I have always had a soft spot for Donald Trump, dating back to a simple personal incident some thirty years ago. Tom Bolan, the prominent conservative Catholic layman who was, improbably, the late Roy Cohn’s law partner, had developed the kind habit of inviting Maggy and myself to the annual dinner of a New York right-wing affinity group he ran, always held at the Park Avenue Armory. Back in the 1980s, after the long dark night of Democratic dominance, Manhattan conservatives had only just emerged blinking from the catacombs—and had not yet had the opportunity to be corrupted into Conservatism Inc. cuckservatives. The crowd was diverse to the point of eccentricity, but dedicated. One of the speakers was Curtis Sliwa, founder of the anti-crime citizen patrol Guardian Angels (presumably now in need of reactivation, thanks to Mayor De Blasio). Another was the comedian and New York Post columnist Joey Adams.

I dislike off-color humor, partly because I never get the punch lines, and I found Adams’ Borscht Belt routine excruciating. After several minutes grimly studying the tablecloth (I seem to recall it was actually paper) I glanced up and saw—Donald Trump, thirty feet away at the head table, laughing at me.

Except he wasn’t laughing at me, exactly. His crinkling eyes radiated good-natured amusement and even discreet sympathy—he thought Adams was awful too, they seemed to say. George Will, in a column we recently ridiculed, claimed that Trump is “incorrigibly vulgar.”  On the basis of one of those snap personal judgements the Washington Post’s Philip Blow thinks actually motivate voters [Donald Trump’s surprisingly savvy analysis of American politics, August 16 2015], I don’t believe it.

(Conversely, my view of Jeb Bush was permanently affected when a nice woman immigration patriot told me in the early 1990s about raising the immigration issue with him at a GOP meeting when he was Governor of Florida—only to have him turn on his heel and walk away. Of course, I wasn’t there. But, studying photographs of Bush’s spoiled and petulant face, I do believe this).

The latest available poll [PDF], released by CNN/ ORC international poll on Tuesday August 18, shows Trump leading the GOP field with 24%, distantly followed by Jeb Bush with 13%. No other candidate is in double digits.

Trump, in short, does not appear to be going away. Which inspires several thoughts:

• The GOP Establishment has absolutely no-one to blame but its own idiot self

It’s impossible to exaggerate the arrogance and stupidity with which the GOP Establishment has treated its base, especially beginning with the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, and above all on the immigration issue.

At VDARE.com, we have regularly cited “Stein’s Law”— "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." Parties that abuse their bases eventually see them go away. I saw it happen in Canada; it appears to be underway in Britain. Trump is the biggest sign yet that it will happen here.

• The Main Stream Media its own evil self to blame for Trump too.

The co-ordination and politicization of the MSM, facilitated by the internet and driven by the conscious determination to prevent the Historic American Nation from resisting its dispossession through immigration policy, has become increasing blatant. The GOP Establishment certainly believes what the MSM tells it; more disturbingly (from the MSM managers’ standpoint), so do some MSM operatives themselves.

This is why we get headlines like Immigration Reform 2015: Path To Citizenship Favored By 65 Percent Of Americans, by Clark Mindock, International Business Times, August 12, 2015. This of course what VDARE.com calls “pollaganda,” a result obtained by skewing the question (in this case illegals are supposed to “meet certain requirements over time.”) Or, as Ann Coulter parodies it in her definitive take-down (Chapter 3) of immigration enthusiast pollaganda in Adios America!: “Brookings Poll: Would you prefer a Unicorn or a Loch Ness Monster?”

To put it at its simplest: if support for a “path to citizenship” a.k.a. Amnesty is so overwhelming, why has what Ted Cruz calls the Washington Cartel been utterly unable to pass it since it was first mooted in 2001?

In fact on the very rare occasions that Americans are directly asked, they support an immigration moratorium and the outright deportation of illegals in very large numbers [Donald Trump is the perfect "moderate," by Ezra Klein, Vox, August 15, 2015]. (This is not new: Ann Coulter in Adios America! reports a Field Poll found a plurality—46%—of Californians favored “having federal immigration agents round up, detain and deport immigrants found to be living here illegally” back in 2013).

