Ezra Klein: The Future!

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August 04, 2007

The Future!

I'm at a panel on immigration and American politics that is really quite convincing on how screwed the Republicans are. In a couple of decades, Hispanic immigrants will make up almost a quarter of the country. Even now, 70 of the 100 largest cities are in the South and the West, and are that large because of Hispanic immigration.

That would all be rough enough for the Right, but to hear the recent narrative on immigration as explained by those experiencing it was a little shocking: You had the Sensenbrenner Bill, and the attempt in 2006 to make immigrants the new gays/terrorists/communists. You have John Boehner refusing to take up any reform bills, and you have Republicans objecting to everything from S-CHIP to education reform because it will do too much for undocumented children. You have Lou Dobbs and the recent immigration battle, which is almost less important for the bill that failed than for the astonishing amount of hate, vitriol, and mobilization exploding out of talk radio. And much of this came after the 2006 election, when Hispanic turnout leapt up and broke almost 70:30 for Democrats. That's a bad trend line for the Right, and it's one, if you watch the Bush administration, that Karl Rove has done everything he could to prevent. But even the Architect couldn't stand against the base.

August 4, 2007 | Permalink

Comments

That actually makes a lot of sense. IF you were a party in decline, and knew that your only hope was to stamp out immigration, what would you do? They simply can't make the appeals that would matter to Hispanics (abortion, Church V State issues) without pissing off their racist base.

Still, this is a large influx of people who do not generally favor progressive policies. I worry that we may achieve victory, but essentially become an anti-gay, anti-secular, anti-woman party. On the other hand, they are likely to be far more open to the class issues I generally favor, so I could care less.

I'm still glad that the Immigration act, which was essentially the Cheap Labor Importation Act of 2007, failed. These same demographic changes put the lie to the argument made by so many that we would never get a more favorable circumstance for a real immigration bill that, you know, actually helps people immigrate to this country.

Posted by: soullite | Aug 4, 2007 11:34:48 AM

What's all the fuss? There are only 100 million Mexicans left in Mexico -- and polls show fewer than half want to move here (Pew poll said 46%). If one-third actually make it that will only add 11% to our population -- and they are mostly all honest, hard-working people.

The thing to push -- now -- is a land for people deal -- while we still have some bargaining leverage -- and not land in the sand; land along the coasts. If they persist in sending people here without our asking, we are capable of taking the land without their asking: there is a precedent. :-)

Posted by: Denis Drew | Aug 4, 2007 11:49:29 AM

I've tried to understand what appears to be serious self-defeating GOP behavior on immigration.

I can only think of three reasons that make sense as explanations:

1. They are only worried about the next election and believe the demographic changes won't hurt too bad in 08, because they can mau-mau enough white voters using fears of several varieties (terrorism, crime, job displacement, precious bodily fluids, etc.)

2. They believe Rove has things 'fixed' so the actual vote won't determine the 08 outcome - electronic voting manipulaton, caging, etc. (variation: there won't be 08 elections due to martial law)

3. Death Wish through slow motion or stop action.

I considered a fourth reason - lemming-like behavior following GOP dogma and Bush/Rove, without regard to how deep the canyon is that they are moving toward, but discarded it because the drive seems to be from bottom to top among the nutroots - so the voice of the wingnut base is stronger than the leadership will to survive. I concluded this is the same as #3.

Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Aug 4, 2007 11:58:00 AM

This is one of the reasons I fear a man named George Bush. In a couple of decades, Jeb's half-Hispanic (and quite gorgeous) son will be looking toward the White House. I'm not sure the stink of that name will have worn off by that point, but if it has, he could help the Republicans rebuild the Hispanic base they will surely have squandered by that point.

Posted by: cms | Aug 4, 2007 11:59:05 AM

You are too optimistic about the Democrats' ability to convert the Republicans' idiocy into a Dem electoral victory. On the contrary, the Democratic leaders never fail to live up to their stereotype and to act like sissies when the chips are down and snatch defeat from the jaws of certain victory.

