Donald Trump has surged to a lead in the polls for one reason and one reason only.  It’s not his abrasive personality.  It’s not his net worth.  It’s not the comb-over. Trump has been willing to speak candidly about an issue that affects nearly all Americans, but that any discussion of has so far been streng verboten.

Buddhism has Four Noble Truths.  Liberalism has Four Noble Lies. 

The First Noble Lie

The Lie that Trump has taken on is that diversity is strength, that immigrants from Mexico and points south enrich our culture and do the work Americans are unwilling to do.  And so the more the merrier, immigration laws be damned.  In addition, the First Noble Lie continues, it is only humane to open our borders to the fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, of babies who happen to be born in U.S. hospitals.  Are we a kind and compassion nation, or are we a bunch of right-wing Scrooges?

Republican voters know that while most immigrants, including illegals, work hard, it’s not at jobs Americans don’t want, but for wages Americans are reluctant to accept.  And Republicans also know that mass immigration has transformed their neighborhoods and their cities, has brought crime and disease, and has strained the resources of their community and their public services -- their schools, their police departments, their hospitals.  They know, too, that mass immigration means a tsunami of Democratic voters.  Some Republicans also know the disturbing truth that successive generations of Mexican immigrants do not follow the path of their Scandinavian, Irish, Italian, Jewish, etc. predecessors, where the offspring become better-educated and richer than their parents.  The third-generation stall among Hispanics has been noted for years.

But The Donald does not have a monopoly on going after the First Noble Lie.  It’s open to any of his 17 -- or 18 -- or 19 rivals for the GOP nomination to do so.  And there are still three more Noble Lies the Trumpster hasn’t touched.

The Second Noble Lie 

2a.  African-American pathologies are the result of white racism.  The biggest threat to young blacks is white cops.

Republican voters -- and a hefty percentage of Democratic voters -- know that the problem in relations between African-Americans and European-Americans is not white racism but black violence.  They know this from their own experience and that of friends and relatives.  They know this from the local daily news -- not the national news, of course.  And they may know this from government crime reports.

For the last year for which full FBI arrest records by race are available, 2012, blacks, 13.2% of the population, committed 49.4% of murders, 32.5% of rapes, 54.9% of robberies, and 30.8% of burglaries.

Over a 28-year span, 52.5% of all homicides were committed by African-Americans -- a staggeringly disproportionate number, especially given the fact that young black males 15-25, less than 3% of the population, are committing the overwhelming majority of these.  Most of those killed are other African-Americans.  These are not black lives that matter.  But blacks also kill more than one white per day, on average. 

2b.  In order to redress the evils of white racism, we need to continue to discriminate against European- and Asian-Americans (go figure) in college, law, and medical school admissions, and in hiring across all industries.  To do this, we need to ignore tests that demonstrably predict outcomes. 

The Third Noble Lie

This is a multi-part lie concerning relations between the sexes.  Undoubtedly this has been a touchy subject (pun intended) since Adam and Eve.  But no intelligent and observant Westerner has believed the lies we are asked not only to endorse, but, as with racial issues, to not question -- on pain of losing jobs, failing classes, and getting sued.  And no thriving society has ever practiced the mores that are being forced on us.

3a.  There is not much difference between the genders in terms of abilities, interests, and intelligence.  If women gravitate to different sorts of jobs and different career paths, that’s purely the result of sexism.  The idea that there are genetic differences between the sexes is as much a myth as the notion that there are genetic differences among the races.  Culture determines everything -- except homosexuality.  And Western culture has been dictated (for some reason) by oppressive, sexist, racist, colonialist white males.

3b.  The two-parent family, where the woman cares for her children during their early years, is an oppressive anachronism.  The nuclear family should be detonated.  Individuals not only have the right to enter into same-sex relationships with consenting others, but such relationships should be legalized, sanctified, and celebrated.  This does no harm to society.  Everyone’s a winner when people follow their cravings; after all the Declaration of Independence defends “the pursuit of happiness.”  So if you want to take hormones, have some surgery, and switch genders, more power to you.  Gay sex, which means promiscuity (more than 500 partners for 43% of gays), is not hazardous to your health.   

3c.  The same laissez-faire looseygoosiness does not apply, however, to traditional heterosexual relationships.  In particular, the “culture of rape” on college campuses needs to be extirpated.  Rape can consist of not responding to texts after a night of sex.  “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” Prof. Henry Higgins lamented.  The project of feminism for a couple of decades has been to make men -- particularly adolescent boys -- more like women, and this makes us a stronger, healthier, more ethical country.

