One policy paper . That was all it took for Donald Trump to neutralize the entire GOP field and practically guarantee a Republican loss at the polls in 2016. And despite the media's glee in covering his freak-show spectacle of a candidacy, the darker consequences of his self-serving campaign against Latinos began to emerge this week. Even if Republicans lose the general election, it could come at great human cost.

Last Sunday, Donald Trump floated his first policy proposal on immigration. Among other things, he would build a giant wall on the southern U.S. border, deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants (in addition to some U.S. citizens born to undocumented parents, he later added) and end birthright citizenship (that little constitutional clause saying anyone born on U.S. soil automatically becomes a citizen).

Immediately, right-wing bloviators extolled the virtues of the proposal, with Ann Coulter calling it "The greatest political document since the Magna Carta."

I don't care if @realDonaldTrump wants to perform abortions in White House after this immigration policy paper. http://t.co/... — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) August 16, 2015

That's some serious business from the right wing—forget about abortions, targeting brown people is far more important.

By Monday, Coulter and Rush Limbaugh began peppering their praise of Trump's proposal with the nativist term "anchor babies" when discussing his suggestion that we simply remove birthright citizenship from the 14th Amendment—the very clause that has made the U.S. one of the most singularly innovative countries on the planet. Limbaugh proclaimed gleefully:



"He would end the practice of granting US citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants. Bye-bye anchor babies."

It was all downhill from there. Trump had whipped the anti-immigrant GOP base into a frenzy and other Republicans wanted a piece of the action. Scott Walker told NBC's Kasie Hunt that he too supported ending birthright citizenship (though he tried to retract it later in the week). " Me too ," cried Rick Santorum, Rand Paul, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Lindsey Graham, and Bobby Jindal, like lemmings.

Trump began employing the wing-nut phrase "anchor babies" on Tuesday and by Wednesday, Jeb! Bush was using it too, spewing out some gibberish about how we needed "better enforcement" to prevent pregnant women from coming here and having kids who are then U.S. citizens.

For more on the downward spiral, head below the fold.