Posted by: gregor | Aug 4, 2007 11:59:51 AM

People looking to analyze the behavior of the racists on the right in terms of electoral success need to stop. They're racists. They hate the brown people because they're brown. Their objection has nothing to do with reality, and everything to do with bigotry. The cost of the devil's bargain Nixon struck with the Southern strategy is finally being realized, and ultimately it will destroy the GOP.

Posted by: Jeff Fecke | Aug 4, 2007 12:15:33 PM

It's early to be counting these chickens. In a couple decades it could well be that established Hispanics who compete for jobs against newer immigrants won't be so supportive of the newer ones. And there will continue to be pressure on Democrats not to help illegal immigrants, both from within and without the party. Mere rhetoric will wear thin eventually. Either way we may end up with a split among Hispanics with regard to Democrats.

These same demographic changes put the lie to the argument made by so many that we would never get a more favorable circumstance for a real immigration bill that, you know, actually helps people immigrate to this country.

Yeah, that's a nice wish. Just watch what happens if the Democrats even talk about a bill better than the last one. People are very unrealistic about the present politics of this. There will be nothing significant done for illegal immigrants for the foreseeable future unless there's a Republican president who favors it. There isn't a chance in hell that the Democrats will take the heat on their own.

Posted by: Sanpete | Aug 4, 2007 1:09:33 PM

The speculation that immigrants who have successfully assimilated into the US socially and economically will be more inclined to oppose further immigration,if valid, points up the self defeating nature of the GOP's position. The longer they resist legalizing the status of foreign national workers in this country, the longer they postpone this realignment. The more hostile the GOP is to immigrants now, the greater the residual antipathy of the immigrants to be overcome later.

Having only just witnessed the feral reaction of the GOP base to Bush's attempt at "immigration reform", the suggestion that only a Republican President could bring about such reform would seem, shall we say, counter-intuitive.

Posted by: WB Reeves | Aug 4, 2007 1:31:40 PM

I agree with Sanpete. Loads of things will change-- including Republican strategy-- in the next five years, ten years, and beyond. Maybe the Democrats will get a chance to overreach.

George Will gave a speech in maybe the spring of 2001 (definitely before September) that foresaw GOP dominance due to trends in church attendance and voting behavior. But the world change, and crapped up all his triumphalism.

That's not to say we can't use our brains and look at data to try to guess how things might look in the future, but I find it very unlikely that either of the two parties will collapse. The Democratic Party of 2007 is different from that of 2005, of 1990, and of 1960.

Hell, after the Senate Democrats caved last night, I'm of half a mind to move to the GOP, and try to revitalize the moderate, small-government but not anti-government wing of the party that used to exist in the northeast.

Posted by: Elvis Elvisberg | Aug 4, 2007 1:40:40 PM

Hell, after the Senate Democrats caved last night, I'm of half a mind to move to the GOP, and try to revitalize the moderate, small-government but not anti-government wing of the party that used to exist in the northeast.

Good luck with that.

Posted by: WB Reeves | Aug 4, 2007 1:44:13 PM

Ezra: How can you hear yourself think in that echo chamber? Wait, don't answer that.

As I've discussed here before, one of Ezra's old blogads - featuring a TAPPED quote of his - was from a group with members linked to the MexicanGovernment. Did anyone at the panel discuss the PoliticalPower that that government has been able to obtain inside the U.S. due to, among other things, their links to various non-profits? Why does the Democratic Party support giving even more PoliticalPower to the MexicanGovernment inside the U.S., with some Dem House members even standing with Mexican politicians demanding "reform"?

Eventually, the GOP might get a brain and attack the Dems for their actions and indirect links to that government and if that happens I don't think the echo chamber is going to save your party.

Posted by: TLB | Aug 4, 2007 2:38:54 PM

It's only a realistic possibility, not something the Republicans should count on any more than the Democrats should count on Hispanics sticking together.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the logic is simple enough. The Democrats aren't going to take the heat on a bill better than the one that failed, one that doesn't include the provisions liberals objected to. The only way they're willing to back a bill is with Republican cover, as seen in the most recent case, as well as previous ones. Assuming Democrats will retain control of Congress, and the Republican members of Congress don't undergo some miraculous change of heart, the only significant Republican cover they'll get is going to have to include a Republican president like McCain, who is willing to support the bill. And the likelihood of that is very small. If you can come up with any other likely scenario, please do.

Maybe that will happen, now that the Republican wing of the Republican Party has failed so badly, but probably not right away. Forces working against the extreme and failed aspects of Republicanism will take some time to gather strength.

Posted by: Sanpete | Aug 4, 2007 2:39:33 PM

I don't think its such a political slam dunk. I'm Hispanic, speak Spanish and have a large number of relatives who are immigrants. And yet, illegal immigration drives me up the wall. My family had to jump through a lot of hoops to come to this country legally, I don't appreciate people who cut in line and then want amnesty.

So I think its a stereotype that Hispanics as a class identify with illegal immigrants and will vote against a candidate or party that promises to control the border.

Posted by: beowulf | Aug 4, 2007 4:05:20 PM

I've said before, and I'll say again - there's more to the dilemma on reforming immigration policy than simply our southern border and a growing Hispanic population. Until someone figures out how to address that, it will be hard to get a lot accomplished. Second, while the GOP is in full nervous breakdown over immigration, their spectacular flameout masks the fact that Democrats are by no means unified on this topic, that border state Democrats sound a lot like Republicans when it comes to enforcement and addressing folks already here, and that the Unions are by no means unified in their approach to this. Finally, while lefties speculate on all the triangulated reasons that conservatives act as they act on immigration, I'd urge folks to consider that they do what they do and say what they say because they believe it. There's a reason they're called "true believers," and immigration tends to demonstrate just how much they feel that they have to defend what they believe, even in the face of it being a wildly unpopular position. I think liberals, for whom new ideas, new experiences and adaptive approaches are key, can lose sight of this. And I think the point is that the really good fix for immigration is still evolving. No one, I thknk, should consider themselves too locked into a position while facts on the ground, and options to deal with them, continue to develop.

Posted by: weboy | Aug 4, 2007 7:47:43 PM

"In a couple decades it could well be that established Hispanics who compete for jobs against newer immigrants won't be so supportive of the newer ones. Either way we may end up with a split among Hispanics with regard to Democrats."

Um......Hispanics have lived in the US for centuries (they were here before the honkies, of course). There are tens of thousands of Hispanic families just in Los Angeles who have lived there since the 1920s. Hispanics who were born in the US, in my experience, are even more liberal than more recent immigrants, not less.

"So I think its a stereotype that Hispanics as a class identify with illegal immigrants and will vote against a candidate or party that promises to control the border."

If the Republicans were solely about a more orderly and controlled immigration policy, that might be true. In reality, it's very clear that a large percentage of the Republican party intensely dislikes Hispanic people completely irregardless of whether those Hispanics are illegal immigrants or not.

"Why does the Democratic Party support giving even more PoliticalPower to the MexicanGovernment inside the U.S., with some Dem House members even standing with Mexican politicians demanding "reform"?"

Why do you particularly object to this when American politicians work with lots of foreign governments and foreign politicians every day? You think there are no issues that US and Mexican politicians could possibly agree upon?

Posted by: burritoboy | Aug 4, 2007 8:53:35 PM

Weird note of triumphalism from Klein based upon one mid-term election. If the Dems embrace open borders along with anti-globalization protectionism then you're going to see a downward pressure on incomes as bad if not worse that the 70s. That will take care of any permanent majority.

Posted by: michael | Aug 4, 2007 11:32:26 PM

Oh, yes, increasing the population of Texas is going to be so good for Democrats with the current Electoral College setup.

