In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! , an obviously pro-Donald Trump book, happened to have been untimely released. The Republican nominee himself messed it up, in effect, betraying its bestselling author, Ann Coulter, with his sudden change of mind on immigration policies.
Whether Coulter’s latest book will join her list of 12 New York Times ‘ bestsellers, no one can tell, at least this early. One thing is sure, though. The author of In Trump We Trust , upon hearing Donald’s recent massive flip-flops on immigration issues, fumed, resorting to some tweet storming business to discredit her main man in the book.
Only part he left out was the “hoops” they’ll have to jump through! Trump:”No citizenship. Let me go a step further—they’ll pay back-taxes”
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) August 25, 2016
Trump: “they have to pay taxes, there’s no amnesty” [Pro Tip: “Back taxes” means we pay illegals $30k apiece in EITC.}
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) August 25, 2016
It’s not “amnesty.” It’s “comprehensive immigration reform”!!!! Trump: “they have to pay taxes, there’s no amnesty.”
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) August 25, 2016
Well, if it’s “hard,” then nevermind. Trump: “… to take a person who’s been here for 15 or 20 years ….It’s a very, very hard thing.”
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) August 25, 2016
For some unknown reason, the author of In Trump We Trust later retracted.
COULTER SCORCHES MEDIA: I’M NOT ‘ABANDONING’ TRUMP – https://t.co/nppE6C73zb
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) August 25, 2016
Coulter’s message in her 182-page hagiography , as Dan Roberts of the Guardian aptly called it, is loud and clear.
“There’s nothing Trump can do that won’t be forgiven. Except change his immigration policies.”
That could have given the Republican presidential wanna-be “a further veneer of respectability,” said Roberts, had he not squandered it.
As the Guardian ‘s Washington bureau chief had it, “Unfortunately, at the very moment of the book-signing, that was exactly what Trump was doing.”
In an interview with Fox Newshost Sean Hannity, Trump proved to have softenedhis previously tough anti-immigration policies to win the moderates, through which emerged a rather different figure than the one Coulter portrayed in her In Trump We Trust.
Responding to Hannity’s query on the fate of approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, Trump said that, should he become America’s next president, while these people will get “no citizenship,” they will be required to pay taxes in exchange for legal status, provided “we get the bad ones out.”
Acknowledging that “everybody” in the audience agrees with the idea, the Republican presidential hopeful went on to say that “when I go through and meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject, and they’ve said, ‘Mr Trump, I love you, but to take a person who’s been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and their family out, it’s so tough, Mr Trump.’ I have it all the time! It’s a very, very hard thing.”
Exchanges of comments continued on in the show until Trump made his point even clearer.
“Those people that have been working so hard to come into the country and going through the process,” the conservative GOP nominee said, “we’re going to take them in, and we’re going to cherish them, and they’re going to love us. We want the ones that want to love us, not the ones that want to create problems.”
These must have run contrary to Coulter’s In Trump We Trust, which, according to the Atlantic‘s Peter Beinart, devotes six chapters to the subject of immigrants and rape, echoing its main character’s original strong anti-immigration leanings.
“But unlike many Trump defenders,” Beinart pointed out, “Coulter makes clear that her primary allegiance is not to Trump the man.”
“It’s to the nostalgic ‘Make America White Again’ brand of conservatism that she began peddling even before he did,” Beinart said. “In In Trump We Trust , Coulter calls Trump a ‘tasteless, publicity-seeking, coarse billionaire’ and argues that, ‘the one thing voters weren’t wild about was his personality.’”
If Trump were to succeed in his bid for the presidency, according to Beinart, alluding to what Coulter has to say in the book, it would be because his campaign has been ideological, which falls into line with American white supremacists’ protests against the federal government’s immigration policies.
Considering Trump’s recent change of mind on immigration issues, however, it is very likely that he will lose the support of this segment of American electors.
Only last Saturday in Iowa, the Republican nominee was heard again with yet another flip-flop on the issue, promising crackdown on immigrants, Clay Masters of the NPR reported, “including removing the hundreds and thousands of criminal illegal immigrants that have been released into the United States and United States communities under the incompetent Obama/Clinton administration.”
[Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images]