Being told they believe something they don’t obviously really annoys Americans—hence the roar from the audience that greeted Trump when he brushed aside Megyn Kelly’s feminist questioning on the grounds he didn’t have time to be Politically Correct. As Lee Drutman said on Vox (which we seem to be quoting a lot): “[o]n the rare occasion that we see a candidate who can speak to that marginalized public, we shouldn't be surprised to see an enthusiastic public response.” [What Donald Trump gets about the electorate, August 18 2015).

Nevertheless, the MSM is surprised—above all because its usual anathematizing techniques aren't working.

• The Subjective Trump vs. The Objective Trump

To adopt the language of the Student Marxists I was cursed with in college in the 1960s, you have to make a distinction between the subjective Trump and the objective Trump. Subjectively, it is possible to question many of Trump’s attitudes—for example, I didn’t like hearing, in his celebrated “They Have To Go” Meet The Press interview, that he is not concerned about Affirmative Action, which VDARE.com regards as a key wedge issue. (Probably, like many businessmen, he just accepts it as yet another tax). But objectively, Trump’s historical function is clearly to break the Washington Cartel and to bring the immigration issue into politics. To quote one of many derisive comments on National Review’s grudging and nit-picking editorial Trump’s Immigration Plan Is a Good Start — for All GOP Candidates (August 18):

Immigration is extremely important tis true, which is why after 30 years of duplicity by the media/ political / cultural elite and corrupt governing caste we have seized upon, quite consciously, a wrecking ball.

Of course, subjectively Trump’s immigration plan announced on Sunday is extremely impressive. But I suspect that Trump in some intuitive sense is still focused on his objective role and unconcerned with detail (which is why I worry less than Norm Matloff about Trump’s subsequent apparent wobbling on its strong H-1B stance, any more than about his earlier apparent wobbling on Amnesty).

The truth, and probably the reason the Establishment is so worried, is that no-one really knows where Trump will end up. But he did not have up the ante in the way that he did with this immigration plan.

• Is Trump Good For The Jews (Or, more the point, are the Jews Bad For Trump)?

Donald Trump has come under intense attack for his stance on immigration. But, for those who remember, it is significantly less intense than the barrage that met Pat Buchanan when he ran for President. One obvious but unspoken reason for this: Trump simply has not riled up the organized Jewish community as much—yet.

Partly this is cultural. Unlike Buchanan, Trump appears to be a comfortingly nominal Christian. And, as a recent JTA/ Times of Israel article put it:

Trump is from New York, works in professions saturated with Jews and long has been a vocal supporter of Israel. His daughter and two grandchildren are Jewish, the executive vice president of his organization is Jewish — and Trump certainly has chutzpah.

When it comes to Jewish ties, no GOP candidate trumps Trump, by Uriel Heilman, August 8, 2015

Indeed, Trump’s instant, violent and histrionic reaction to any perceived check, while apparently utterly stunning to the Washington-based political elite, seems actually perfectly normal to anyone who has lived in Manhattan (or, for that matter, has had a Jewish girlfriend).

But can it last? I would say no. The blind commitment of American Jews to the post-1965 policy of mass immigration, alas, has proved (with notable exceptions) at least as strong as their commitment to Israel. Already you can see the emotion kicking in: Ross Kaminsky (email him) writes in Trump’s shameful immigration plan (American Spectator, Aug 18 2015):

His plan to require businesses to “hire American workers first” has the stench of xenophobia backed up by the fist of government. Perhaps as a Jew I’m overly sensitive, but when I hear Trump speak I can’t help but think of “Germany for the Germans.”

(Link in original). Kaminsky is clearly not at all “sensitive” to how insulting this must appear to the nation that defeated Hitler.

On the other hand, Donald Trump’s reaction to this attack, when it inevitably materializes, will be on present form something to see.

Peter Brimelow [Email him] is the editor of VDARE.com. His best-selling book, Alien Nation: Common Sense About America’s Immigration Disaster, is now available in Kindle format.