Let's remember, too, that since the passage of the Voting Rights Act (which added a huge ethnic bloc of Democratic voters to the rolls) only one Democrat nominated for the Presidency has managed to get even a bare majority of the popular vote -- and he only managed 50.08% running against the guy who pardoned Nixon.

Me, I wonder how Hispanics currently feel about the fact that only a tiny number of Democrats are supporting the highly-qualified Hispanic governor/cabinet secretary/diplomat running for the Democratic nomination, while a pair of one-term Senators of other ethnicities are considered major candidates.

Posted by: Weirdo | Aug 5, 2007 9:57:53 AM

Hispanics who were born in the US, in my experience, are even more liberal than more recent immigrants, not less.

You saw Beowulf's post above, which you quoted. This is a real phenomenon; the question is whether it will grow. Hispanic immigration has been different in quantity and thus its effects on other Hispanics for a couple decades, with no change in sight. This appears to be turning some heads among Hispanics.

since the passage of the Voting Rights Act (which added a huge ethnic bloc of Democratic voters to the rolls) only one Democrat nominated for the Presidency has managed to get even a bare majority of the popular vote -- and he only managed 50.08% running against the guy who pardoned Nixon

Only because of Perot. Clinton would have been well over that mark otherwise.

Posted by: Sanpete | Aug 5, 2007 1:08:23 PM

burritoboy inquires: Why do you particularly object to this when American politicians work with lots of foreign governments and foreign politicians every day? You think there are no issues that US and Mexican politicians could possibly agree upon?

I've already answered that in the description to this video: youtube.com/watch?v=EiullH5jU1A

Get Obama to sign the pledge!

The bottom line is that one of these days the dot or two connecting major Dems and the MexicanGovernment is going to be much more widely known, and I don't think that's going to result in a whole lot of popular support or sympathy.

Posted by: TLB | Aug 5, 2007 3:11:48 PM

Couldn't bother me less. The people worried about that oppose immigration for other reasons.

Posted by: Sanpete | Aug 5, 2007 3:30:45 PM

Beowulf, perhaps you are correct about us Hispanics not necessarily being in lockstep on this issue. In fact, yes, the Democratic Party is even split on the issue, but I think you might be missing a key component. I too, would like to see immigration done on a fair and orderly basis. People who "cut in line" should be made to pay a penalty for it, but wholesale deportations are not the answer, not by the longest shot. What I object to most, and every single Hispanic I know feels exactly the same, is the TONE of the debate. That is especially true of the radio jocks and "news" personalities like Dobbs. By painting immigrants as less than people, they have started a swell of Nativist uprising that may well insure a brown/white split for decades. These so-called "anchor babies", citizens, remember, will not forget the Party that referred to their parents as criminals.

Posted by: Mack | Aug 5, 2007 6:57:01 PM

A Hispanic contingent that large for the Democratic party will alienate black voters. Any "advances" that the Dems make with Hispanics is going to be counterbalanced by black flight, either to another party or, more likely, away from the polls altogether.

Posted by: jack | Aug 6, 2007 12:53:52 PM

Balkans here we come and by the looks of it many people are celebrating that fact.

Posted by: Ernest | Aug 6, 2007 1:33:54 PM

"Um......Hispanics have lived in the US for centuries (they were here before the honkies, of course)."

Aside from the factual inaccuracy of this quote, I find it interesting that non-whites can use racial slurs against whites without rebuke. I assure you, I'm not the only white person who has noticed this. I can also assure you, I'm not alone in drawing decidedly non-PC conclusions from this phenomenon. Racial consciousness among whites--long suppressed and dormant--is re-awakening.

"These so-called "anchor babies", citizens, remember, will not forget the Party that referred to their parents as criminals."

Um, the parents of these anchor-babies *are* criminals. It's not just certain members of the GOP who feel this way. Most white & black Americans feel this way, witness the out-pouring of letters to "Nation" magazine opposed to the magazine's policy on immigration.

Posted by: Barry | Aug 6, 2007 2:08:03 PM

Is this what you are celebrating? Or maybe this?

