January 25, 2016 12:44 PM UTC

Chaps, Alan Keyes Don't Trust Trump To REALLY Ban Muslims

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• by: Colorado Pols

Here’s a clip from Colorado GOP Rep. Gordon “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt’s most recent Pray in Jesus’ Name “Youtube ministry” broadcast, a fascinating exchange in an interview with conservative firebrand and former U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes–on the subject of GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump’s call to halt all immigration of Muslims into the United States:

CHAPS: Donald Trump has been saying, because of the terrorism problem, and we saw the recent shooting in San Bernardino, that Muslims should be excluded from immigrating or from even being given refugee status to America, until Congress can figure out what’s going on, if I’m paraphrasing him correctly. What does he mean by that or what do you think?

KEYES: I think that what he means by that is because you have in the Middle East a hotbed of terrorism, countries that are basically the centers and [unintelligible] for the development of people who carry out terrorism, that therefore we shouldn’t be importing the problem into the United States. And as a general formulation I agree with that. We shouldn’t be importing the people into the United States who are coming to this country to kill us and we never should have imported them.

But the problem, and if you have half an hour to spare you can watch the entire bug-eyed spectacle, is that Donald Trump won’t really ban those Muslims like he says! Keyes is definitely not a Trump fan, but it’s not because Trump says he wants to ban Muslims. As anyone who’s attended the Western Conservative Summit can tell you, lots of conservatives want to do that.

The takeaway: Trump is just telling you he wants to ban Muslims to earn your vote, America! Well not your vote, exactly, but the votes of the not-insubstantial number of Americans who want to ban Muslims, a segment which crosses over heavily with Republican primary voters. In the GOP presidential race today, the magic formula appears to be appealing to the same lowest-common-denominator interests Trump motivates while still having a way to morally differentiate one’s self from Trump.

Really, folks, who better on this Earth to sort it out for us than Rep. Gordon “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt?