On the Trump Plan to Europeanize the US

Again, as noted in my last piece, it's not just Trump. 

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/trump-didnt-invent-trumpism.html

He has actually publicized something that has been on the GOP wishlist for years. This is why the GOP so fears Trump. No one outside the party really knew this before Trump. 

Scott Sumner suggested that Europe by joining the EU has become more like America. 

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/trumpism-none-dare-call-it-national.html

Namely, that the reason Germany won't help Greece is the same reason Tea Partiers get so angry thinking about black and brown folks on welfare. It's a rather dreary vision where people are fine with welfare benefits as long as those other people don't get it. 

Tom Brown even made a comment like this yesterday. 

"I once heard what was presented as an old Russian joke (as told in Russia) that supposedly highlighted and poked fun at an aspect of the Russian character. It goes something like this:

"A genie in a bottle is released by a Russian peasant and she tells him that in gratitude to him she will grant him one wish, but that whatever he asks for, his neighbor will get the same thing, only double. The peasant man thinks for a bit and then proclaims "I wish for you to blind me in one eye."

"I wonder if that can be reworked to fit the current GOP base?"

 - See more at: http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-wall-st-journals-war-with.html?showComment=1440068080959#c6054707158996667409

But the GOP wants us to become more like Europe by making American citizenship about race, family, and genealogy. 

Again, Trump would do very well in Britain-to say nothing of Germany and France. His plan here is held as a joke. 

Yet, is it really a joke? A Talking Points Memo piece today reminds us that the Roberts Court did gut the Voting Rights Ac. 

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/birthright-citizenship-constitution

When Trump says 'No, I don't want to change the Constitution I just want my lawyers to look at it' you can''t help but laugh and I certainly was. But when you think about it what he's saying hangs together. 

He doesn't want to amend the Constitution, he just wants to reinterpret it. As GOP lawyers were able to gut the Voting Rights Act maybe they could gut the 14th amendment too. 

I would imagine that this would be a harder lift. Is the SJC going to authorize the authorities gong form door to door and deporting entire families?

Still remember often you don't have huge changes like this overnight. Rather it's usually a gain of inches. Maybe the lawyers go to court and are able to tweak the law a to being a little less airtight. 

Then in the future they push for more. Put this way Trump's talk of his lawyers looking at it doesn't sound so crazy after all.