Question: Just exactly whom does our government represent?
The headline
from Investor’s Business Daily on their own
poll uses the word “shock” – “Shock Poll: 59% Back Trump On Deportation of
Illegals.” But as Jared Peterson wrote on these pages yesterday, for
the last two years, Rasmussen polling has demonstrated a huge gap between the
overwhelming majority of Americans and the political establishment of the GOP
on immigration policy. The
IBD polling, which mentions mandatory deportation, reinforces this stunning
disconnect between politicians and the people they supposedly serve, a chasm
that Donald Trump has spotted and used to his huge advantage. IBD
editorializes:
The latest IBD/TIPP Poll asked 913 adults coast to coast if they
"support or oppose mandatory deportation of illegal immigrants in the
U.S." Not surprisingly, 87% of Trump supporters back the proposal.
What's surprising is that 59% of the overall public does as
well. Mandatory deportation gets majority support in all age groups except
18-24, every income group, among both women and men, at every level of
educational achievement, and in rural, urban and suburban regions.
More interesting still is the fact that 64% of independents and
55% of moderates support deportation.
Even among Hispanics, the poll found 40% backed mandatory
deportation — although the sample size is too small to make much of that number.