As the dust settled over an intense Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee on Tuesday night, the instant verdict of the mainstream media was that the unexpected rise of the political outsider – in particular Donald Trump – had finally begun to come unstuck.



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Commentators noted that it was by far the most substantive debate in the series, with the two former governors Jeb Bush and John Kasich, who represent the establishment wing of the party, using the greater focus on detail to present a dramatically contrasting view on immigration to Trump’s vision of building a wall and ejecting 11 million undocumented immigrants. On foreign policy, both Trump and his immediate rival, the neurosurgeon Ben Carson, looked blustery.

But that’s not how conservative pundits saw it. In the rarified world of the conservative media, a very different account of the event was being written – one in which Trump sealed his leading status by being unbending on immigration, while Bush and Kasich, far from making a tentative comeback, dug their own presidential graves.

Michelle Malkin, a star of the conservative blogosphere, summed up the strident mood on Twitter when she portrayed Kasich and Bush “bending over backwards on behalf of Obama’s illegal ‘Dreamers’” – immigrants who were brought to the US as children.

Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) Look at this: Kasich & Jeb jockeying to bend over backwards on behalf of Obama's illegal "DREAMers" while snubbing US workers. #gopdebate

Malkin’s scorecard of the night was equally stark:

Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) Shorter #gopdebate - Trump: Eff China. Cruz: Eff cronyism. Paul: Eff the Fed. Bush: I'm F**ked. #JebCantFixIt

The similarly spikey and populist rightwing pundit Ann Coulter also vented her opinions of the debate. Trump and Texas senator Ted Cruz had won the night by going out hard on immigration, she said.

Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) Cruz is smart. He knows which side of the immigration debate is a winner. NO ONE ELSE WILL STEAL TRUMP'S WINNING ISSUE. Donors don't like it

Trump’s wobbly grasp of foreign policy, notably his contentious remark that “if Putin wants to knock the hell out of Isis, I’m all for it” did not appear to concern Coulter.

Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) Trump on Iraq: "We should have kept the oil." GO TRUMP!

Charles Hurt in the Washington Times went as far as to predict that Bush and Kasich, by opposing Trump’s extreme stance on immigration, had sealed their fate.

“Not only does Mr Bush not belong in the White House or the Republican Party, he should just be deported. Perhaps to Mexico, where he might be happier and find greater success in politics,” Hurt wrote, before going on to capture the anger within the Republican base that Trump is harvesting. “These people really have no clue how desperately frustrated and estranged American voters in both parties are over this issue of rampant illegal immigration and Washington’s absolute refusal to take simple, common sense measures to fix the problem.”

Glenn Beck, a former Fox News star who went on to found the rightwing radio network and website the Blaze, sounded a similar note. Kasich was the “epic loser” of the night, and as for Bush, he “looked 2001 and desperate. The cheap typical ‘vet sitting next to my wife’ close made me think he was GHWB [his father George Herbert Walker Bush]!”

Comments such as these could be seen as the vibrant musings of a political fringe. But they matter, for two mutually supportive reasons.

First, they tend to reflect opinions shared by a large portion of the more committed conservatives who tend to turn out to vote in Republican primary elections. Second, these commentators work for media outlets that those same committed voters trust and read, which provides a political feedback loop in which views are reinforced and hardened.

The result could be seen on the hugely influential Drudge Report on Wednesday morning, which prominently displayed at the top of the page its overnight straw poll of its readers. Who was top of the pile of the debate’s winners? Trump with 37% and 90,000 votes (not a bad sample size for an opinion survey). Bush was bottom with 1% and 3,000 votes.

The debate on immigration that erupted on the stage of Milwaukee Theater revealed deep fissures within the Republican party. Kasich, the governor of Ohio, tussled with Trump over his contentious immigration proposal to build a wall along the Mexican border and deport the roughly 11 million people living in the US illegally.

“Think about the families,” Kasich said. “Think about the children. Come on, folks, we know you can’t pick them up and ship them across the border. It’s a silly argument. It’s not an adult argument.”

Trump dismissed Kasich’s emotional appeal. “You don’t get nicer,” he said. “You don’t get friendlier.”

After more back and forth, Bush interjected to say that mass deportation was simply “not possible” and would drive Latinos to vote for the Democrats.

“Even having this conversation sends a powerful signal,” Bush said. “They’re doing high-fives in the Clinton campaign right now when they hear this.”

Florida senator Marco Rubio said he disagreed with this in an interview with NPR on Wednesday. Rubio, who sidestepped the immigration issue entirely during the debate, said: “I don’t agree with that analysis of it. It’s not that we’re against immigrants. We favor legal immigration, but there’s got to be a process by which people come here.”

He added: “As a sovereign country, we have a right to control who comes, when they come and how they come, and it’s especially fair to the people who are trying to come legally.”

One of the points raised by more mainstream TV and press outlets (which the conservative media consider liberal) was that both Trump and Carson displayed their weaknesses on complicated policy areas, particularly foreign affairs and the Middle East. But again, that did not appear to disturb several prominent rightwing commentators.



In an analysis on the Townhall conservative website, Guy Benson concluded that even though their vulnerabilities were on display on Tuesday night, for Trump’s and Carson’s supporters it really didn’t matter. He wrote:

Sure, both Carson and Trump veered into unresponsive, barely-decipherable pablum on a number of occasions. Ben Carson’s answer on Syria and Iraq was especially memorable in that regard. But again, their answers and preparedness on policy seem to matter less to their supporters than what they represent and the feelings they inspire. That dynamic remains intact.

Additional reporting by Sabrina Siddiqui