I ask that question at Marketwatch today:

As a TV celebrity, Donald Trump made a career out of pretending to be more successful than he really is. Now, as a presidential candidate, he pretends to understand economics and immigration policy better than he does.

Most recently, Trump proposed that we require a Cold War Era-style ideology testfor prospective Muslim visitors and immigrants to the U.S. He called for “extreme vetting” to prevent people with “hostile attitudes toward our country or its principles” from being admitted. Trump hasn’t given us the details of the test, but presumably it would ask respondents to express favorable attitudes toward ethnic diversity, religious differences, sexual freedom, freedom of speech, the right to mock and disregard what others view as sacred, and a strong commitment to civil rights. (We might pause to ask whether Trump himself—with his overt hostility to core liberal freedoms—would pass such a test.)

Trump wants to add a test on top of our already highly restrictive immigration system. Here’s an alternative proposal: What if we replaced our current system—which makes it all but impossible for most would-be immigrants to enter the U. S.—with the test, and that’s it?

Read the whole thing here.