The most revealing moment in the Fox News Republican presidential debate last night was when Donald Trump reacted to loaded questions and oppositional comments about his provocative statements regarding illegal immigration. For a moment the New York real estate mogul looked as if he might actually be feeling some slight quiver of defensiveness over his suggestion that Mexico was fostering this flow of its citizens to America in order to get rid of some of its most undesirable people. Clearly, he didn’t have an answer when Fox’s Chris Wallace asked him to back up his allegation with some hard evidence.

But then the scowl left his face and he declared in a tone of defiance and triumph: “We wouldn’t be talking about this if it weren’t for me."

This reflected more than just Trump’s absolute conviction that he is utterly correct in everything he thinks or says. The fact is, Trump had inserted the immigration issue into the campaign in a way that most Republicans have been trying to avoid. In doing so, he touched a nerve in the American body politic and forced the issue onto the stage.

That Trump recovery—and the reminder that he has been driving the intraparty debate since he entered the race—illustrate the central reality of the Republican campaign so far, and probably will continue to do so well into the battles to come. It is that this campaign is being conducted against a backdrop of seething voter anger and frustration the like of which we have not seen for a long time. This kind of civic passion, when it emerges, inevitably gets directed against the political class in Washington.


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Standing in the Way of Big Goverment is Not Standing in the Way of Progress