Posted by: eh | Aug 6, 2007 2:18:46 PM

Um, no they are not criminals, anymore than anyone who commits a civil infraction. (like, running a stop sign)

It is not even a crime to overstay a visa.

Posted by: Mack | Aug 6, 2007 4:05:34 PM

Um, you're speaking in legalese--in common parlance, the parents of "anchor babies" *are* criminals.

Posted by: Barry | Aug 6, 2007 4:22:07 PM

Hispanics are voting Democrat regardless of what the Republicans do.

Mexicans are poorly educated generation after generation:
http://www.parapundit.com/archives/001952.html

(According to the book "No Excuses," even those Hispanics who don't drop out by the 12th grade can only demonstrate about the same level of knowledge as an 8th grade white student.)

They also aren't very moral:
http://inductivist.blogspot.com/2007/01/mexicans-have-worst-values-in-world.html

Hispanics have high rates of illegitimacy (almost 50% and climbing):
http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_4_hispanic_family_values.html

and high rates of criminality:
http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/061215_nd.htm

and high rates of welfare dependency (around three times the white rate:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/bg1936.cfm

and little tolerance for free speech (at least when it comes to racially sensitive issues):
http://inductivist.blogspot.com/2007/08/indian-americans-are-least-supportive.html

In short, they are natural Democratic voters.

Since they aren't very intelligent and have little initiative, they are going to vote for whoever promises them the most government-funded goodies. (You can see this tendency in Latin America, which has always been rife with corruption and afflicted by the worst shades of populism.) The idea that illegal immigrants and their descendants are somehow going to be eternally grateful to the GOP for another amnesty is nonsense. There isn't the slightest indication that those who received the 1986 amnesty became more inclined to vote Republican.

There are only two pieces of good news for Republicans. First, Hispanics have low rates of political participation. That means it will take longer than liberals might expect for the vote to catch up with demographics. The second is that Hispanics will probably infuriate white liberals with their contempt for a well-regulated society:
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/070722_picnic.htm

The bad news for everyone is that all the above facts about Hispanics spell serious deterioration for our country. Democrats might rule the nation, but the nation won't be what it once was. Hispanics have low IQ's, don't value education, don't get high paying jobs, and therefore don't pay much in taxes. Democrats will want to build an ever more socialistic state on top of a nation that increasingly cannot afford it.

Posted by: tommy | Aug 6, 2007 4:24:08 PM

Since they aren't very intelligent and have little initiative, they are going to vote for whoever promises them the most government-funded goodies. (You can see this tendency in Latin America, which has always been rife with corruption and afflicted by the worst shades of populism.)

Do we really have to suffer through this kind of racist argumentation?

Posted by: WB Reeves | Aug 6, 2007 4:29:52 PM

Do we really have to suffer through this kind of racist argumentation?

Do you have anything better than ad hominem?

Posted by: tommy | Aug 6, 2007 4:50:50 PM

It's really amazing how clueless you Democrats are. Don't you understand that mass Hispanic immigration will splinter the Democratic Party along racial and class lines and eventually disintegrate it?

First, you Democrats are composed of special interests that basically don't like each other. The blacks hate the hispanics and vice versa; both hate the gays; the gays hate the feminists because the women compete with them for the men; the feminists hate the blue-collar union guys because they represent the patriarchy; and the blue-collar union guys can't stand anyone else.

The only thing holding the Democrat Party together are upper-class white liberals who hold onto their liberalism because they live isolated from the rest of the Democrat Party's ethnic makeup.

Second, the vast majority of Hispanics are Mexican and Mexicans are ethnic nationalists. Mexicans only care about your "progressive" politics to the extent that it gives them political power. Mass Mexican immigration (and its allowance by the Republican Party) serves the purpose of directly challenging the white liberals for dominance of the Democratic Party. Once Mexicans dominate, they will use their Mexican nationalism to convert the Democratic Party to the Mexican Party, effectively alienating the other people in your group. This will cause the Democrats to splinter and fall apart, as the gringo and non-Mexican elements realize they have no representation.

