Most mortals are defined by one or two signature moments. Good or bad, win or lose, we get our 15 minutes of fame — and then we’re done. Take a bow; exit stage right.
But Donald Trump has lived three or four lifetimes… in just the past decade! No hyperbole: When 2014 began, Trump was filming season seven of “The Apprentice,” ordering around Gilbert Gottfried, Ian Ziering, and one of the Jonas brothers. Now, I don’t want to be dismissive of those (ahem) celebrity superstars (Ziering is the star of the “Sharknado” franchise, for crying out loud), but Trump’s career trajectory has taken him to far loftier heights than reality TV.
It's been one helluva ride.
And for signature moments since 2014, where do you even begin? The list is extraordinary: How about the time he descended the golden escalators of Trump Tower to announce his longshot presidential bid? Or when he crushed the other candidates (and shocked Megyn Kelly) in the GOP debates? Or when he blasted a shellshocked Hillary Clinton? Or shook Kim Jong Un’s hand on the Korean border? Or stared down an assassin’s bullet — unbowed, unbroken, and unrepentant — with his fist raised to the heavens? Or flipping burgers at McDonald’s, or having his mugshot taken, or driving a garbage truck, or debating the withered remains of Joe Biden, or the rally at Madison Square Garden, or his podcast with Joe Rogan, or…
There’s been such a cacophony of content, it’s easy to forget the original signature issue of Donald Trump: Building a wall and making Mexico pay for it.
Immigration. That was Trump’s casus belli. He ran for president to secure our border. That was the #1 item on his to-do list.
At the time, it was controversial. CNN did an opinion poll, and 63% of Americans opposed deporting illegal aliens. Eighty-one percent said mass deportation was impossible! Even amongst Republicans, only 53% thought the government should mass deport illegal aliens.
Gulp: When all you can snare is a slim majority of GOP voters, you know you’re in trouble.
And so, the media smugly concluded that immigration might be a short-term “wedge issue” that helps Trump win the GOP nomination, but over the long-term, the issue was a loser: Latino Hispanic Latinx Americans would never forgive him, just as Californians never forgave Republicans for Prop 187. Securing your borders is de facto racist — period, end of story. Surely, the American people would reject such a monstrous, xenophobic policy!
But 2015 was a long time ago. Beliefs change. CBS just conducted a post-2024 Election Day opinion poll, and its findings on immigration are absolutely astounding. There’s been a seismic shift to the right:
Seventy-three percent of Americans — nearly three out of four of us! — now say that deporting illegal immigrants is either a high priority (45%) or a medium priority (28%).
Less than a third say it shouldn’t be prioritized at all.
Furthermore, 57% of Americans would support President-elect Donald Trump creating a nationwide program that finds and deports ALL the immigrants who are illegally in our country!
Which means, today in 2024, the average American is farther to the right on immigration than the average Republican was in 2015!
And it all ties together with the dramatic, multiethnic growth of the MAGA coalition. In 2016, roughly 87% of Trump’s voters were white. But in 2024, nearly one in five were either black, Latino, Native American, or a “person of color.” The most pro-Trump ethnicity, in fact, is no longer white people: A majority (57%) of whites voted for Trump, but a far greater majority — 65% — of Native Americans did as well.
The moment is now.
What was dismissed as a pipe dream is tantalizingly close to reality: There’s a chance to not just solve the immigration problem, but to do so as a multiethnic coalition of Americans — white, black, Latino, Native American, and more.
Armed with this coalition, there would be no Prop 187 aftermath. You can’t tar and feather a multiethnic, majority coalition with the “racist” label; it’s just not credible.
And without their hysterical cries of racism… what do the Democrats have left?
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Even with Trump in the White House and majorities in the House and Senate, victory is by no means a certainty. The left won’t relent without a fight.
But they’ve already lost the people.
And because of it, Trump is poised to secure not just the border, but his legacy.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member