3d.  Fetuses are not human beings, and women have a right to kill them at any point before they emerge from the womb.  They need not consult their husband or boyfriend. 

The Fourth Noble Lie

Islam is a religion of peace.

Republican voters are astonished when they check the news at the end of the day and discover that there have been no suicide bombings, no beheadings, no massacres perpetrated by Muslims in the previous 12 hours.  The victims are usually other Muslims, but often enough Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and animists.

There’s a reason that hardly a day passes without gruesome Muslim atrocities.  It has to do with the teachings of the Prophet and his followers.  Those who perpetrate them are not apostates, but devotees.

Islam spread not by sending out missionaries who converted unbelievers, but by conquest.  That blood-soaked history is being re-enacted, only today it is by asymmetrical warfare, AKA terrorism, in combination with mass immigration and a subtle and relentless campaign by many immigrants to legitimize Muslim violence and to impose sharia law on Western societies. 

As with the other Noble Lies, the religion-of-peace dogma cannot be questioned.  Those familiar with the history of Islam or the injunctions of the Qur’an and Hadith, those who push back against sharia law or such culturally enriching practices as female genital mutilation, child marriages, and honor killings are, ipso facto, Islamophobes, and should be prosecuted.

There is a Fifth Noble Lie.

Israel is a ruthless colonialist power illegitimately occupying Palestinian soil.  It must eventually go the way of the other Western empires.  Meanwhile, to secure peace in the Middle East, Israel must be pressured to make further concessions to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.  After all, look at how well Oslo turned out.

***

On July 24, Ted Cruz declared in public -- in fact on the floor of the Senate -- that Mitch McConnell lied.  Fine.  He did.  But the issue in this case was re-authorizing the Export-Import Bank.  This is not a question that grips most Republican voters.  The Four Noble lies do.  They have a profound impact on everyday life in the real world. 

What matters to Americans are issues that affect the safety and security of their families.  Shoppers and pedestrians should not have to worry about random attacks from flash mobs or from sanctuaried illegals.   What matters to Americans is fairness.  The most qualified applicant should get the job or college acceptance.  Those who violate the law should not be rewarded for doing so.   We should not be under the dictatorship of half-educated ideologues in black robes.

Of course, a politician who questions any of the Noble Lies will be eviscerated by the media.  But if you can’t take on the media, you should not be seeking the Republican nomination.

Here are some numbers to buck up the conservative GOP contenders.

Despite the media running interference for the President in 2012 -- including suppressing information on the sorry state of the economy during his first term and ridiculing those who questioned the massive increase in federal spending that was partly responsible for the glacial pace of the recovery -- Obama received an underwhelming 51.01% of the vote.

According to Roper’s exit polls, the President received only 39% of the European-American vote.  For white males, the figure was 33%.  

The Great Reconciler compensated for this deficit by getting huge majorities from African-American, Hispanic, and Asian voters.  The Roper numbers are 93%, 71%, and 73%, respectively.  (Why nearly three-quarters of Asian voters and, especially, 69% of Jews supported Obama in 2012 is one of life’s great mysteries.)

Does that mean Republicans need to capture greater percentages of minority voters -- and tailor their message accordingly -- as we were told by countless hand-wringing GOP honchos in the weeks after the election?

Not at all.  Romney got 59% of the white vote.  With minimal increases in his percentage of European-American support, Mitt could have taken Florida (.6%), Ohio (1.9%), and Virginia (3%).  By increasing his percentage of the white vote from between 5.2% to 6.7%, Romney could have carried Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin as well.

The math is simple.  The percentages of African-American, Hispanic, and Asian voters are still comparatively small:  13%, 10%, and 3%, respectively in 2012.   You need a much bigger shift in voter sentiment to have any impact on state totals -- and you can’t achieve that without “fundamentally transforming” your platform.

The media is silent on the block voting of minorities.  There will be howls of outrage if a candidate decides to tackle the Second Noble Lie.  But imagine for a moment what a forthright declaration on Affirmative Action and the promise to end it -- to go back to merit-based hiring and admissions -- would do for your support among European-Americans.  And not only European-Americans.  High-achieving African-Americans resent the stigma imposed by Affirmative Action.  And a great many other blacks simply feel it’s unfair.  In college admissions, for example, according to Gallup, fully 44% of African-Americans and 59% of Hispanics believe decisions should be based solely on merit.

The conservative candidates stuck in mid-to-low single-digit range need to think about what Trump hath wrought.  Republican voters want to hear some home truths about the Four Noble Lies.  If a candidate can deliver these with wit, intelligence, charm, and passion -- in other words, in a way Donald is incapable of -- he or she will soar to the top of the pack.