Posted by
GenXDad on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 6:51:34 PM
How about instead of alling the current GOP backlash against sentible immigration reform xenophobic, nativist or racist, we just call it what it is - STUPID.
As Michael Gerson
shows, the GOP had been doing a tremendous job of bringing in Latino voters. Bush grew the support from 21 percent in 1996 to 35 percent in 2004. In 2006, as Republicans started using immigration as a wedge issue, Latino support dropped to 30 percent.
Granted, policy decisions shouldn't be made solely on the basis of getting votes, but the GOP's decision to take a hard right turn on immigration, something even Ronald Reagan didn't do, is suicidal. It has the effect of taking a demographic that is open to the GOP and shutting them out of the GOP for a generation.
As the article points out, the parallels here are withBarry Goldwater's voting against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It's widely assumed today that American blacks are knee-jerk liberals, but for a long time, many black Americans voted conservative. After Barry Goldwater, they've become the most reliable demographic of the Democratic Party.
Most reasonable people realize there is a way to protect our national security while dealing with the immigration issue in a rational and human manner. The problem is, reasonable people have been marginalized in both parties. Anti-immigrant people point to polls that show a majority of Americans oposed comprehensive immigration reform. What they don't mention is that half of those opposed to reform said the legislation was too restrictive, not too accomodating. So the far left and the far right conspired to torpedo the legislation.
But since the Republicans were the ones who stopped the bills, it'll be the Republicans who are blamed for the failure, who will be pinned as "anti-immigrant," and who will pay the price at the polls. it could take decades to undo the effects of this outburst of insanity.