Who Is "Everybody Else?"

David Frum has an interesting post up responding to allegations of nativism and calling his arguments "too true for journalism." His original post, which kicked up a bit of a furor, fretted that Hispanic youth overwhelmingly support the Democrats, and that Bush's inability or unwillingness to close the borders has allowed the migration of an eventual voting bloc that is is not rich enough and not mindlessly patriotic enough to be effectively courted by the GOP -- and thus might destroy them. This, Frum suggested, will be Bush's legacy to his party.

My initial thought was that this said worrying things about the basis for the GOP's appeal, but others found Frum's points a bit racist. Thus, Frum's rejoinder. In it, he says that "I did not say or imply that the children and grandchildren of Mexican migrants 'couldn't possibly develop a deep attachment to the American nation.' I trust and hope that they can and will. But it would be blind and unwise to ignore the evidence that these hopes are coming to fruition far more slowly than one would wish." But his evidence is, to put it mildly, unconvincing.

Frum draws on a set of polls from PublicAgenda.org that measured the attitudes of Hispanic immigrants. His first piece of evidence is that "Mexican immigrants are significantly less likely than other immigrants to cite "freedom" as something they value in the United States - or as a reason for their desire to migrate." But that's not what the poll shows:

Nothing in there suggests that Mexican immigrants don't value freedom" -- it just suggests that freedom is not America's "most important" advantage so far as they're concerned. This poll is testing which values hold primacy, not which exist. And because Mexican immigrants come from a far poorer country than do the general pool of immigrants (many of whom emigrate from Europe Asia, etc), it's deeply unsurprising that their ability to vastly improve their economic situation is so salient. But that says nothing whatsoever as to whether they also value things like "freedom." And even with all this said, the difference is responses mild: 14%. Indeed, I wonder what you'd get if you asked the same question of the native born.

What's interesting is how Frum's argument develops here (italics mine): "People who feel in some way disaffected from or alienated from the American mainstream are the people most likely to vote Democratic....Once Mexican migrants become American citizens, they become Americans. Full stop. They have the rights of Americans and the duties of Americans. They "count" just as much as anyone else. But it defies the evidence to suggest that they will feel the same way - or vote the same way - as everybody else. For at least a generation to come, and perhaps two, Mexican-Americans will be significantly poorer than the national norm - and almost certainly more uncertain about their identity."

This is weird. It's banal to say that minorities and the poor -- in other words, the "disaffected"-- disproportionately cast their votes for Democrats, who have a history of championing their causes, as we just saw in the immigration debate. What's striking, though, is Frum's subtle, possibly unconscious, transition from saying that to saying voting for Democrats is in some way aberrational or outside the norm.

Democrats took home a majority of votes in the last election, and lost by 3 percent in 2004. But to vote Democratic just became to not vote like "everybody else." Everyone else can't logically refer to the Republicans' numeric superiority, so it's hard to conclude anything save that it refers to their demographic superiority -- that the mass voting for Republicans is more authentically American than the "marginalized" who're voting for Democrats. And that's toeing quite close to saying something very ugly.