Live from Trumpland: Immigration was always the explosive wedge that will destroy the GOP:
Running hard on immigration is a brilliant way to win the primary...
Nativist bigots make up the bigger half of the Republican party. The problem is that the same strategy becomes catastrophically stupid if you want to do anything other than with a GOP Presidential primary. It alienates everyone who is not a nativist bigot. It makes life especially hard for the Chamber of Commerce wing who need unregulated immigrants just as badly as the nativist bigots hate them.
The funny thing is that the party exists and has always exists to serve the Chamber, and more specifically the very wealthy people who own the businesses that keep the CoC funded. Since Lincoln died the one through line of GOP policy has and (one expects) always will be eliminating the inheritance tax, and then lower taxes for the very top, and then weaker regulations on financial transactions. After that comes less regulations on monopolies, polluting, whatever. Plutocrats only grabbed on to the bigot vote after Lyndon Johnson freed it up by embracing civil rights. [But] maybe the bigots would some day figure out the scam....
The Tea Party had all the pieces in place, but ultimately the Tea Party turned out to be just another grift to squeeze money and votes from poor, desperate chumps terrified by bugbears on FOX. But the exploit was always there. You just needed someone desperate, stupid or crazy enough to use it. You needed someone who maybe accidentally stumbled on the exploit by accident, but had enough independent money to survive the Chamber folks desperately trying to shut him down.
