In a further embarrassment to Republican nominee Donald Trump, economists have voted Hillary Clinton as their favorite US presidential candidate. However, never before in an election have the leading candidates occupied the top two positions in the unpopularity charts.
Support for Hillary is 55%, and Trump does not even feature as the second choice. Trump, with his 14% support, was placed lower than Gary Johnson, the Libertarian presidential nominee, who was supported by 15%.
15% refused to have a clear opinion in a vote carried out among 414 members of the National Association for Business Economics, a body which seems to be relatively progressive, with only 9% advocating protectionist measures against the 65% who want an open market.
The huge unpopularity of Trump among businessmen is largely due to his disregard for trade deals like North American Free Trade Agreement, and his idea of deporting illegal immigrants, who provide not only cheap labor but also have enormous potential as a workforce.
Trump’s stance on illegal immigrants has always been a cause for concern especially among the people who are not white and working-class, and the possibility that his own wife Melania could have been an immigrant without a permit work modeling in the mid-1990s has stirred much passion.
An example would be Dallas pastor Mark Gonzales, who while having been listed as a part of Trump’s newly formed Hispanic Advisory Committee on the website of the Republican National Committee, refused to accept the role, citing his dissatisfaction with immigration policies that as of yet seem inadequate.
Gonzales is a powerful figure, being the founder of the Hispanic Action Network and the Hispanic Prayer Network, which has around 10,000 Hispanic evangelical churches under it. He was also the chairperson of the National Hispanic Advisory Council for Senator John McCain back in 2008.
Gonzales’ stance is not surprising, considering that nearly 80% of the community does not favor Trump, who has proposed building a wall across the Mexican border and deporting approximately 10 million undocumented immigrants currently supposed to be living in the country.
However, Miami’s Mario Bramnick, the Cuban-American pastor who is a chapter director for the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, is a part of the board, having accepted Trump’s invitation.
He thinks it is worthy of consideration that Trump did not mean that all Mexicans were rapacious and murderous by nature, and that Melania Trump was a legal immigrant.
This is not the first time that Trump has been on the receiving end of minority fire. Last year in November he had claimed to have won over 100 African-American pastors to his side, only to see some dozens turning up for the actual meeting. To add further insult to injury, one of the prominent pastors, Bishop Corletta Vaughn, endorsed Hillary in January.
The idea that he can win over the people by trying to draw in the religious heads of communities that have been traditionally considered as ‘backward’ in the country is interesting to note.
The modus operandi of Trump is playing on stereotypes, something he does with impunity when it comes to the traditionally marginalized segments of the American society.
Only recently in Michigan, he told an audience almost full of whites that the black voters are very poor and do not have good schools, and that he could do something for the community which the Democrats had been not able to. He further stated that by 2020, 95% of black voters would be behind him.
This is something, coming from a man who only recently was criticized for being lazy about distancing himself from Klu Klux Klan advocates who had shown their support for him. And for a man who not surprisingly has only 2% support from the black community.
As many media analysts said, Trump seems to have hit a new low with his patronizing, condescending attitude towards a community he considers being full of underdeveloped beings. Hillary Clinton has called him out on the ignorance lacing his statements.