A sizable number of angry and frustrated Republican voters are apparently willing to burn down their political house and appoint Donald Trump the new architect, with only the vaguest idea of what the new structure would look like.
Once past the supreme self-confidence, the Olympian certainty and much bluster, Trump’s policies are like pieces of Swiss cheese held together by grand promises of “better deals.”
Trump’s solution to the complex issue of immigration is to deport 11 million unlawful immigrants and to build a huge wall to keep others out, even though, according to the Pew Research Center, 56 percent of Republicans say they oppose mass deportation.
In Trump’s tax plan, over 50 percent of potential payers would have no income tax liability, but the plan would cost $10 trillion in lost revenue over the next 10 years.
Trump says he believes in free trade, but he is actually an uncompromising protectionist whose high tariffs would raise the price of most imported goods and start a trade war that would cost jobs in our export industries.
Trump wants to expand libel law so he can sue newspapers that criticize him. This would take Barack Obama’s imperial presidency to a new level. What Trump might do if he could use the power of the federal government to attack his opponents defies imagination.
There are other Trump policies that are naïve and unrealistic, to which criticism his supporters have been known to reply, “I don’t care; he will make American great again.” At least some Republicans don’t share this optimism.
We get who we vote for and deserve who we get. If it’s Trump, it will be a populist demagogue who can’t win a national election. And probably shouldn’t.
Martin Jones
Freeport
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