From the Washington Post:

The ‘race realist’ theory of how Trump can win, explained

By David Weigel August 22 at 3:32 PM

In the days since he added Breitbart News chief executive Stephen K. Bannon to his campaign, Donald Trump has made a considered pitch to black voters, and held a meeting with around two dozen Latino leaders from politics, business and faith where he reportedly hinted that his immigration policy could be tapered.

None of that has rattled Trump’s fans on the “alternative right,” or among “race realists.” In a speech at American Renaissance’s annual conference this year, VDare editor Peter Brimelow said outright that the movement could not simply trust Trump on anything but the construction of a border wall — “he does love to build things.”

In this wing of the conservative movement, Trump is seen as a frustrating messenger who is nonetheless more aware of the problems facing civilization than anyone else in politics. …

The alt-right, in other words, is constantly focusing on the trees and not the forest. And their theory of how 2016 can be won, or how the Republican Party could save itself, is that a supermajority of white voters can be moved by the Democrats’ support of mass legalization of immigrants and greater Syrian refugee acceptance.

“The single biggest issue of the 21st century is whether the First World has the will to resist being inundated by the Third World,” said Steve Sailer, an influential writer for VDare and Taki’s Magazine. “If we do preserve our borders, the Third World will figure out how to control its own fertility like everybody else has. If we don’t, though, we’ll become Rio with worse weather and scenery. But [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel’s [mistake] last year of letting in a million Muslim mob shows how badly the ideology of borderlessness has warped the judgment of the ruling class.”

Last week, Trump began comparing Hillary Clinton to Merkel. The reference was lost in some coverage, Merkel being generally seen as a pathbreaking female leader. On the alt-right, Merkel is identified with one thing: the Syrian refugee surge. …

The right’s success in Europe underscores what the alt-right believes to be true here: There is a clear path to success if Republicans are willing to become a party of national interests, against multiculturalism. …

Alt-right thinkers have been arguing this for longer than the “alt-right” moniker has existed. In 2004, Sailer purchased raw exit-poll data to prove that network estimates of George W. Bush’s share of Hispanic votes — still cited by Republicans who say the party can win with a nonwhite coalition — had been overstated.

To be pedantic, Weigel’s conflating two separate things I did a long time ago: I purchased the lost raw exit poll data from the 2002 midterms and analyzed it and I was involved in raising doubts about the 2004 exit polls finding of Bush getting 44% of the Hispanic vote, which was later cut by the polling company to 40%.

“The Republican Brain Trust is notoriously innumerate,” Sailer wrote. “Look at the 2013 GOP Establishment ‘autopsy’ that claimed that Mitt Romney lost because Republicans hadn’t amnestied Mexican illegal aliens. There aren’t many Mexican voters in swing states. In truth, Romney let the election slip away by not doing very well among Rust Belt whites. According to the large sample size Reuters-Ipsos online panel, Romney won only 52 percent of the white vote across Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, all of which he lost in the Electoral College. Romney apparently did especially badly among white working class men in those six states.”

Indeed, in the alt-right, it’s clearer with every week that Trump could outpace Romney if he was able to get out of the gaffe rut. …

Forney’s analysis assumed that the media and pollsters were blowing the election. Sailer, citing the success of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, said that those forces still controlled the narratives of elections more than Trump voters might appreciate.

“The Italian example shows that you need your own television network, and your network needs to have professional football on it,” he said. “Berlusconi had that, so he was able to make a deal with [Libyan leader] Colonel [Moammar] Gaddafi to stop Europe from being flooded with migrants. But then Hillary had Colonel Gaddafi raped and killed, and the tidal wave across the Mediterranean started up again.”

A quibble to make my meaning more clear: when I spoke of “the single biggest issue of the 21st century,” I meant the whole 100 years of the 21st century, not the past and present. As I responded to Weigel:

A year and a half ago, Trump stumbled upon the Politics of the Future.

America’s ruling class has been drifting toward an ideology of borderlessness. Back on September 10, 2001, Bill Clinton told some rich people in Australia that he believed in “the ultimate wisdom of a borderless world.” In all the excitement of the following day, Clinton’s admission was forgotten, but you can track a growing resentment among American elites of the privileges accruing to average Americans just for being American. The feeling in Palo Alto, Greenwich, and the Beltway is that there are seven billion other people on earth, and hundreds of millions of them would love to move here and do whatever it is average Americans do, but do it cheaper and without all the backtalk.

That may well be true. But the hurdle to getting to the ultimate wisdom of a borderless world is: how do you convince average American voters to give up the advantages of their borders? After all, their fathers brought forth on this continent the world’s most enviable set of borders. What’s in borderlessness for them? Other than not being called “racist?”

Trump has finally scraped the money together and put out an ad. Not surprisingly, it’s about the value of borders. It’s a start, but it’s a long educational process.

The single biggest issue of the 21st Century is whether the First World has the will to resist being inundated by the Third World. If we do preserve our borders, the Third World will figure out how to control its own fertility like everybody else has. If we don’t, though, we’ll become Rio with worse weather and scenery.

But Merkel’s Boner last year of letting in a million Muslim mob shows how badly the ideology of borderlessness has warped the judgement of the ruling class.

I would re-emphasize the notion of “a long educational process.” What I call alt-centrist thinking has spread with remarkable rapidity once it got a spokesman with audacity and resilience, but that’s just a start. As I wrote:

Trump is taking on about 95% of the celebrities, experts, pundits, authority figures, and faceless influencers in the whole country. The degree of media bias has been off the charts. He has demonstrated heroic levels of audacity and resilience; but of course the Trump package also comes with the downsides that late night comedians have been joking about for three decades.

The Italian example shows that you need your own television network. And your network needs to have professional football on it. Berlusconi had that, so he was able to make a deal with Colonel Gadaffi to stop Europe from being flooded with migrants. But then Hillary had Colonel Qaffaffee raped and killed, and the tidal wave across the Mediterranean started up again.

Now, to recover from her 2015 blunder, Ms. Merkel has placed Europe at the mercy of Mr. Erdogan.

Can enough Americans learn from these events and patterns? We’ll see.

[Comment at Unz.com]