It’s gotta be a prank, right? He can’t be serious. It must be Andy Kaufman, preparing to reveal himself at last. How else can you explain Trump’s call to block all Muslims from entering the United States? It must be performance art.
And yet … that’s what we’ve been saying about Trump every time he pulls one of these stunts. Here’s the Onion headline that everyone’s passing around today, laughing through their tears: “‘This Will Be The End Of Trump’s Campaign,’ Says Increasingly Nervous Man For Seventh Time This Year.”
I mean, there’s no way anyone, even the craziest of right-wingers, could possibly support Trump after this, right?
“I commend Donald Trump for standing up and focusing America’s attention on the need to secure our borders,” Ted Cruz said.
Oh.
Could this be a long con by Trump, designed to expose the xenophobia of the Republican party? He’s forced party leaders into a tricky spot, forcing them to either agree with the idea or condemn it. And most of them, it turns out, are too scared to do either.
“I don’t agree,” said Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus. That’s the strongest language you can muster, Reince? “I don’t agree” with a blatant rejection of the First Amendment of the US Constitution?
<a href=”
http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/donald-trumps-crowd-cheers-his-muslim-exclusion-plan”>”Not serious,” said Jeb Bush. “Will not bring Americans together,” said Marco Rubio. “Won’t even be productive,” said Chris Christie.
Maybe that’s Trump’s secret plan. Expose the Republicans who lack the backbone to denounce him. Or, even worse, who take his proposal seriously. “I continue to like and respect Donald Trump,” Ted Cruz said after Trump called for a religious test.
Is he trying to expose the idiocy of the right-wing media? “Americans agree with Trump: The illegal immigrants must go,” reads one Fox News headline. Will Fox now be embarrassed to have written such a thing? Is THAT Trump’s plan?
Or is this some sort of scheme to demonstrate that voters can be manipulated into cheering for the worst ideas in the world, and that America is a failed experiment and it’s time to close up shop and go back to the countries we all came from, leaving this continent to the indigenous people who seemed to be doing a better job of managing things until we came along?
When Trump read his proposal out loud to a crowd in South Carolina, they all cheered. Afterwards, CNN interviewed various supporters, and “no one here we spoke with had a problem with the plan.”
To their credit, a few Republicans have staked out a position against Trump’s proposal.
“Some of our best and biggest allies in this struggle and fight against radical Islamic terror are Muslims, the vast, vast, vast majority of whom are people who believe in pluralism, freedom, democracy, individual rights,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Who knows if he really believes that, or if he’s just saying it to score points against Trump — but either way, he’s on the record now. Was that Trump’s plan all along? It had to be, right? Nobody could be so insane … could they?
