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July 12, 2015 09:48 AM UTC

Tom Tancredo Celebrates Donald Trump (Of Course)

  • 35 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Tom Tancredo.
Tom Tancredo.

As the Denver Post’s Lynn Bartels reports, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s incendiary rhetoric about immigrants from Mexico has given national Republican strategists heartburn in the last few weeks, not least because it seems to be helping Trump in polls of GOP primary voters.

Here in Colorado, Trump’s anti-immigrant diatribes have won him a big fan in former CD-6 Congressman Tom Tancredo. Even after being out of Congress for eight years, Tancredo remains one of the most nationally prominent immigration firebrands on the right. During his term in office, Tancredo earned the lasting enmity of the George W. Bush administration, even becoming persona non grata at the White House, after repeatedly clashing with them on the issue.

Not without reason, Tancredo suspects a Trump administration would treat him a little better:

These are heady days for former Congressman Tom Tancredo, who is watching presidential hopeful Donald Trump take up his obsession with illegal immigrants at the same time a national discussion is underway about sanctuary cities after a fatal shooting in San Francisco by a five-time deportee.

So is Tancredo, who once ran for president himself, a supporter of The Donald?

“God, yes,” Tancredo said, and then clarified his position. “At least of what he’s said.”

Donald Trump.
Donald Trump.

But wait, hasn’t Trump actually offended more people than he has won over with his sweeping characterizations of immigrants as wanton murderous rapists, at least in terms of the broader American electorate?

The problem, Tancredo said, is that Trump “needs to be a little bit more artful” when talking about the problems of illegal immigration. [Pols emphasis]

Keep in mind, gentle reader, that this is the same Tom Tancredo who once referred to Miami as a “Third World country,” proposed Jim Crow-style literacy tests for voting, and refused to attend a presidential debate on Univision because of his belief that candidates should only campaign in English. For those keeping score, Tancredo also denounced the first Hispanic-American Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor as a “racist,” and in 2003 called for a five-year moratorium on legal immigration. Oh, and let’s not forget bombing Mecca.

Folks, when Tom Tancredo tells you you need to be “a little more artful” when discussing immigration issues, you’ve got a serious problem. That poll-topping Donald Trump is legitimizing the Tancredos of the world, showing the 2016 electorate the worst possible face of today’s Republican party, can be fairly considered a worst-case scenario.

For Republicans who want to win general elections, that is.

Comments

35 thoughts on “Tom Tancredo Celebrates Donald Trump (Of Course)

  1. Expect to see plenty of Confederate banners at Trump (and likely a few other) campaign rallies.

    Manure does attract flies, producing more maggots

  2. Well Tanc isn't going to get elected to anything so he has to keep his D list rightie wacko celebrity alive by running his mouth. Think of him as to Trump as a middle school play is to Broadway.  Bartels also has a fresh piece in today's Post on the extent of how baffled and annoyed the party grownups are by AG Cofffman's 3 month turn around on House and all the attendant shenanigans. My favorite quote:

    "It was like walking into a meeting with Barzini and Tessio in 'The Godfather,' " Jack Stansbery, the former director of the Colorado Republican Party, said in an opinion piece critical of the attorney general.

    1. Stansbery's piece is rife with literary allusions.  Another is, speaking of Coffman:  

      Instead of choosing to make the best of the situation, she chose to create a vacuum – the worst possible outcome. Who was going to fill it? Did she really expect everyone to just trust her again? The party would have gone from The Godfather to Lord of the Flies.

      Anyone want to cast that one?

      1. Anyone want to cast Lord of the Flies? Of course I do. Even though I think it's more of a "Game of Thrones" melodrama.

        I had to refresh my memory on the LotF characters.

        House himself would be Ralph  – the leader of the group, who tries to keep it "civilized'.

        Coffman would be Jack –  who leads a group in mutiny by playing on the boys' baser instincts.

        Tancredo would be Maurice – a bigun who becomes one of Jack's key supporters.

        Mizel would be Roger, a "A sly, secretive boy who displays, early on, a cruelty toward the weak and vulnerable."

        Marilyn Marks would be Simon, "The visionary of the group. Given to fainting spells and spending time alone in the jungle, he is considered odd by the other boys."

        You notice that I haven't cast anyone as Piggy, who dies in the novel. I've never seen the movie version. The one that "dies" in this melodrama would have to be Julie Naye, whose reputation, and probably livelihood as a Republican events organizer is completely compromised. Who can believe anything she says now?

