Back in 1999, Donald Trump nearly ran for the nomination of the Reform Party, warning that his chief rival at the time and eventual winner of the nomination, Pat Buchanan, was far too conservative and divisive. Of course, now Trump seems to be running to Buchanan’s right, and his former opponent is commending the GOP presidential frontrunner for proposing a sweeping ban on Muslim immigration.
In his syndicated column today, Buchanan claims that Muslims reject America’s “‘Hollywood values’ regarding abortion, adultery and homosexuality” and Americans don’t want to follow the path of European countries that “regret having thrown open their doors to immigrants and refugees from the Islamic world.”
Trump, Buchanan writes, has captured the sentiment of the people who “want people here illegally to be sent back, the borders secured and a moratorium imposed on Muslim immigration until we fix the broken system.”
Calling for a moratorium on Muslim immigration “until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on,” Donald Trump this week ignited a firestorm of historic proportions.
As all the old hate words – xenophobe, racist, bigot – have lost their electric charge from overuse, Trump was being called a fascist demagogue and compared to Hitler and Mussolini.
The establishment seemed to have become unhinged.
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With ethnic and sectarian wars raging in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria and Somalia, why would we bring into our own country people from all sides of these murderous conflicts? Many European nations – Germans, French, Swedes, Brits – appear to regret having thrown open their doors to immigrants and refugees from the Islamic world, who have now formed unassimilated clusters and enclaves inside their countries.
Ought we not explore why, before we continue down this road?
In some countries of the Muslim world, Americans who embrace “Hollywood values” regarding abortion, adultery and homosexuality can get their heads chopped off as quickly as converts to Christianity.
In what Muslim countries does Earl Warren’s interpretation of the First Amendment – about any and all religious presence being banned in public schools and all religions being treated equally – apply?
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Trump’s success tells us that the American people really do not celebrate “globalization.” They think our negotiators got snookered out of the most magnificent industrial machine ever built, which once guaranteed our workers the highest standard of living on earth.
They don’t want open borders or mass immigration. They want people here illegally to be sent back, the borders secured and a moratorium imposed on Muslim immigration until we fix the broken system.
