Based on the hysterical flailing at Donald Trump — He’s a buffoon! He’s a clown! He calls people names! He’s too conservative! He’s not conservative enough! He won’t give details! His details won’t work! — I gather certain Republicans are determined to drive him from the race.
These same Republicans never object to other candidates who lack traditional presidential resumes — Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain, to name a few. I’m beginning to suspect it’s all about Trump’s opposition to mass immigration from the Third World.
Amid the hysteria, Trump is the only one speaking clearly and logically, while his detractors keep making utter asses of themselves.
From Ann Coulter, Daily Caller:
By my count — so far — Fiorina, Chris Christie, Rick Perry and the entire Fox News commentariat are unfamiliar with a period of the nation’s history known as “the Civil War.” They seem to believe that the post-Civil War amendments were designed to ensure that the children of illegal aliens would be citizens, “anchor babies,” who can then bring in the whole family. (You wouldn’t want to break up families, would you?)
As FNC’s Bill O’Reilly authoritatively informed Donald Trump on Tuesday night: “The 14th Amendment says if you’re born here, you’re an American!”
I cover anchor babies in about five pages of my book, Adios, America, but apparently Bill O’Reilly and the rest of the scholars on Fox News aren’t what we call “readers.”
Still, how could anyone — even a not-very-bright person — imagine that granting citizenship to the children of illegal aliens is actually in our Constitution? I know the country was exuberant after the war, but I really don’t think our plate was so clear that Americans were consumed with passing a constitutional amendment to make illegal aliens’ kids citizens.
Put differently: Give me a scenario — just one scenario — where guaranteeing the citizenship of children born to illegals would be important to Americans in 1868. You can make it up. It doesn’t have to be a true scenario. Any scenario!
You know what’s really bothering me? If someone comes into the country illegally and has a kid, that kid should be an American citizen!
Damn straight they should!
We’ve got to codify that.
YOU MEAN IT’S NOT ALREADY IN THE CONSTITUTION?
No, it isn’t, but that amendment will pass like wildfire!
It’s like being accused of robbing a homeless person. (1) I didn’t; (2) WHY WOULD I DO THAT?
“Luckily,” as FNC’s Shannon Bream put it Monday night, Fox had an “expert” to explain the details: Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox’s senior judicial analyst.
Napolitano at least got the century right. He mentioned the Civil War — and then went on to inform Bream that the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to — I quote — “make certain that the former slaves and the native Americans would be recognized as American citizens no matter what kind of prejudice there might be against them.”
Huh. In 1884, 16 years after the 14th Amendment was ratified, John Elk, who — as you may have surmised by his name — was an Indian, had to go to the Supreme Court to argue that he was an American citizen because he was born in the United States.
He lost. In Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not grant Indians citizenship.
