Book Review: Adios, America

While at times hard to read, Ann Coulter's 2015 bestseller Adios, America! is a powerful and thoroughly researched look at the immigration issue in America from a hardline position. Ann is in many ways the embodiment of Campaign Trump, not to be confused with President Trump. She daily posts a mocking tweet on the lack of progress on the border wall:

Today's BORDER WALL CONSTRUCTION UPDATE: Miles completed yesterday-Zero; Miles completed since Inauguration-- Zero. NEXT UPDATE TOMORROW.

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 24, 2018

No one is going to be confused as to where she stands on the question of immigration but even if you don't agree with her, her research ought to give you pause.

Ann Coulter does her level best to make herself someone you dislike and someone you dislike is someone that is easy to ignore. She is sarcastic almost to a fault, said as someone who is pretty sarcastic, and sometimes says things that are so acerbic as to make even a hardened reader cringe. It is her schitick and I get it but it also means that it can be easy to not take her seriously. This book, even with the over-the-top title and subtitle ("The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole") absolutely demands to be taken seriously because the topic it covers is so very important.

The number one problem with this book is that it came out in June of 2015. It came out before Trump announced and therefore it looked for all the world like the Republican nominee was going to be just another empty suit, pro-amnesty at the bidding of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce GOP-bot. Things have changed in this country since 2016 but there is still a lot of concern that mirrors what Ann is writing about.

For Coulter in this book, immigration is everything and she rightly recognizes an inconvenient truth: Democrats only care about immigration for one reason....

The reason Democrats support immigration is because of how they vote.

Coulter, Ann. Adios, America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole (Kindle Locations 174-175). Regnery Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Democrats only care about the children of lawbreakers when it will get them 30 million new voters. Convicted felons are next.

Coulter, Ann. Adios, America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole (Kindle Locations 187-188). Regnery Publishing. Kindle Edition.

That is the core of the immigration debate from legal immigrants to illegal aliens to amnesty for "Dreamers". It is all about electoral math. Democrats have abandoned the White vote and are relying mostly on minorities and immigrants to propel them to victory in the future. The GOP doesn't seem to get this but for Coulter every single other issue is secondary to immigration because once there are sufficient "new Americans" to reliably vote Democrat, states like Texas and Florida will become like California and never vote Republican again. That means no tax reform, no protection of 2nd Amendment rights, no conservative justices, no restrictions on abortion or the demands of the militant homosexual movement, no restraint on spending or the welfare state or job killing bureaucratic regulations. Lose on the immigration issue and you lose everything....

What happens with immigration will determine whether America continues to exist or becomes a Third World republic that will never elect another Republican—in other words, “California.” It’s more important than gun rights, right to life, taxes, or Iran’s nuclear program—or whatever other issue you care to cite, because immigration will decide all issues, once and for all, in favor of the Democrats.

Coulter, Ann. Adios, America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole (Kindle Locations 4711-4715). Regnery Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

It does seem a little callous to reduce people to electoral math but that is the reality of the immigration debate.

From liberal activists seeking new voters to rich Republicans that want cheap lawn care and nannies, there is a powerful cabal of people that want virtually limitless immigration. The Left needs new voters and the wealthy aren't impacted by mass immigration so we see what should be a weird alliance between Republican elites and far left loons. Left out of the equation are regular working Americans, especially minorities and low income workers that are displaced by an endless flow of workers that will do the same job for less and that turn around and send their wages out of the country, a massive outflow of at least $20 billion a year that in turn enriches the wealthiest in Mexico, like Carlos Slim, who in turn are incredibly influential over U.S. media sources like the New York Times. It seems odd but the only people that seem to care about the displaced workers in America are people like Ann Coulter. While "conservatives" like Bill Kristol casually advocate for the wholesale replacement of the current American workforce, people like Ann are not willing to go down without a fight. Perhaps it will be in vain, it probably will be, but at least some of us are trying and Ann, for all of her sometimes unpleasant rhetoric, is one of them.

Not looking good for Mitt

Despite the sniffing and hand-wringing by National Review and Rush Limbaugh (is he still on the air?), it is not looking good for Mitt Romney with Super Tuesday three days away... According to the latest Real Clear Politics polls, Romney is not ahead in any of the Super Tuesday states. If he gets swept in every state on Super Tuesday (except his home state of Massachusetts ), where does he go from there? I guess he can keep pouring his seemingly endless personal fortune into a failed campaign, but after all he touts himself as being a businessman so he must come to the point where he realizes it ain't gonna happen and drops out.

Huckabee is also looking like he is at the end of the line, but at least he still has a shot to be on the ticket. His support through Tuesday from social conservatives will sink Mitt in the South.

Adding to the fun is this insane comment from formerly relevant, alleged conservative Ann Coulter saying she would both vote and campaign for Hillary Clinton if John McCain is the nominee....



Huh. So all of a sudden, opposition to torturing people is a leftist position. Last time I checked, John McCain knows a little more about torture than Ann Coulter, inflicted on him while doing more to defend freedom than Coulter has even dreamed about.

