Immigration Could Cause a Republican Crackup

<b>GOP, You Are Warned: Immigration Could Cause a Republican Crackup</b><p>
National Review, Dec 31, 2004 by David Frum<p>


NO issue, not one, threatens to do more damage to the Republican coalition than immigration. There's no issue where the beliefs and interests of the party rank-and-file diverge more radically from the beliefs and interests of the party's leaders. Immigration for Republicans in 2005 is what crime was for Democrats in 1965 or abortion in 1975: a vulnerable point at which a strong-minded opponent could drive a wedge that would shatter the GOP.

President Bush won reelection because he won 10 million more votes in 2004 than he did in 2000. Who were these people? According to Ruy Teixeira-a shrewd Democratic analyst of voting trends-Bush scored his largest proportional gains among white voters who didn't complete college, especially women. These voters rallied to the president for two principal reasons: because they respected him as a man who lived by their treasured values of work, family, honesty, and faith; and because they trusted him to keep the country safe.

Yet Bush is already signaling that he intends to revive the amnesty/guestworker immigration plan he introduced a year ago-and hastily dropped after it ignited a firestorm of opposition. This plan dangerously divides the Republican party and affronts crucial segments of the Republican vote.


The plan is not usually described as an "amnesty" because it does not immediately legalize illegal workers in this country. Instead, it offers illegals a three-year temporary work permit. But this temporary permit would be indefinitely renewable and would allow illegals a route to permanent residency, so it is reasonably predictable that almost all of those illegals who obtain the permit will end up settling permanently in the United States. The plan also recreates the guestworker program of the 1950s-allowing employers who cannot find labor at the wages they wish to pay to advertise for workers outside the country. Those workers would likewise begin with a theoretically temporary status; but they too would probably end up settling permanently.

This is a remarkably relaxed approach to a serious border-security and labor-market problem. Employers who use illegal labor have systematically distorted the American labor market by reducing wages and evading taxes in violation of the rules that others follow. The president's plans ratify this gaming of the system and encourage more of it. It invites entry by an ever-expanding number of low-skilled workers, threatening the livelihoods of low-skilled Americans--the very same ones who turned out for the president in November.<p>

(snip)

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_25_56/ai_n13619689

the important point is still not lost: the immigration issue is a way to split the repukelican party and thereby defeat them.

I am in favor of monitoring what the "enemy" says and prints. But I must admit that the following paragraph is grossly inaccurate, so I have taken the liberty of inserting corrections:<p>

"President Bush won reelection because he won 10 million more votes in 2004 than he did in 2000. (Pretzeldent Bush stole the 2004 election, just as he had stolen the 2000 election.) Who were these people? According to Ruy Teixeira-a shrewd Democratic analyst of voting trends-Bush scored his largest proportional gains among white voters who didn't complete college, especially women. (Bush scored his largest proportional gains among white voters who are dumbfucks and failures. I'm not down on everyone who didn't happen to finish college, but I suspect the voters described here are people who couldn't get into college because of congenital stupidity, and who, having never started college, obviously didn't finish college. Sadly, there are not only stupid, belching, ignorant men who voted for Bush, but stupid, belching, ignorant women, as well.) These voters rallied to the president for two principal reasons: because they respected him as a man who lived by their treasured values of work, family, honesty, and faith; and because they trusted him to keep the country safe. (Raucous laughter.)"

And his supporters want less.

Let's watch! :popcorn:

Why would anyone leave his culture, family and past to come to the US?

It wasn't to become a fascist Republican--they could find all of that back in Europe, Asia, Africa.

Immigrants came for the new paradigm: liberty, equality, right to pursue happiness, the whole nine yards. They came for the Enlightenment, which permitted change, social advancement, education, and opportunity.

Until Arnold Schwartzennegger, of course. Still, with his family background, the GOP probably felt more like home to him. Ditto the Cuban refugees, the rich who took it with them.

But most people came for those freedoms that BushCo is hell-bent on destroying with the Patriot Acts and the union-busting and the outsourcing and the permanent tax benefits to the rich.

There is a very hardcore anti-immigration movement out there, much of it with close ties to white supremacists, and they seem to save their choicest investive for pro-immigration Republicans.

For example, Google on --"Chris Cannon" immigration-- and you turn up a bunch of sites with names like renewamerica.us, vdare.com, americanpatrol.com, and projectusa. All intensely right-wing, and each one more eager than the next to call Utah Congressman Chris Cannon a traitor and a Neocon.

I have zero sympathy for these guys in general -- they're unreconstructed Freepers at best and outright racists at worst -- but in this case, they do seem to have the populist side of the dispute, while pro-immigration Republicans like Cannon are clearly in the pay of business interests and lobbyists.

Luckily, it's not our battle. We can just sit back and watch the show as the Republicans tie themselves up in knots over it.

I don't have any hard evidence of this, but I have seen how conservative
Christian groups are doing a lot of "helping" immigrants. Helping them
while endoctrinating them. Someone new to this country, with little aware-
ness of our history and grateful for help, can be easily taken in by
Republican propaganda.

I have come to believe this is a conscious agenda of the Republican Party,
and that is why they are ignoring the wishes of their constituents.