Immigration and the GOP's Demise

[babylonsister]

http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=immigration_and_the_gops_demise

Immigration and the GOP's Demise

Will the GOP embrace immigration reform or continue to ostracize key voters?


Harold Meyerson | February 24, 2011 | web only


Read the census data that have been coming out over the past couple of weeks and you're compelled to a stark conclusion: Either the Republican Party changes totally, or it has a rendezvous with extinction.

What the census shows is that America's racial minorities, aggregated together, are on track to become its majority. The Republican Party's response to this epochal demographic change has been to do everything in its power to keep America (particularly its electorate) as white as can be. Republicans have obstructed minorities from voting; required Latinos to present papers if the police ask for them; opposed the Dream Act, which would have conferred citizenship on young immigrants who served in our armed forces or went to college; and called for denying the constitutional right to citizenship to American-born children of undocumented immigrants.

If the Republicans have a long-term strategic plan, it seems to derive from King Canute, who commanded the tide to stop.

snip//

The Republican Party, which began life, it's increasingly hard to remember, as the party that opposed black slavery, has two choices: It can defy its base and work with the Democrats to craft a policy that offers legalization to undocumented immigrants, and by so doing gain a chance to rebuild its support among minority voters. Or it can continue down its current path and try to cling to power by denying citizenship and voting rights to as many minority Americans as it possibly can. It can become a slightly kinder and gentler version of the old Southern segregationists, or South Africa's apartheid white nationalists. And, like them, it will end up like King Canute.

[FiveGoodMen]

1. I've been reading that the demographics were going to 86 the pukes for many years

Because of more young voters.

Because of more single women voters.

Because because ...

Don't see the trend so far.

Hope it's true, but fear it's wishful thinking that will allow everyone to sit back rather than fight back.

[David__77]

4. It's because whites have become more reactionary.

Many whites have been led by a desire to preserve white privilege. I would not be surprised if 70% of whites nationally became right-wing in the years ahead. In the end, it will be for nothing though. That element can barely slow the wheel of history from turning. The fact that Obama was elected in the first place is testament to that.

[OHdem10]

2. I just recently read that Minorities in Texas are in the lead, in

numbers. They should seriously organize and "educate"
their groups and unite their efforts, don'tcha think.

[Vogon_Glory]

5. Texas Minorities Could Upend The Texas Political Power Structure Already If...

Minority Texas voters could already upend the Lone Star State's power structure if they only bothered to vote. This last election was a disaster for the Texas State Democratic Party. The Repugs not only swept statewide races, but the slow, patient gains Texas Democrats were making in the lower house were wiped out.

I strongly believe that the horrible results of this last election were in large part due to the apathy and sloth of non-participating Texas voters, not because of President Obama or the fact that Texas legislative candidates weren't anointed by the right progressives from Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Yeah, yeah, I'll admit that the fired-up, neo-racist, Obama-hating, minority-hating, I've-got-mah-gun macho Repuds won the election. But THEY turned out to vote. The people who are already getting Phillips-headed in this legislative session didn't even bother to show up.

If some of the wised-up minority voters find themselves at least half-awake this next election cycle, I'm still sore enough at them to let them know that their apathy not only made the Republican victory possible, made the long climb back to where we were in 2008 even harder than it was in 2010, and that we're all likely to get the big Phillips-head again if they curl up and go to sleep again in 2012, 2014, 2016...

[leveymg]

3. This is the reason why the Dems can't also become an anti-immigrant party

There is a strong streak of anti-H-1B sentiment, and even anti-legal immigration, among some on the left, particularly in Organized Labor. But, that's a false Us v Them paradigm that we have to struggle to channel into a broad movement for the rights of all working people, regardless of national origin.

[babylonsister]

6. I totally agree. How about just doing the right thing? Works for me. nt