Some perceptive observers have looked at Donald Trump’s history, and questioned his commitment to the Republican Party. He has been a Democrat and an Independent; he is friendly with the Clintons, and he once considered a third party run for President.

Odd bird that he is, The Donald has perched in the Grand Old Party. and he is gathering a big nest of committed followers, with his call for mass deportation and registering Muslim Americans.

Donald Trump’s call for mass deportation of illegal immigrants and their families envisions a massive government program – he is not satisfied with Mitt Romney’s reliance on the initiative of individuals to self-deport.

The harshness of his rhetoric has drawn condemnation, but building a campaign on fear of immigrants and hostility toward Mexicans is not a new idea for Republicans. Pete Wilson was re-elected Governor of California in 1994 with TV ads that showed Mexicans crossing the border, with a voice-over that said “They just keep coming.”

Nobody talks about Pete Wilson anymore. Few people talk about the California Republican Party, no longer competitive in America’s largest state.

Donald Trump has floated the idea of registering Muslims in a government database. To be fair, he has not committed to the idea. This idea is not new either, but the antecedents are in Europe, not America. Pick your abstraction – government registration of non-Christians, or government registration of Semites – Arabs are, as are Jews. The idea is repulsive, an inheritance from its ugly forebears.

Recently Mr Trump has proposed a temporary ban on Muslims immigrating to America. The idea of a religious test for immigrants has been condemned by Speaker Paul Ryan, Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu, and others. Obviously unenforceable, it would seem to go against the Constitution’s ban on religious tests.

Such an idea has never been implemented as government policy, but in the 1890s Republican orators raged against “Rum, Romanism and Rebellion” as they sought votes from native born Protestants. When Republicans denounced “Papism” it was not aimed at all Catholics, but at the hordes of Irish who came to the country in the post Civil War period. Other Catholics were welcomed into the Republican Party, including Italian Americans in New York City and wealthy Catholics along the eastern seaboard.

With his recent willingness to entertain the idea of internment camps for Muslims, Donald Trump invokes the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt. At the beginning of World War II, President Roosevelt ordered the internment of Japanese residents – many prohibitied from citizenship by the 1923 immigration law and earlier “oriental exclusion” acts – because of fears that they owed loyalty to the Emperor of Japan. This act by a Democrat President was supported by California’s Republican Governor, Earl Warren, but has since been repudiated by a bipartisan majority in Congress, which voted reparations to decendents of the Nisei.

Donald Trump’s proposals to create a totalitarian state to deal with the threat of terrorism, or of people crossing the border to seek paid work, have driven up his poll numbers. Currently, as of mid-December, Trump is polling at 35% of Republican voters. Conservative voters who truly believe in limited government, and Republicans who remember that Ronald Reagan welcomed immigrants and favored peace and trade with the Middle East will need to look to other alternatives in November of 2016.

Dear Friends,

When I completed my second term as Governor of New Mexico in 2003, I was done.

I had been elected Governor when everyone said I didn’t have a chance. A businessman who had never sought or held elected office, running as a Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, my prospects for success were dismissed by Republicans and Democrats alike.

But I worked hard, financed my own campaign, and told New Mexicans what I would do if elected: Reduce the size of the government, cut taxes and apply business-like common sense to the job of governing. They elected me, I did what I said I would do, and they re-elected me by an even bigger margin. After that second term, I walked away to resume what was — and is — a pretty good life.

I have had the good fortune to have climbed the highest mountain on all of the seven continents, got to build my dream home, and enjoyed the freedom I had gained from building a successful business from scratch, making some money, and creating the lifestyle I wanted.

As for being Governor, I did a good job — good government was easy. I worked hard. I did what I said I would do. I told people the truth, and I tried to run the state the same way I ran my business, and my life. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. Deliver what you can on time and under budget. And most of all, don’t waste anyone’s time or money. I vetoed bills we didn’t need nor couldn’t afford, 750 of them. To this day, some call me “Governor Veto”.

I cut the growth of government in half, and reduced the number of state employees by more than 1,000, without any mass firings or layoffs. All it took was good management and a willingness to challenge the status quo. We cut taxes. We shifted Medicaid to a managed care system — similar to the health coverage for state employees — and cut costs by at least 20%. I scrutinized regulations to be sure they were both essential and not unnecessarily burdensome for individuals and businesses.

Full statement by former Governor Gary Johnson @ http://www.livefreeblog.com/why_i_would_run_for_president?recruiter_id=2