Nov 26, 2015 3 min read

Presidential hopeful Donald Trump certainly knows how to keep the public’s attention. Almost every day he comes up with another plan to protect the United States from the forces of evil, thrilling his crowds of supporters and leaving the rest stunned, flummoxed and outraged.

It has been widely reported Trump proposed registering all Muslims in a database. Actually, it was a reporter who suggested that in a question to the candidate, but Trump jumped on the idea and made it his own.

According to The New York Times: “Mr. Trump was asked about the issue by an NBC News reporter and pressed on whether all Muslims in the country would be forced to register. ‘They have to be,’ he said. ‘They have to be.’

“When asked how a system of registering Muslims would be carried out – whether, for instance, mosques would be where people could register – Mr. Trump said: ‘Different places. You sign up at different places. But it’s all about management. Our country has no management.'”

Other proposals, like requiring Muslims to have some form of visible identification, may not be Trump’s ideas, but he seems willing to consider them. Do we dare imagine the mandatory attachment to clothing of patches of yellow cloth in the shape of, say, a crescent moon?

Almost in defense of this stance, Trump seized upon an urban legend, claiming to have seen with his own eyes “thousands of Muslims” in Jersey City, N.J., celebrating the catastrophe in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001. Though it never happened makes no difference. Trump knows that when you tell a lie long enough and loud enough, people will start to believe it.

There are an estimated 11.3 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, and Trump proposed deporting all of them. Load them on 650 school buses every month and it would take 20 years to deport all of them. Of course, the school buses would have difficulty reaching China.

No matter. Consider the cost. The Center for American Progress estimates the average cost of apprehending, detaining processing and deporting a person would be $10,070. For 11.3 million people, the cost would be $114 billion, not to mention the economic calamity this would cause by removing more than 6 percent of the labor force, many performing jobs most native-born Americans refuse to do.

We have to wonder if Trump might consider a less costly alternative to deportation: labor camps.

It’s frightening to think of what solution to our problems Trump might concoct next, and just as scary to realize how many Americans are ready to follow him.