TRUMP…MIGHT THE BLOOM BE FALLING OFF THE ROSE???

Being a rather reluctant passenger on that which has come to be referred as being the “Trump Train” to begin with, I now find myself somewhat torn over that decision because of Mr. Trump’s recent comments regarding the “softening” of his position on illegal immigration.  Now I know there will be those who will tell me that I shouldn’t be at all surprised, and to some degree, I must admit, they’re right.  But having said that, I’m not really sure what annoys me more, Trump’s apparent shift in position, or the fact that in doing so he has needlessly provided the NeverTrumper crowd with some level of ammunition.

All of this stems from what would at least appear to be somewhat of a major shift in Trump’s immigration policy, which was revealed during a Fox News interview which aired Wednesday night and that seemed to indicate that Trump might now be open to a pathway to legalization for certain illegal immigrants.  Speaking to Sean Hannity, Trump reiterated his opposition to “amnesty” but seemed to advocate for letting ‘law-abiding illegal immigrants’ who have been in the country for a long time pay a fine so they can remain in the country.  How can one be in this country illegally and yet be considered as law-abiding?

“No citizenship,” Trump said.  And he then went on to say, “Let me go a step further — they’ll pay back-taxes, they have to pay taxes, there’s no amnesty, as such, there’s no amnesty, but we work with them.”  Ok, so I’m thinking that he’s going to need to explain a little more exactly what he means when he says we will “work with them.”  Throughout the campaign, Trump staked out what was seen as being a pretty tough position on the issue of illegal immigration.  He has vowed to build a wall along the Mexico border and enforce current immigration laws on the books as a way to decrease illegal immigration. 

Trump said illegal immigrants who have committed crimes should be deported.  He said, “Now, everybody agrees we get the bad ones out.”  And he went on to say, “But when I go through and I meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject, and I’ve had very strong people come up to me, really great, great people come up to me, and they’ve said, ‘Mr. Trump, I love you, but to take a person who’s been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and their family out, it’s so tough, Mr. Trump,’ I have it all the time! It’s a very, very hard thing.”  Regardless of how tough it is, or how hard it is, those here illegally are breaking our laws!

Aides to two of Trump’s primary opponents, who were attacked for being weak on illegal immigration, argued Wednesday that Trump was now adopting their candidate’s position.  A former Jeb Bush spokesman, Tim Miller, said on Wednesday, “This is basically Jeb’s position.”   And John Weaver, who ran Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s campaign tweeted, “Who needs a policy shop when they can just flip and take @JohnKasich positions?”   There has been much interest in Trump’s stance on what to do with the more than 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country since Trump said there could be a “softening” in his position.

And of course it took virtually no time at all for Hitlery’s campaign to react, and negatively so, to Trump’s immigration comments by saying that they simply don’t believe him. On Sunday, Hitlery’s campaign chairman John Podesta said they believe Trump’s “immigration plan remains the same as it’s always been: tear apart families and deport 16 million people from the United States.”  And I suppose such comments should be expected.  That said, I have very little sympathy for law breakers, and the fact that those in this country illegally, are breaking the law every single day that tey are in this country.   

And even though Trump says he isn't talking about amnesty, I think we can all agree that that's exactly what he is talking about.  So the calls have already begun about how he has sold out his supporters.  This new amnesty position is bad in a few ways.  To the 90 million unemployed Americans, (black, white, and legal Latino), Trump is saying, "sorry, the illegals are keeping their jobs. And by the way, they are legal now, ha, ha".  Trump cannot outbid the Democrats. If he offers amnesty, they offer citizenship. If he offers citizenship, the Democrats offer citizenship and a mule. But I fear that Trump will not be able to win this way.

So why don't I want illegals to be able to stay once Trump’s wall has been built?  It’s pretty simple really: 1) They are taking jobs away from US citizens.  2) They are holding wages down.  3) They disproportionately draw on welfare and other government programs.  4) And as long as they are here the Democrats will use them as a wedge issue to make them citizens with voting privileges.  Feel free to add your own reasons not to keep them here!  And yes, I suppose that one could very easily make the argument that Trump is now doing exactly what he accuses Hitlery of doing, and that is pandering for votes. 

We’re told that the polls have been saying for months now that his stance on deporting families was hurting him with Republicans and crossover Democrats. Most Republicans are not the stereotype that Democrats portray them as being. The issue polled over and over showing the majority of Republicans were more concerned with border security and crime than rounding up families, especially if it was going to take some new department to do it and it probably would have.  Now, or so we are told, his position is exactly where the majority of both Republicans and middle class working Democrats are.

And yes, this “softening” of his position is likely to tick off some of the very far right, but again many of those guys were skeptical about growing the government or giving them the new powers it would take. Now while l may not be in favor of growing the police state to get rid of families who may not be bothering anyone, at the same time I don’t like the idea of creating 11 Million brand new Democrat voters.  That would be my main reason for booting them all out of our country.  They came here illegally, hence that have no reason to be here no matter how long ago they managed to get away with it.  And I thought Mr. Trump understood that.

But still, at the end of the day, my disappointment in this sudden shift notwithstanding, after taking everything into consideration, I’m not yet to the point where I’m ready to abandon Trump.  That being said, should his position on these illegal immigrants become any “softer” I may be left with very little choice but to reconsider my decision to support Mr. Trump.  Those who made the conscious decision to first come here, and then to remain here, illegally should have virtually no pathway to citizenship.  NONE, ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH, NADDA.  And if Mr. Trump comes to consider that as a viable option, then he will surely have lost a supporter.