This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
CHICAGO • After flipping and flopping on the topic of immigration, perhaps Donald Trump has learned this lesson: His fans are not thirsting for a more humane, welcoming Republican candidate.
Trump's supporters like him when he is at his most bigoted and most xenophobic. They adore his finger-pointing rants. And they love him specifically because he called Mexicans "rapists" and "murderers" — normalizing open hostility toward all immigrants, legal or not. They sure don't want Trump backing off of his signature issue and striking a softer tone when it comes to illegal immigration.
Since the beginning, Trump has been peddling a border wall, a "deportation force" to remove unlawfully present immigrants from the country and a push to strip their U.S.-born children of citizenship. Trump's strongest supporters have lapped it up.
No surprise then that there was an immediate backlash from his disciples when Trump made a distinction between illegal immigrants who are violent criminals and those who are not "the bad ones." These, Trump told Fox News, will have to pay back taxes in order to stay in the U.S. "There's no amnesty," he said, "but we will work with them."
What, really, is the point here? What possible upside is Team Trump imagining by this so-called "pivot"?
Maybe there are a few Republicans who, previously turned off by his hard-line stances on illegal immigration, might now be willing to stand by the party's nominee. But compared with the outcry of those who are horrified by Trump's change in tone, it hardly seems worth it.
Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate turned conservative reality-TV star, told The Wall Street Journal: "If Mr. Trump were to go down a path of wishy-washy positions taken on things that the core foundation of his support has so appreciated, and that is respecting our Constitution and respecting law and order in America, then yeah, there would be massive disappointment. ... Parts of that message we heard in the last week are clearly not consistent with the stringent position and message that supporters have received all along."
Ann Coulter, the conservative critic and author of a new book "In Trump We Trust," was as infuriated as anyone trying to sell a book about a particular politician's stance on immigration — after he pulls a 180.
"I am trying to encourage Donald Trump to dump whomever the moron is who told him Americans are staying up at night worried about how people who broke our laws entering, broke our laws staying here, broke our laws taking jobs, how comfortable they are," Coulter told ABC News. "We have to take care of Americans first. And that's what [Trump] should be saying, not going back and saying one thing in his speech and then using the crazy Gang of Eight [the senators who supported an immigration bill in 2013] nonsense when he's talking to [Fox News host Sean] Hannity."
It has been implied — by both Trump and others — that this putative change of heart is at least in part due to highly publicized meetings with his "Hispanic Advisory Council," which was called "game-changing" by Helen Aguirre Ferre, the Republican National Committee's director of Hispanic communications. After this meeting, Trump told a crowd in Tampa, Florida, "I am going to fight to give every Hispanic citizen in this country a better future."
But it is simply inconceivable that this superficial change in tone could succeed in winning over Latinos — both newly arrived immigrants and those who were born in this country and have been here for at least half a century — who have felt the sting of this election season's normalization of bigotry and nativism.
Trump has sold his most fervent supporters a bill of goods that includes a very specific pledge to "make America great again" by doing all he can to get rid of "Mexicans," which he seems to think all Latinos are, and Muslims.
Those of us who actually are Mexican or Muslim — or merely look like we are — have heard this promise loud and clear. Trump has dragged us through the mud for over a year before this sudden "pivot" toward not sounding like his presidency's first 100 days would be devoted to rounding us up and making us disappear. We aren't going to forget his slurs against us.
Trump can "soften" his tone, but the great majority of Hispanics and other minorities whom he has vilified aren't going to buy it — and neither are those who love Trump when he's spreading hatred.
Twitter, @estherjcepeda