Lately on Bret Baier's Special Report (FoxNews) panelist Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist has been talking about the conflict within the GOP between the donor class of uber-wealthy and Trump's base. What is that conflict?
The wealthy donor class love free trade and lots of cheap illegal immigrant labor to nanny their kids, mow their lawns, and clean their pools and houses. Trump's base can't afford to hire illegals (or anybody else), perforce they do their own menial tasks, and hate seeing their jobs being shipped overseas or taken over by cheap illegal immigrant labor. Free trade and open borders hurt them.
Trump can ignore the donor class, he's got his own wealth and isn't reliant on their donations. Such is not the case for most GOP elected officials, they rely on political contributions and PAC-funded hit pieces on their opponents and plugs for issues they've espoused.
Most Trump voters have zero intention of making political donations, keeping a little slack in their credit cards is probably the best they can manage. It isn't clear if they realize the bind this puts GOP House members and the like in - the money guys want one thing, the voters want the opposite thing, and office seekers need to keep both happy. It explains why legislators get nothing done about immigration, whatever they might do will irritate one of their two key constituencies.
So Hemingway is correct, the conflict is real. If you thought I could pull a magic answer to this dilemma out of thin air, my apologies - I cannot.