Coulter weighs in on Huckabee

Ann Coulter used to be somewhat amusing, but like Hannity and O'Reilly she has become such a caricature that she no longer speaks with any semblance of authority or accuracy. Coulter, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, all are primarily entertainers. As long as they recognize that, as Limbaugh always has, they are fine. Where they get in trouble is when they start to forget their role and take themselves too seriously. Coulter is mostly given notice because she is intentionally bombastic and abrasive, and just as much because she is modestly attractive. Her rant in Human Events against Mike Huckabee is both rude and ignorant.

Coulter starts off with this doozie and it goes downhill from there:

As far as I can tell, it's mostly secular liberals swooning over Huckabee. Liberals adore Huckabee because he fits their image of what an evangelical should be: stupid and easily led.

I know quite a few people who either actively support or are seriously considering Huckabee, not a one them is a "secular liberal". I would imagine that one would be hard pressed for Ms. Coulter to drop me into the "secular liberal" category as well, especially given Ms. Coulter's juvenile religious convictions (see for example her summary of her Christian beliefs in a Townhall Column: People are sinful and need to be redeemed, and this is your lucky day because I'm here to redeem you even though you don't deserve it, and I have to get the crap kicked out of me to do it. Who needs Calvin and Luther when you have a theologian like that!). If calling a candidate "stupid" and questioning his ability to read is the best argument that Coulter can come up with, it certainly speaks volumes more about her than Huckabee. Then there was this gem:

Asked on CNN's "Larry King Live" Monday night about his beliefs on evolution, Huckabee rushed to assure King that he has no interest in altering textbooks that foist this fraud on innocent schoolchildren. I don't understand that. Does Huckabee believe Darwinism is a hoax or not? If he knows it's a fraud, then why does he want it taught to schoolchildren? What other discredited mystery religions -- as mathematician David Berlinski calls Darwinism -- does Huckabee want to teach children? Sorcery? Phrenology? Alchemy?

So what exactly did Huckabee say on Larry King Live? An outright renouncement of creationism? A Richard Dawkins-esque defense of evolution? Not quite. This is from the transcript of the show:

KING: You've said that you do not believe in evolution. That being a given, how would you deal with the teaching of it in the classroom?

HUCKABEE: The same way I did as a parent, the same way I did as a governor. I don't get into that. I'm not a science teacher. I don't write the curriculum for the science books.My kids, Larry, went to the public schools of Arkansas. I was the first governor in 50 years whose kids had all of their first through 12th grade education in the Arkansas public schools.So, you know, when people say oh, what is he going to do to the textbooks -- well, if I was going to do it, I would have done it when I was governor. Presidents have nothing to do with the curriculum of education.

That was the basis for claiming that Huckabee abandoned creationism on Larry King Live?

Are there any candidates who are proposing teaching creationism in public school textbooks? Is that even a topic of discussion for Presidential candidates? Next we have this inane comment:

When not evolving his position on Darwinism, Huckabee insults gays by pointlessly citing the Bible's rather pointed remarks about sodomy -- fitting the MSM's image of evangelicals sitting around all day denouncing gays. (Which is just so unfair. I'm usually done denouncing gays by 10:30 a.m., 11 tops.) And yet, Huckabee has said he agrees with the Supreme Court's lunatic opinion that sodomy is a constitutional right.

So let me get this straight. Coulter unequivocally claims that Huckabee says that sodomy is a Constitutional right because he said that Lawrence v. Texas was ""probably was appropriate." From that Coulter suggests that Huckabee is "pro-sodomy" and a friend of gay marriage. That makes as much sense as saying that Coulter's penchant for wearing tiny dresses and stiletto heels means she is in favor of legalizing prostitution. (Was that a cheap shot? Yep, but no less so that Coulter's entire editorial)

Is it really the top priority of the United States to enforce sodomy laws? Is doing so a sure path to legalizing gay marriage? Hardly. I think that Lawrence v. Texas was poorly decided, but it is hardly a make or break issue and not frothing at the mouth about it is certainly not tacit approval of gay marriage. Huckabee is a strong proponent of traditional marriage, and his marriage position page on the web backs this up:

- I support and have consistently supported passage of a federal constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
- As Governor of Arkansas, I led the successful effort to pass a similar state constitutional amendment in 2002.
- As Governor of Arkansas, I led the successful effort to make our state only the third to adopt "covenant" marriage.
- Our true strength comes from our families.

It may bear noting that Mike and Janet Huckabee got married in 1974 and have been married for the last 33 years. Coulter has been engaged several times but never married, which hardly makes her a authority on marriage. Again, a cheap shot but I am trying to stay in the spirit that Coulter enjoys.

She ends her hit piece with this:

I guess Huckabee is one of those pro-sodomy, pro-gay marriage, pro-evolution evangelical Christians.

Perhaps the most banal argument is to call Republicans "liberal" when they clearly are not. It lessens the real impact of what being liberal means when it becomes a playground insult in the hands of Coulter. Ann should stick to attacking liberals on Fox News and leave serious discussions to others.