Donald Trump’s bombshell proposal to exclude Muslims from America has given Republicans an opening to attack him as never before, party insiders and strategists say.
The GOP establishment and even those outside the tradtional elite have for months craved a chance to pounce on him with real force. But they’ve been cautious because of his huge popularity and the judgment that his provocative campaign rhetoric is tapping into something real and powerful that they don’t want to alienate.
But his latest eye-popper policy appears to have given Republicans cover to unload on the real estate mogul and reality television star. That’s crucial, GOP strategists say, because broad criticism from the right has been the missing link in attempts to dethrone Trump.
“When he starts arguing to shred the Constitution, it gets easy for other conservatives to take him on. You saw that yesterday and today,” said Republican consultant Brad Todd, who until recently ran the super PAC supporting Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s since-aborted presidential bid. “The best thing that can happen is for him to go full fruitcake and get this show over with.”
This isn’t the first time Trump has boxed with other Republicans for something he has done or said. His description of illegal Mexican immigrants as rapists, his contention that Sen. John McCain isn’t a war hero and his shallow grasp of foreign and domestic affairs have all elicited jabs. But this is the first time that Trump has sparked wide condemnation from a combination of party leaders, his GOP primary opponents, and rank-and-file conservatives.
House Speaker Paul Ryan denounced Trump, saying he was making an exception to his rule against commenting on the 2016 Republican primary because of the severity of Trump’s proposal to institute a religious test for entry into the United States. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and the GOP chairmen in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the influential early primary states, also took the extraordinary step of censuring a leading contender for their party’s nomination.
“Freedom of religion is a fundamental constitutional principle. It’s a founding principle of this country,” Ryan, who represents Wisconsin’s 1st District and was the GOP’s vice presidential nominee in 2012, said during a news conference. “This is not conservatism. What was proposed yesterday is not what conservatism stands for. More importantly, it’s not what this country stands for.”
“We need to aggressively take on radical Islamic terrorism but not at the expense of our American values,” Priebus added, in an interview with the Washington Examiner. The Republican presidential contenders, including front-runners retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson; Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas; and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida all publicly disagreed with Trump’s proposal, Carson and Rubio in particularly stark and moral terms.
The risks Trump poses to the GOP’s brand are real, in a general election against presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. She served as Obama’s first secretary of state.
Before Trump unveiled his Muslim ban proposal, the news was dominated by Americans’ dissatisfaction with President Obama’s handling of the terrorist threat. That’s politically poignant coming in the wake of two deadly attacks on the West either orchestrated or inspired by the Islamic State that have left Americans feeling unsafe. The first occurred in Paris last month; the second, on Friday in San Bernardino, Calif., constituted the worst strike on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
That discussion, focused on national security and plainly beneficial to the Republican Party’s 2016 political prospects, has been overtaken by a national debate over Trump’s proposal to ban virtually all Muslims from entering the U.S. The dominant topic now is whether it is moral, Constitutional or consistent with American values to judge individuals soley on their religion. Democrats are using it to bludgeon the GOP broadly and distract from the Obama administration’s foreign policy.
The widespread criticism of Trump that resulted pleased Republican insiders and others opposed to his candidacy. Only conservatives and his primary opponents can defeat him, not the media or third party groups identified with the so-called Republican establishment, GOP operatives argue. But some are wary that this latest uproar will diminish his apparent political strength, particularly because it has the effect of blacking out media coverage of other candidates, other than to talk about him.
Less than 60 days before first votes are held in Iowa, Trump ranks second in the Examiner’s presidential power rankings and continues to pace the GOP field in most state and national polls.
“Every one of these Trump-gasms seems like it could be the one that hurts him and they all wind up helping him,” said one senior Republican operative, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly. “I’m not saying it will ultimately work. But the guy is not flippantly speaking. He is executing a sophisticated game plan. It’s like when the read option first came in the NFL. It had a shelf life but until other teams figured it out, it was really effective.”
Trump’s new policy proposal doesn’t appear impulsive. It was unveiled Monday and circulated by the Trump campaign via a prepared statement from the candidate that suggests American Muslims might also threaten the homeland. Since then, Trump has said in interviews that he would make an exception to his entry ban for Muslim leaders of foreign governments, American Muslims traveling abroad and those serving in the U.S. military.
The politics of the plan — and its constitutionality — aren’t the only parts of it under attack from the right.
Several conservative national security strategists have criticized it. They say that it plays into the hands of the Islamic State by creating a Muslims-vs.-the-West narrative that the radical terrorist group’s leaders promote; would make it harder for government intelligence agencies to establish the kind of relationships with Western Muslims that are needed in order to ferret out terrorist plots; and could damage U.S. relations with key majority Muslim allies.
“Trump’s overreaction erroneously assumes the problem of lone wolf terrorist attacks are with people coming from overseas and does nothing to find and stop the radicalized sleeper cells already living in the U.S.,” said Richard Grenell, who advises Republicans on foreign policy matters. “His plan also targets a religion, which is not only un-American, but will make Americans a greater target.”
