald Trump is “disqualified” to be president based on comments about banning Muslims from entering the United States, Politico reports.

2016 Election Is a Choice Between Our ‘Best Traditions and Worst Fears’

Buck Banks

The thing about the strongman candidacies is that they are secretly weak. They feed off feelings of fear and inadequacy. That’s why they target minority rights first. … And that is what’s happening here. We’ve seen brushfires of fear sweep through this election season, with mayors calling for internment camps, governors refusing refugees, and presidential candidates trying to win over the angriest inmates of the hyperpartisan asylum. This competition to connect with the reptile mind is beneath the country Lincoln once called ‘the last best hope of earth.’ … This is a time for choosing between our best traditions and our worst fears.”

— John Avlon, The Daily Beast

The GOP’s Jekyll and Hyde Problem

Buck Banks

There’s the intellectual conservative movement, a decades-long project of institutional actors like the Heritage Foundation and the American Conservative Union, which seeks to push the party toward strict adherence with a set of ideas about limited government, strong national defense, and the traditional family. And then there is the populist, nativist strain, which isn’t really about ideas so much as a raw appeal to emotion. Trump’s dominance of the primary field is forcing the party to confront a frightening prospect: that the populist bloc may be the bigger of the two.

— Molly Ball, The Atlantic