RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/feb/26/donald-trump-wins-over-hispanics-despite-strict-im/

He was told being strict on illegal immigration would doom him among Hispanic voters.

Yet President Trump has defied their predictions, from the moment he delivered his iconic address to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2013 — warning the Republican Party that legalizing 11 million illegal immigrants was political suicide — through the 2016 presidential election and into the White House.

Now nine months out from his second Election Day, and despite a tenure in the White House that has involved building a border wall, stepping up deportations and insulting some Latin American nations as “s—hole” countries, Mr. Trump is as strong as ever among Hispanic voters, according to the polls.

One poll puts his approval rating as high as 44% and shows him winning 41% of the Hispanic vote in a head-to-head match-up with Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont. That would best his 2016 showing of 28% support and put him in the running with President George W. Bush for the highest share of Hispanic votes for a GOP candidate.

“Latinos have lost the fear of Donald Trump,” said Alfonso Aguilar, who ran the Department of Homeland Security’s citizenship office in the Bush administration and now runs the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles.

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

The strategic mistake to which I refer was the one made by Michael Bloomberg to enter the Democrat primary for President, rather than to run as an independent. At least, that is my belief. The error was understandable in that no third-party candidate has won the Presidency, since the current two parties began competing in 1860. But, to use those over-worked and dangerous words, this time is different. The incumbent is a man who has never received more than 50% approval, despite the fact that the economy and employment are doing well. At the same time, Democrats have moved decidedly leftward, leaving their center undefended.

In his recently published book, A Time to Build, Yuval Levin wrote, “…[political] parties have been de-professionalized, cannot control their own internal processes, and are increasingly exposed to the power and pressure of political celebrity culture.” What he wrote is visible to anyone with eyes to see. The 2016 presidential election changed the Republican Party. The old way of doing things no longer applied. The 2018 midterm elections, which brought Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Ilhan Omar (D-MI) to the House, changed the Democrat Party, swinging it far to the left. Optimism for the future was replaced with hatred of the past. In both cases, the change reflects the fact that elections have become less about policy and enacting bi-partisan legislation, and more about platforms for radical ideas. Traditional party members, on both sides of the aisle, have become as isolated from real concerns of the people, as they are distanced from the victorious radical newbies who joined their party. In part, this has to do with the mathematical fact that our national legislature is less representative of the people than it once was. In 1800, the House of Representatives consisted of 106 members; in 2020, there were 435 House members. So, while the overall population has grown by a factor of 72, the number of Representatives has increased by just over four times. In other words, legislators are less representative – in sheer numbers – than they were two hundred and twenty years ago. But these changes also reflect a cultural shift that demeans family, history and tradition. Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have taken advantage of the fact that many voters feel that politics as usual no longer applies.