Morning Briefing: Donald Trump vs. The World

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Why is Donald Trump Happening to America? I confess that I have been struggling to understand the Donald Trump as much or more than any other pundit out there. His appeal is a phenomenon that defies conventional explanation, and if anyone had really come to understand it before now, they could have reduced it. However, no one really has. The most common (and obviously false) explanation for Trump's popularity is that it is all about his stance on immigration. This is the explanation you will find commonly offered by folks like Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter, in the comments section of conservative blogs, and by people who have over ten hashtags in their twitter bios – in other words, the places where immigration hard liners tend to congregate and convince themselves that they are more numerous than they are, because everyone they know is one. The problem, of course, is that this is nonsense. There's a humongous amount of polling data that suggests that the vast majority of the Republican voting base is in favor of a conditional path to citizenship. FiveThirtyEight compiled data from eight polls conducted so far this year and found that, on average, an astounding 72% of Republicans favor a path to citizenship if certain conditions (paying back taxes, paying a fine, learning English) are met. These are "amnesty" positions, according to the folks who support Trump, and yet they are the clear majority position within the GOP. Read More

Donald Trump threatens to sue the Club for Growth for libel. Over… an *attack ad*. ermit me to demonstrate, fairly succinctly, why it was not a very good idea for Donald Trump to threaten to sue the Club for Growth for libel over its new attack ad 'Politician.' To wit: in order for us to discuss that, first you gotta see the ad. Well, I guess that some people don't feel the need to see the ad, but the rest of us do. That entire 'informed citizens of the Republic' bit, you see… Read More

Marco Rubio on "Amnesty": Let's Take Care of Everything Else First Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has four problems and two opportunities on immigration, and in an interview with Sean Hannity last night, he did his best to stake out a sensible middle ground that will make nobody entirely happy (except maybe people like me), but makes the best of the situation he's already in. As to Rubio's four problems, the first and most obvious is that a bunch of very loud people in the Republican Party and the conservative commentariat are very, very, very against anything that smacks of "amnesty" for people who have come to the United States illegally. Read More Sponsored

Your Move, Mike Huckabee Scott Walker bowed out of the race last night because he knew he could not win, and he wanted someone with a positive vision for America to have a chance. To the end, Scott Walker was thinking about the causes he believes in rather than his own personal success – which, sadly, is probably one of the reasons that he was the second candidate to bow out in a field which (inexplicably) contains national jokes Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and George Pataki. Read More

Donald Trump Or Third Party Before John Kasich John Kasich is an insufferable douche who thinks Jesus told him to expand government in Ohio, particularly Obamacare, where now costs are going up, government spending is going up (despite what Kasich says), and Kasich has hired Democrats to make him likable. About the only people who like Kasich are the Circle of Jerks who make up the DC-NYC media and are overwhelmingly Democrat. So of course they love the guy who expanded Obamacare. Read More

Sponsored It Is Not Just Scott Walker It turns out a midwestern governor who beats unions and survives three elections is not necessarily the shoo-in that so many people thought. And that, ultimately, was Walker's problem. Too many people thought he was a shoo-in and it seems the Walker campaign thought it too. If you aren't willing to fight for the Presidency, you can be sure you will not win it. There's no such thing as a shoo-in, as Hillary Clinton is about to find out. Read More

Fact Checker @GlennKesslerWP become Imam-for-a-day The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler is one of the dishonest clacque of leftwing propagandists who claim to be "Fact Checkers." As far as anyone can determine, his driving force in life is to render tendentious judgments on anything a Republican says and award them "Pinocchios" based on some arbitrary criteria. In one memorable instance, Kessler judged a claim to be True but False. I swear to heaven I am not making this up. In his latest foray into calumny vaguely posing as journalism, Kessler pulls on a turban and examines the nuances of Islam for us. Read More

The Executive Branch Falters I will be the first to admit that I was (and still somewhat am) hoping the Republicans can pull someone with executive branch experience into the White House come 2016. I've said it often enough that it would be absolutely dishonest to say anything to the contrary. I genuinely believe that someone who has dealt with the legislative branch from the outside would do better than someone who has dealt with it solely from the inside. Then Rick Perry, arguably the most successful executive of the bunch, bowed out. Yesterday, Scott Walker bowed out. Bobby Jindal is making little headway (though time will still tell on him). George Pataki, Jim Gilmore, and John Kasich are still things we as a culture are currently allowing to happen (despite Erick's best attempts in that last case). Where did we go so wrong? Well, the elephant in the room (that is suspiciously shaped like a donkey) is Donald Trump. However, he's not the only reason the executives are failing. Read More

The uncompromising conservatism of Erick Erickson If you want to find out more about the post-Trump fall out, what it's like to be on radio in the biggest talk-radio market in the country, why I want a cooking show, etc. go check this out. Read More Sponsored

Sincerely yours, Erick Erickson Editor-in-Chief, RedState