The story at HuffPo is that Trump's flipflops on his immigration "policy" pronouncements (aka: standard ranch stash bullshit) is confusing for his supporters.
Donald Trump has spent the week pedaling backward and forward on his immigration positions, leaving immigration hawks — and some of his biggest boosters — worried about the strength of his support for mass deportations and a blanket ban on Muslim immigrants.
Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a prominent Trump supporter and immigration hawk, told HuffPost he was perplexed by Trump’s series of unfolding positions.
“He initially said he wanted to deport the 11 million people,” Arpaio said. “So you’re saying he’s now saying he’s not going to deport everybody who’s been here illegally?”
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, an influential think tank that calls for stricter immigration laws, said he was similarly concerned.
“His instincts on a lot of these issues are correct. Unfortunately, since he doesn’t know much about the issue, won’t listen to his own advisers, and won’t read his own immigration platform, he ends up veering from one thing to the next,” said Krikorian, who plans to vote for Trump. “This is just another example of Trump’s weakness when it comes to policy.”
But I'm kinda wondering how many of Trump's loyal Base Voters will start to bail on him now that it appears he's trying to polish himself up for the general election. The story and that video clip make it pretty obvious that he's being managed a lot differently now. He's not up there just running his mouth - he's trying to focus a more generally palatable rhetoric on the immigration issue, which is what has put his Knob-Gobbler Chorus Boys into a tizzy. How does a Joe (America's Own Sheriff of Nottingham) Arpaio and that Nazi Heimbach dude stay with him now?
What does that cost him? Standard Operating Procedure says you can expect to lose some support from the wingnuts, but it doesn't matter because you have to appeal to the middle now, and what you lose on the right you'll more than make up for... and those rubes aren't gonna vote for anybody else anyway... and and and ... but how does that not make Trump look like "just another politician"? And how does that not tarnish him big time with all the people who got him this far because he's not just another politician?
What really jumps out at me though is that somebody (Manafort?) has convinced him that if he's going to be more consistent, and better able to stay on message, then he has to use a TelePrompter, and holy fuck, boys and girls, he really sucks at it.
This continues to be something to watch with great interest - like something grotesque and horrific that some teenager caught on video; I can't stop watching it; I can't stop hating that I'm watching it, and I can't stop wanting to see more.
