By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — Is multibillionaire businessman Donald Trump as real a candidate for president as his newfound supporters fervently hope, a populist crusader for a forgotten “silent majority”?
Or is Trump’s candidacy a ploy by the ever-clever national elite to have him roil the race, undercut the numerous GOP presidential competitors so that no one else gets a firm footing, then drop out and deliver the 2016 GOP nomination to an establishment darling like Jeb Bush?
The gaggle of Republican governors and senators all fighting for a slice of the presidential polling pie seemed quickly eclipsed by Trump, already widely known in television, entertainment, and business as a can-do international magnate.
Some July polls showed Trump surging to the fore in a race where 15 percent is a healthy portion of support, considering that the Republican Party had 15 officially declared candidates as of July 13, with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s entry that day.
Although Trump went down a list of issues during his widely reported, rousing speech in the packed north ballroom of the Phoenix Convention Center on July 11, illegal immigration and international trade seemed to be at the center of his populist appeal.
And, apparently having decided that Jeb Bush is his major obstacle on the Republican side, Trump repeatedly singled out the former Florida governor for criticism.
It didn’t seem accidental that Trump brought his message on lawless immigration to the Grand Canyon State, which has absorbed some of its most direct blows. It was coincidental, however, that the convention center is directly across Monroe Street from the office of the Arizona Catholic Conference, the area bishops’ lobbying arm, which continues to countenance massive illegal immigration.
Trump’s campaign had planned the rally for a 500-person hotel ballroom about eight miles away, but had to move to the downtown site when the hotel said it was being overwhelmed by people wanting to attend.
The convention center’s room appeared to have perhaps 5,000 people crowded in, with more wanting to enter. Trump later tweeted that officials there broke the fire code by allowing 12,000 to 15,000 to attend and escape the heat outside — a figure that seemed improbable, given the dimensions of the room.
At the National Review website on July 13, law professor William Jacobson wrote that he was struck by Trump’s Phoenix comment that when he started his run, “I didn’t think the immigration thing would take on a life like it has.”
Trump had touched a nerve with voters hungry for a candidate actually ready to confront the dangerous, massive, lawless invasion that the national elite have declared to be both unavoidable and unmentionable.
Jacobson noted that Trump personally had “stood side by side with the families who have lost loved ones to illegal-immigrant criminals.” Indeed it was striking to see Trump next to “Stolen Lives” posters with the living faces of now-dead victims of these all-too-numerous illegals.
Such posters are familiar to those who follow the lawless-immigration issue. But something tectonic seemed to be happening when a consequential GOP candidate was right there with the still-grieving families over tragic losses caused by vicious lawbreakers that the haughty, borderless elite want to conceal from public discourse.
Starting his campaign, Trump had mentioned drug traffickers and rapists among the violators along the border. These are the cold facts of life and death there. However, the elite recoiled in screaming horror that Trump dared refer to what they demanded be hidden. They assaulted him as a bigot rather than admitting easily verifiable facts. (See related story elsewhere in this issue about border rapes.)
They want everyone to think of criminal border-jumpers as Jesus, Mary, and Joseph with their little donkey. A better comparison would be pharaoh’s soldiers out to slay the Hebrews.
Why do so many criminal aliens flood into the United States? Partly because they know they’ll get special treatment here, not only welfare, under the smile of Barack Obama and his left-wing Democrats, while politically correct, scared Republicans cower in a corner.
Left-wingers do absolutely no favor to Latinos when they fail to distinguish between those with better or baser motives. Does someone fear drug dealers and rapists? In reply, the left-wing uses the divisive, deceitful tactic of simply screaming racism, racism, racism.
In the Phoenix ballroom on July 11, there was little seating available. Having chairs would impede trying to crowd in as many listeners as possible. It was a free, public event, but people had to print out coded tickets that the Trump campaign issued online. Some people turned right around and offered to sell their tickets online for up to $100.
Many of us had been standing at least four hours if not considerably longer, first in the winding, hot lines outside, then in the ballroom, by the time Trump approached his conclusion at 4:14 p.m. Wrapping up, Trump said something about his “silent majority” that could be a strong indication the powerful billionaire intuitively is in touch with his potential voters.
This silent majority wants to work hard, they want to live their lives with their families, but they don’t want to stand in line for hours and hours to see Donald Trump, said Donald Trump.
The perilous times may call for them to take up politics this way, but Trump didn’t need or expect their worship. He’s already famous, rich, and powerful. There’s hard work to do to restore America’s greatness, and he was ready to take up this task with them.
Is he for real? On July 10, the day before the Phoenix speech, conservative columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin described Trump as a “celebrity opportunist” but said she was grateful he was bringing attention to the victims of illegal-immigrant crime.
And national radio conservative talker Laura Ingraham said Trump is “fantastic” on the issue of trade with China.
The following day in Phoenix, Trump emphasized that he’d negotiate better international trade deals than the U.S.’s current clumsy leadership.
