"If Trump really is on the verge of what may be the largest flip flop ever, how could Coulter possibly be surprised?" Sorry, Ann, but it serves you right.

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The Great Ann Coulter Immigration Bamboozle
The week Ann Coulter’s book ‘In Trump We Trust’ rolls out, she learns no, no we cannot.
By Heather Wilhelm, August 25, 2016

I have to give credit to Ann Coulter: It takes some serious cojones to come out with a book titled “In Trump We Trust” at this point in 2016. The enthusiasm! The bright-eyed faith! The beaming cover photo, featuring Coulter grasping a cheery Trump sign! The subtitle—“E Pluribus Awesome!”—which, if you squint hard enough, could be a clever-yet-subtle indicator that this is all an elaborate joke!

Sadly, there is nothing awesome about this election, e pluribus or not, and the problems with Coulter’s title choice are myriad. First, replacing “God” with “Trump” seems a bit premature, at least until he’s won the election and tells us all that this is the case. Second, conservatives—Coulter is supposedly one, I guess, if that’s still her favored brand—are supposed to be skeptical of politicians in general, not the political equivalent of the pom squad captain at Path to Power High.

But, seriously: “In Trump We Trust?” Look, I understand if you want to vote for Donald Trump, but please don’t tell me he’s trustworthy. In the past year alone, he may have managed to shamelessly out-lie Hillary Clinton, which is a herculean feat. In fact, in a delightfully ironic twist, Trump appears to be breezily selling out his stances on Coulter’s favorite policy topics—those would be immigration and mass deportation—on the very week of her “In Trump We Trust” book release.

Trump Picks a Fight With His Biggest Female Fan

“I don’t care if @realDonaldTrump wants to perform abortions in the White House after this immigration policy paper,” Coulter tweeted last August, calling Trump’s immigration plan “the greatest political document since the Magna Carta.” At the time, due to my longtime understanding that Coulter is 85 percent ratings-and-book-sales-related shtick and 15 percent the amalgamated ghosts of old cigarettes, I shrugged and rolled my eyes.

But wait, and be alarmed: It appears Coulter might actually believe her own bologna. In her new book—titled, I will remind you again, “In Trump We Trust”—Coulter praises Trump’s calls for mass deportation: “If some Republican wants to impress me by saying shocking things, do it on immigration,” she writes. She goes on to bash “Jeb!” (her exclamation point, not mine) for being “smug and self-righteous whenever it came to enforcing immigration law” and questioning the feasibility of carting out 12 million illegal immigrants.

Drumroll, please. Maybe even pair it with the Benny Hill theme song “Yakety Sax.” Here’s where things get really awkward, because Trump has spent the last week—again, the week of Coulter’s book release!—signaling there’s no way he’s going to deport 12 million illegal immigrants, either. On Wednesday night, after days of announcing he is open to “softening” his immigration positions, Trump told Sean Hannity illegals would stay, but they’d “pay back taxes.” We’ll “work with them,” he said.

Spoiler alert: This is not what Coulter’s new book said he would do.

Trump Gets Soft Just In Time for the Election

On Monday, Trump said he aims to “come up with a really fair, but firm” immigration policy—which is weird, because I thought he already had a settled policy that rivaled the Magna Carta—and praised the Obama administration for getting “tremendous numbers of people out of the country,” saying he was going to do the exact same thing, but with “more energy.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s big speech on immigration, originally scheduled for August 25, has been postponed. Why? According to new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, “immigration is such a complex issue and Mr. Trump has been taking the counsel of so many different people on this.” It may or may not have anything to do with the fact that Conway has spent time pushing amnesty.

If you are trying not to laugh right now, congratulations: You have managed to maintain the health of your immortal soul in an otherwise excruciating and baffling year. Coulter, for good reason, seems a bit disgruntled and annoyed, calling Trump’s comments a “mistake.” This “could be the shortest book tour ever” if Trump is “really softening his position on immigration,” she added. No kidding! It would also be kind of embarrassing, if anyone involved had any sense of shame.

But there’s a bigger question here: If Trump really is on the verge of what may be the largest flip flop ever, how could Coulter possibly be surprised? Anyone who has closely watched Trump over the past year should know that he regularly waffles and backtracks and lies and slips up. Deeper skeptics could reasonably argue he has few core beliefs except for the Gospel of Trump. Who watches this goofy show for months and then decides to write an entire book based on the premise that we should put our total trust in Trump?

Well, now we know. You have to feel kind of bad for Coulter. It’s a real bummer for the timing of her book launch. Hey, who knows? Perhaps Trump will make yet another U-turn, fire a few advisers, then jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton, and double down on his original various hollerings about immigration. Stranger things have happened.

But if anyone wants to write a book on Trump that really touches the hearts of many depressed Americans, here’s a better title: “In Trump We Might Halfheartedly Support, Out of Desperation, Because Hillary Clinton is Horrendous, and Maybe He’ll Be Better Than She.” For the business-minded, there’s even potential sequel: “But Honestly, We’re Even Starting to Wonder About That.”
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