         

        ** Awhile back, I cast characters in Game of Houses. The establishment Republicans are the Lannisters, the ruling family. The Tea Party folks are Stannis' faction. The Libertarians are the Tyrells. Becky Mizel is an obvious Cersei, Marks more of a Littlefinger/ Melisandre manipulator, and….that's as far as I'm going to strain that analogy. Unfortunately, we don't seem to have a Danerys, to fly in on a dragon and stop the wheel from spinning. I also don't know the Republican establishment well enough to pick a Tyrion, my favorite character in GoT. But feel free to chime in, unless you actually have a life and something better to do.

        1. I didn't really expect anyone to rise to that challenge.  But now you have.  I read the book over 50 years ago and probably missed most of the allegory.  According to the Wikipedia article on it, Piggy "is the most intellectual of the boys, frequently appealing to reason" and "Piggy has been described as "the only adult-type figure on the island"”.  There's more, but that already eliminates anyone I can think of in the OutHouse circus.  Perhaps there was a Piggy somewhere in the background, but if so he/she didn't succeed any more than poor Piggy did.

  3. All of this is irrelevant.
    Barack HUSSEIN Obama is going to suspend the US Constitution and declare himself "President for Life™".
    There will be no elections in 2016.

    But, as a sop to Dimocrats, he will put Hills on the $20.

  4. finally…a candidate (Trump) who reflects the true nature of the Republican party…

    all about me…

    all about money….

    all about money for me….

    Brian Sullivan of NBC, well known lackey for the billionaire set, says he doesn't see how "taxing a small percentage of Americans is going to help"…

    really, Brian? How about giving a little tax relief to those who actually need it…the middle and working classes? If the billionaires and multi-national corporations were paying their share of the "cost of society", we just might be able to provide a quality education for all our children.

    "Job creators", my ass. These wealthy fuckers are "misery creators"…nothing more.

    1. and while I am ranting….

      I have a suggestion for Tancredo and the guy holding up the "America is Full" shirt…

      If both you assholes left the country, it would make room for two actual human beings to come and take your places..

      it's OK….we won't miss you…

      1. Well that's what generally happens in banana republics when the misery of the masses and the obscenity of the proportion of wealth, power and privilege sucked up by the tiny elite gets to a certain flash point.

        I wouldn't worry though. This is America and our Joe Six Pack seems to be incredibly stupid, willfully ignorant and easily manipulated compared to the workers of other countries. Just wave the flag and call the pols who want to do something for him socialists, claim that the members of the tiny elite are his best friends and create good jobs despite decades worth of evidence that they do the opposite and he'll go right on voting against his own interests and his children's future.

        Heck, I remember in 2010 they actually got Joe Six Pack to believe his taxes had gone up under Obama when they'd clearly gone down. The only tax break the elite and their GOP lackeys ever wanted to end was the only one that benefited Joe Six Pack; the payroll tax cut. They claimed we couldn't afford that one even though it put money directly back into the economy instantly while they defended their own breaks saying the money would be invested to create jobs. They never did. They put money into offshore accounts and other shelters that never did a damn thing for anyone but themselves. The wealth gap just ballooned faster and faster. Joe Six Pack bought it anyway, year after year after year, like Charlie Brown going after that football over and over no matter how many times Lucy yanked it. 

        It's like taking candy from babies. I'd like to see all the immigrants we can get and see them become voting citizens because they generally come from countries where workers have a clue.

          1. Damn.  Pretty sure John McCain couldn't physically do that. But it does kind of capture how much he leaned on "Joe" for his working class bonafides during his 2008 campaign. Even though I don't like memes that imply political opponents are gay as an implied insult. And yes, I get that it would be a far greater insult to the two men, and that's why it's funny.

            "Joe the Plumber", who wasn't named Joe, who wasn't a plumber, has been "reduced" to taking a union job at Chrysler, courtesy of Obama's rescuing the auto manufacturing business. No word on whether McCain still has a man crush on "Joe".

             

            1. I didn't get gay from the picture, just a serious man crush (hey, we've all had one. After Obama's clemency announcement this morning…just saying') by the once-maverick McCain.  

            2. Just from an observers point of view…

              I didn't take the sex part to be a "gay" thing kind of insult…I don't typically consider gender selection by human beings a topic for discussion any more..

              the word it evokes to me is something like "cloying" and…well..something you would want to hit with a toilet plunger to get it off you.. .

              1. I tend to approach these things from a schools frame of reference, which is probably not an appropriate frame for a free-wheeling political blog. In school anymore, kids are coming in curious and experimenting, and questioning their gender preferences. That's always been true, but now it's no longer a cause for shame, or an excuse for mockery and bullying.

                So schools policy is that when a student volunteers, "Hey, I'm gay" or one of the other "alphabet soup" letters LBGTQ etc. , then it's OK to talk about that preference, discuss, gossip, etc. But if that self-identification isn't there, as teachers we squelch talking about anyone's sexual habits or preferences. We let kids "come out", protect them if they do, but don't push one way or the other.

                This protects heterosexual students, as well, who used to be slut-shamed or pressured into being sexually active to prove something to someone.

                I think that businesses that have sexual harassment policies do something similar. Anyway, that's where I'm coming from, and it's fine if that's not where you all are. I know I enjoy pushing the envelope a bit here, being risque without being actually vulgar. I wouldn't want that atmosphere to go away in an effort to avoid offending people.

                Fortunately, it won't. I just don't have that much power.

                So go for the nekkid McCain in the throes of a man crush. I'll just cringe, laugh, and move on.

                 

                1. Well, it is meant as parody: "a piece of writing, music, etc., that imitates the style of someone or something else in an amusing way" or "a work created to imitate, make fun of, or comment on an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of satiric or ironic imitation." Ergo, a famous Rolling Stone cover of John and Yoko morphed into John and Joe. Everyone's entitled to their own interpretation of it, of course, but I think it's helpful to highlight that context.

              2. You just made coffee come out my nose, Duke!  That's an even better visual than McCain standing on his front porch yelling at kids to get off his lawn. 

        1. This is America and our Joe Six Pack seems to be incredibly stupid, willfully ignorant and easily manipulated compared to the workers of other countries – 

          That's because Joe Six Pack still believes that one day his ship will come in – be it some rich uncle he never knew of dies and leaves him a fortune, or his Powerball lottery ticket pays off, or he's in some catastrophic accident and Frank Azar gets him several million dollars. It's the American Dream.

          They're willing to guarantee that the Bushes and the Romney and the Kennedy (in fairness, let's keep this bipartisan) descendants never have to work a day in their lives by getting rid of the estate tax (a/k/a "the death tax" in Tea Party Speak) because some day Joe Six Pack's unknown uncle, lottery ticket or catastrophic injury lawsuit may pay off and when that happens, he will benefit. 

          1. Yep. Pathetic. Especially since he'd be just fine if he hit the jackpot or found out he had a long lost rich dead relative even if he did have to pay a little more in taxes. The top .01 % wouldn't be looking to shelter all that extra money if they needed or wanted to spend more than they already do without it. The problem for them is they have more than they know what to do with but don't want to pay taxes anyway. I think it's a religious conviction. Their 11th commandment is "Only the little people shall pay taxes." Actually it's their first. The rest all move down a notch.

    2. It's not about money alone. You left out the racism part. The Donald can unify the two blocks in the modern GOP:  the bigots and Wall Street. Now he just has to rope in the religious nuts and he'll have pulled the hat trick.

      1. Absolutely. The social stuff, racism and bigotry have been the handiest tools for getting Joe Six Pack's vote. Those "other" people are taking your hard earned tax dollars (never mind Joe's probably only paying payroll taxes, the one's the Rs insisted be brought back up to pre-cut level, and nothing to nothing much in actual federal income tax after deductions) or, if the other is from south of the border, taking your jobs, committing all the crime along with black folks.  Then there's the religious stuff. Joe won't vote for baby killers or Godless libs, wants prayer back in public school where it belongs but only if it's the right kind, thinks God wrote the constitution and so on.

        Meanwhile the completely amoral greed heads on top can count on his vote to raise them up even higher and dig his own hole even deeper. I guess it's a matter of historical awareness. In the old world workers know better than to think the corporate elite wants to do anything but exploit them so they do a much better job of insisting on their piece of the pie. Even if they let xenophobes lead them into some bad decisions, you don't see them giving up their paid vacation, no tuition universities, universal healthcare and retirement benefits. Some of them may be bigots too but there's a limit to what they'll give up.

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