The Wanderer asked two veteran local conservative Republican activists what they thought of Trump.
Rob Haney, retired chairman of the Phoenix area’s Maricopa County Republican Party, said:
“Trump is a breath of fresh air to conservative Arizonans who have heard nothing but meaningless clichés for decades from our political apologists for illegal aliens. . . .
“Finally, someone with national stature is willing to take the blows that naturally come from speaking on behalf of the silent majority against the establishment power brokers,” Haney said. “The people are overjoyed at the new sound of a politician speaking truthfully. This is sweet music to their ears.
“Of course, the grassroots have been betrayed before, and many express fears that Trump’s actions will not follow his rhetoric,” Haney said. “But they love the sound and love watching the apoplectic fits the establishment wonks are throwing. So, for now, this disenfranchised, unrepresented majority are backing Trump.”
Haney said that politicians, the judiciary, media, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Chambers of Commerce “are, at the least, co-conspirators in the violent deaths of our citizens at the hands of illegal aliens and the overthrow of our government through the non-enforcement of our laws.”
And conservative GOP campaign consultant Constantin Querard told The Wanderer: “Just a few years ago, Trump was saying we need a pathway to legalize those here illegally, so it is tough to tell if he has made an honest conversion on the issue or not. He has shifted his positions on a lot of important issues over recent years, so it is probably smart to be a bit skeptical at this point.
“That said, the response from citizens all over the country ought to be informative for the other candidates,” Querard continued. “[Presidential candidate Ted] Cruz has always been very strong on border security, so he is already standing in the right place, but you may see the rest of the field start to shift rightward over the next few weeks as Trump’s numbers rise. Standing for the rule of law can only be a good thing.”
As for Trump’s tweet that up to 15,000 people were in the ballroom, Querard said, “Still can’t figure out why Trump can’t resist pretending it was so many more people than it was, though. He got a huge crowd, so there is no need to embellish. That kind of stuff will catch up to you eventually in a campaign.”
Younger Faces
Among those making introductory comments before Trump’s speech were Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who suffers frequent harassment by bureaucrats who resent Arpaio’s opposition to illegal immigration, and Mary Ann Mendoza, a local mother whose son was killed by an illegal-alien driver.
The alien was high on drugs, Mendoza said, as she warned people to “be passionate” about this issue instead of waiting until someone in their own family is hurt.
Seventy-five percent of the most-wanted criminals in Phoenix are illegal immigrants, Mendoza said, criticizing “the astronomical cost this nation endures” because of illegals.
Arpaio said his office did a survey of those in his jails and found that 38 percent of these illegal aliens “keep coming back” to this nation, even 18 to 20 times.
Although a number of news reports quoted only people in their 60s or older in attendance, there were plenty of younger faces reporters could have turned to.
Tyler Bowyer, 29, current chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Party, said he’s the youngest person to hold that position. He pointed out his 11-month-old daughter in the audience.
Bowyer recalled Arizona voters approving statewide initiative measures to discourage illegal immigration, as well as the border-enforcing SB 1070 being signed in 2010 after legislative passage.
The elitists undercut these all they could.
Arizona’s open-borders establishment was aghast at Trump’s appearance, but Bowyer didn’t accede to demands that he cancel the local GOP’s co-sponsorship of the event. The county Republicans also co-sponsored GOP presidential candidate Rand Paul’s appearance earlier this year at Arizona State University.
Arpaio is “the greatest lawman on Earth,” Bowyer said.
Smarter Leaders
About halfway through his speech, Trump stepped back from the podium so that a California father who had traveled here with him, Jamiel Shaw Sr., could speak for ten minutes.
Shaw said his teen-aged son had been shot three times by an illegal alien near his home and died in the street in 2008. “Put yourself in my shoes,” Shaw said.
Seeing Trump, said Shaw, “for the first time in seven years, I felt hope. . . . We need somebody that can live in the storm. . . . He loves America.”
Trump said that when Shaw saw his dead son, the father lay down on the sidewalk and damaged his hand by pounding it in anguish.
Before Trump’s talk, The Wanderer asked two Phoenix men at random why they were there.
José Patino, 26, said he wanted to hear Trump’s thinking on various issues, including health care, immigration, income inequality, education, and how the community can work with the police “to strengthen our relationship.”
Immigration isn’t the same everywhere, Patino said, but varies in different states.
Tom Clawson, 64, said, “I think it would be great to make the country run more like a business than what’s been going on the last 20 years.”
Clawson said he wasn’t attending to hear Trump speak only on illegal immigration, “but to hear his overall spectrum. . . . I know that illegal immigration is the hot-button issue,” but the country has many other problems, too.
When Trump told the audience, “I love the Mexican people,” they cheered and applauded. He added that he respects Mexico greatly as a country, but its leaders are sharper, smarter, and more cunning than ours.
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