The Donald - The Republican Reward

Oh, the delicious irony.  For decades Republicans have played the us against them game,using illegal immigrants and Gays to stir up resentment and harvest votes.   Along with abortion they use these issues to stir up lots of anger and get themselves elected, despite the fact that when they controlled all the levers of elected government from 2000 to 2006 they invaded Iraq and then blew up the economy.  

So they have pounded on the table about illegal immigrants, even as, year after year, they stymied any congressional efforts to reform the immigration system.  Immigration was evidently too valuable as a problem to allow a solution to happen.

But you can't get many people angry about gays any longer.  So for stirring up emotions it's down to abortion and immigration.  But after the last election, it is apparent to the Republican party bigwigs that continuing to rely on stirring up anti-immigration anger will lead them off a demographic cliff.   National Republicans could become just as irrelevant as California Republicans became after alienating California Hispanics.  So the Republican party is trying to pivot slowly away from disparaging immigrants while still keeping those anti-immigrant voters angry enough to get out and vote for Republicans. 

Then along comes the Donald, heating the pot back to boiling, stealing the anti-immigrant base the party has cultivated for so long and hoped to fool into voting for the party as the lesser of two evils.

It is enormously entertaining political theatre.  If it causes the Republicans to implode and get pounded at the next election all the better.  Then maybe some Republicans could start getting elected who realize that compromise isn't a sin, it's what makes democracy work, and that solving problems is better than exploiting them.