Random Notes from a Crank

I'm skeptical that the GOP is going to be shambles like what happened to the Whig party as some pundits have hinted. However, "The Republican's White Strategy" by Peter Beinart in The Atlantic makes me think that Trump, and people who came before him, are seriously damaging the GOP. The author's comparison of Nixon's "Southern strategy" to Trump's nativism rings true to me. That old chestnut from Twain goes, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." Here are some notable quotations from the article: 

• "The much stronger link is between attitudes toward immigration and attitudes toward race."
• "Like them [past Republican leaders who stoked anti-immigration fires], he is exploiting fears about Latino immigrants in ways that echo the "southern strategy," through which Richard Nixon field and exploited a white backlash against African American civil rights." 
• "But what's truly ominous for the Trump cruse is Latinos' increasing political cohesion." 
• "A big reason nativist sentiment is strong today is that immigration has outpaced assimilation."
• "That immigration wave, however, has passed." 
• "Perhaps the best evidence that America as a whole is experiencing a California-style flip away from nativist politics is the reaction to Trump's candidacy itself."
• "Trump will still need more than 40 percent of Latinos to win the popular vote. That's extraordinarily unlikely."
• "What they [the GOP] don't know is how to build a party that contains both Latinos and the supporters of Donald Trump."

"Donald Trump's Ghostwriter Tells All" is worth your time. The bottom line is that The Art of the Deal is mainly a piece of fiction that ruined a writer's career. Schwartz wrote the fabrications and now regrets it. 

When I was in Iowa this past weekend, I got to see a couple of Clinton ads. The most interesting one is simply a video clip of Trump on the Letterman show. He's touting his shirts and ties, and Letterman points out that the shirts are made in Bangladesh, to which Trump notes that people there "need jobs", and then Letterman relates that the ties are made in China, to which Trump has weird smirks on his face in narcissistic silence. 

Here's the video.