Guest Post by Morbo
You might have noticed that things aren’t going so well for the Republicans these days. The war in Iraq remains unpopular, many Americans are uneasy about the economy and the GOP continues to block expanding the popular State Children’s Health Insurance Program. On issues that matter to Americans, the Republican Party is fundamentally wrong.
But I would not count the Republicans out just yet. The GOP retains two powerful and closely related tools that, time and again, deliver for them on election day: Fear and demagoguery. I’m convinced that in 2008, both of those elements will be combined by the national Republican Party into a toxic cocktail around the issue of illegal immigration. This drink will be served to the voting public, and it just might give the GOP an edge.
We’re seeing hints of this strategy already. The special election in Massachusetts’ Fifth District was dominated by the illegal immigration issue, making the race closer than it should have been. In Virginia, which has statewide elections this year for House of Delegates and state Senate, Republicans are making illegal immigration their primary issue.
As they pursue this strategy, you can count on the GOP to engage in a classic bait-and-switch maneuver. It’s legitimate to talk about illegal immigration. Our country cannot absorb an indefinite number of people, and some communities are sincerely grappling with the changes wrought by immigration, legal and otherwise.
But at some point, the Republicans cleverly shift the discussion from illegal immigration to Latino culture in general and some nebulous perceived threat that this “other” presents to the American Way Of Life. Their argument suddenly shifts to things like, “People are speaking Spanish down at the mall!” “Hispanics are moving into your neighborhood!” “You’re going to be a stranger in your own nation!” and “They don’t share our values!”
Columnist Eugene Robinson recently summed up this line of thinking:
Undocumented immigrants are convenient scapegoats for perceived American decline, convenient targets for the unfocused anger that Republicans seem to believe their constituents feel — the sense that “they,” whoever they might be, are taking something away from “us.”
Bingo. Why does the GOP do this? In part because the party has no realistic solution to the issue of illegal immigration. Republicans offer draconian proposals like a mass round-up and deportation of 12 million people or a border fence that looks like something out of East Berlin. Even if feasible, neither plan would ever be implemented because of the Republican Party’s dirty little secret: Its Big Business component is addicted to the cheap labor illegals bring.
But this does not stop party leaders and candidates from scaring the bejeezus out of people all over America. They also don’t seem to care that they are shooting themselves in the foot with the growing Latino voting segment. My guess is that the GOP just wants to get through the next election cycle and will do whatever it takes to hold the White House. They figure that in the future, when the Latino bloc has become so huge it can no longer be ignored, they can find some way to scare them into voting Republican — perhaps by scapegoating gays, “Islamofascists,” people from the Seychelles or whatever.
The irony is, most of the people the GOP is targeting with this strategy are feeling a little uneasy over the so-called new economy and don’t quite know if they’ll have a place in it. They are the ones least likely to benefit from Republican economic policy. But as we know, fear and demagoguery can motivate people to vote against their own self interest.
For what it’s worth, that’s how I see 2008 playing out. I realize not everyone may agree, but I hope the Democrats are working on a ways to parry this scheme. Whatever the party’s response is, it must be easy to explain in a few sound bites. Like it or not, that’s how things work these days.