Donald Trump’s dishonest question to African American voters considering who to vote for this November—“What have you got to lose?”—by voting for him over Hillary has now hit a responsive chord. Not among African Americans who know instinctively that Trump’s election would imperil the social safety net that makes life survivable for inner city people and families.
But with President Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico, enmired at 21 percent in the polls in his own country (compare to 50 percent plus for President Obama) because of political, police, drug, and personal scandals worthy of a Richard Rodriguez or Quentin Tarantino movie.
Apparently, Nieto decided he could not do any worse by making himself the stooge and Quisling of Despicable Donald, who had laced his earlier primary campaign announcement with the warning that: make no mistake about it, Mexico is our enemy.
One can only speculate about what other payoff—30 pieces of silver? a billion pesos? a billion dollars?—Nieto should have gotten for giving Trump such a pseudo-respectable stage of international legitimacy in Mexico City on the eve of Trump's latest scheduled anti-immigration speech back in Arizona.
The results for Trump’s campaign—thrilling his core supporters, despite their hatred of all things Mexican—and for normally Republican voters looking for a reason to hold their noses and vote for The Donald—are likely to be incalculable, even though he’s not likely to win over more than a relative handful of Mexican American voters with memories of being equated with rapists and murderers.
Towering over Nieto in height and political theatrics, Trump has scored a master stroke. Perennially unpopular Hillary should be very worried that the American electorate may reject her in favor of pursuing the road to perdition in a stunning November upset.
Let’s hope that Trump’s ineptitude and turpitude will still save her bacon.