You liberals live in a fantasy world because you think you can never lose control, that the way the world exists today is the way it always will be. You imagine that all of these non-white people will reciprocate your progressive generosity and help you build this better world you fantasize so much about.

You will fail...and the first losers will be all of your blue-state cities.

Good riddance.

Posted by: Truth | Aug 6, 2007 5:10:25 PM

It seems worthwhile here to provide a few paragraphs from a Los Angeles Times article published about a year ago, 7/28/2006 ("6 + 4 = 1 Tenuous Existence," front page). These paragraphs are a side story from an article about an illegal alien couple in the LA area who had just "welcomed" quadruplets, bringing the count of their offspring to 10, supported mostly on the dole.

The following six paragraphs concern Alejandra, a woman who, with several sisters, came to the U.S. illegally from Mexico but subsequently attained legal status, perhaps in the 1986 IRCA amnesty. (By the way, illegal entry is definitely a crime -- potential penalties include prison; see 8 USC 1325a. Overstaying a visa is different, but visa overstays aren't the route for most illegal immigration from Mexico.)

***

Alejandra was the first to leave. In Los Angeles, she and her husband were barely able to make ends meet. As in Mexico, 'there was little work and it's poorly paid,' she said.

Eight years ago, she and her family moved to Kentucky, where a friend said there was more work and were fewer Mexican immigrants bidding down the wages for unskilled jobs.

In Kentucky, Alejandra picked tobacco. The work was hard and she didn't know the language. But soon, life improved. Over the years, she invited her siblings to join her. One sister married a man who managed a Golden Corral, a chain of all-you-can-eat buffets. Soon several Magdaleno siblings were working in Golden Corrals. Their husbands found work installing windows and as farm-labor contractors. They went to night school to learn English because few people in Lexington speak Spanish.

Today, the Magdalenos in Lexington earn more than they did in Los Angeles, in a city where the cost of living is lower. Kentucky is now their promised land, and they talk about California the way they used to talk about Mexico.

'What we weren't able to do in many years in California,' Alejandra said, 'we've done quickly here.

'We're in a state where there's nothing but Americans. The police control the streets. It's clean, no gangs. California now resembles Mexico — everyone thinks like in Mexico. California's broken.'

***

So, my question for all those here who are triumphalist over the Hispanic tsunami: If a Mexican immigrant woman dislikes what the influx from Latin America has done to California, is it terribly surprising or outrageous that American citizens also dislike what's happening?

That's not a rhetorical question.

Posted by: Paul | Aug 6, 2007 6:47:29 PM

Barry's quote at 2:08 PM on 8/6 is on the money. Enjoy the white-guilt gravy train while you can, because it's going to end real soon. In 10 years politicians will be courting the coveted "white vote."

Posted by: jim jones | Aug 7, 2007 6:06:05 AM

"Only because of Perot. Clinton would have been well over that mark otherwise."

If not for Perot, Clinton would have lost.

Posted by: Tom | Aug 8, 2007 1:50:33 PM

In 1996?

Posted by: Sanpete | Aug 8, 2007 2:43:32 PM

Um, no they are not criminals, anymore than anyone who commits a civil infraction. (like, running a stop sign). It is not even a crime to overstay a visa.

um, illegally entering the country and overstaying a visa (which amounts to the same thing) are in fact both crimes. they're felony-level infractions, by no means comparable to running a stop sign. people who do these things can be accurately described as illegal immigrants, yes.

which of course is no reason to go all white-supremacist, fear-the-brown-menace on us all, nor necessarily even reason enough to deport everybody who's ever committed these crimes. (not that we in practice could deport every illegal immigrant, even if we wanted to, which would be a moronic thing to want.) but reducing this to a minor offense would in this legal immigrant's arrogant opinion be unwise. if we're going to have borders, we ought to have borders that matter, and that means disrespecting them should matter too.

Posted by: Nomen Nescio | Aug 13, 2007 12:53:24 PM

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