When Donald Trump calls you out for racially insensitive comments, you have a problem – and Jeb Bush has a problem.
The former Florida Governor went down the rabbit hole and continued to defend using the term “anchor babies” (although he says he’d rather not use the term himself), before trying to change the subject…and it ended up like this (CNN).
“This is ludicrous for the Clinton campaign and others to suggest that somehow I’m using a derogatory term,” he said, adding, “Frankly it’s more related to Asian people coming into our country, having children, in that organized efforts, taking advantage of a noble concept.”
You read that right – “Asian people.” Trump was playing the surprise race card dealt to him within hours (CNN). Later, Bush’s staff tried to explain that their guy was really complaining about “birth tourism.” Here’s why that’s laughable, weak, and arguably making things worse.
“Birth tourism” is largely centered on mothers in Communist China hoping to give birth to American citizens, and for a variety of reasons, all of them involving the Chinese Communist Party. In some cases, the choice is between an American birth or a local death, thanks to the hideous “one child” policy (CNN) which can mean a second child is murdered by the regime on or before delivery day. Other reasons involve benefits in Communist China – not here.
It is true that Chinese mothers of American infant/toddler citizens are hoping it will make emigration easier, this is Communist China they are hoping to escape, a place where the regime persecutes Christians, waged war on free speech, including cyberspeech, and still insists everything is hunky-dory at Tianjin these days, despite…well despite this (Daily Mirror, UK).
So, just to sum up, Jeb Bush thinks we should discourage people from escaping Communist China. If only that were all the damage he did. However, since Bush insisted that “anchor babies” were an “Asian people” problem, he added to his slap in the face to Chinese escapees a smear against every other East Asian nationality that had nothing to do with this.
Finally, that leads to the political damage this will do. Lest anyone forget, Asian-Americans were the biggest movers to the Republican Party in 2014 – but don’t count on that movement to continue if Bush ends up the nominee.
One of my colleagues here is convinced that the Republican nominee will be either Bush or Trump. I hope he’s wrong, not just because I prefer Marco Rubio, but also because based on the above. If our only choices as Republicans are insulting Mexican-Americans and insulting Asian-Americans (while telling those suffering in a Communist dictatorship to buzz off), we are screwed.
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