In August, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) published a report documenting a startling increase in immigration over the past year.  The study indicated that America’s immigrant population had grown by 1.7 million and that 44 percent of the new immigrants were from Mexico, with illegal immigration increasing during a “protracted period of legal immigration expansion.”  The CIS estimated that there are currently 42.1 million immigrants in the United States, or 13.3 percent of the population, the largest share in 105 years.  Eight out of ten of them are from the dysfunctional states of Latin America, their numbers boosted by a massive surge of illegal immigration from Mexico.

It’s against this background that the Trump campaign released what can only be described as a revolutionary policy paper on immigration.  The Trump immigration platform unapologetically stated that “A nation without borders is not a nation . . . A nation without laws is not a nation . . . A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation,” and went on to slam the Mexican government for “taking advantage” of the United States by “exporting crime and poverty,” while pledging to force Mexico City (by threatening to “impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages”) to pay for a wall at the southern border.  The paper included pledges to triple Immigration and Customs Enforcement and removal operations (funded by eliminating tax-credit payments to illegal aliens); implement the E-Verify system (for employment checks); force the mandatory return of criminal aliens; end the notorious “catch and release” approach to illegals already in the United States; defund “sanctuary cities” that protect illegal aliens; and eliminate one particularly strong magnet for illegal immigration: “birthright citizenship.”  In a section called “immigration moderation,” the paper also supported lowering legal immigration levels, a critical issue that has largely been ignored in mainstream politics.

Meanwhile, Trump flatly told NBC’s Chuck Todd that illegal aliens “have to go” (“We either have a country, or we don’t have a country”), while Breitbart’s Julia Hahn reported that Trump was consulting with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) on his immigration policy, indicating that the real-estate mogul is serious about this issue and smart enough to go to the leading immigration patriot in Congress for help.  Hahn went on to make the crucial connection between immigration policy and America’s industrial decline:

Donald Trump has long been a conservative favorite for his tough stance on immigration and trade and his message that we need to bring jobs back to the United States of America and put the needs of the American people first.  A continued emphasis on this message and consultation with Sen. Sessions will send a resounding signal to millions of blue collar American voters across the country that a vote for Trump may be their best chance at regaining control over their collapsing economic futures.

Trump has indicated that the United States can no longer be a global Robocop.  Commenting on Washington’s role in the Ukraine crisis, for instance, Trump wondered why America was “leading the charge” while Germany was “sitting back,” purchasing Russian oil and gas.  Trump commented that “I’m not a fan of us being against Russia,” and that he would “get along very well with Putin.”  Regarding the Iran nuclear deal, Trump has distinguished himself from most other Republican candidates by stating that he would not “rip up” the agreement, should he be elected president.  In saying only that he would strictly “police” the “bad contract,” Trump has signaled that he is not a member of the War Party.  His very sensible position is that Americans have problems of their own to deal with.

Trump is doing a job other Republican presidential candidates won’t do: connecting the dots between the interrelated issues of mass immigration, trade (and America’s deindustrialization), and foreign policy.  His immigration policy positions tell us what Trump’s sentiments likely are: that America is a real country, with real interests, and not a mere ideological proposition.  No other candidate who has been portrayed as an “immigration hawk” has made those vitally important connections.  Trump is changing the language and style of the campaign, forcing other candidates to deal with issues many of them would rather not deal with in a refreshingly blunt manner.

Naturally, the Republican establishment is apoplectic.  Neutered Beltway conservatives have attacked Trump in a way that tells us what they really think about ordinary Americans, particularly the working-class Americans they have long betrayed and abandoned.  George Will, for instance, sniffed that “In every town large enough to have two traffic lights there is a bar at the back of which sits the local Donald Trump, nursing his fifth beer and innumerable delusions.”  The bow-tied avatar of movement conservatism wailed that Trump was an “affront” to the ghost of William F. Buckley, Jr., who had made conservatism “intellectually respectable and politically palatable.”  Will crooked his pinky at Trump, calling him “vulgar.”  Yet Will ignores the plain truth that this country has sunk into a fever swamp of crassness, demoralization, and decline while “respectable” conservatives have been quite content to lose on vitally important issues, so long as their Washington sinecures were maintained.

If it takes a patriotic reality TV star to crash the party, then so be it.

Crashing the Washington party may be the greatest service Donald Trump can perform for his country.  The powers that be will do all they can to destroy his candidacy, but Trump could create an opening, paving the way for the rise of a new, genuinely patriotic party, either by breaking the tight grip of the donor class and its minions on the Republican apparatus, or by founding a third party that could displace the Republicans.  The hour is late.  There is little time for the methodical building of a new movement; a head-on assault is warranted.  Trump can build on a base of disaffected Republicans, attracting Reagan Democrats to form the basis of what Sam Francis called the “Middle American revolution.”  It may not be Trump who finishes the job, but if it doesn’t begin now, then it may never happen.  Two terms of President Obama, deepening economic decline, the collapse of the southern border, and the events of this past summer (the Obergefell Supreme Court decision, the attack on traditional American symbols, the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, all accomplished with the help of “respectable” Republicans) may have given us one more chance.  It’s not one we can afford to pass up.