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Republican Suicide
Nine years ago, aboard a National Review cruise, I debated immigration policy with my colleagues and the cruisers. It was a good discussion that touched all the familiar bases. Are there really jobs Americans won’t do? Are big business and big agriculture enmeshed in a corrupt bargain with liberal Democrats whereby business gets cheap labor and Democrats get new voters?
I argued then, as I do today, that there are many serious immigration reforms we ought to be undertaking. We have a valuable commodity – the right to live and work in the USA (and in some cases to become a citizen) – and we should not be handing it out to just anyone. We should swiftly deport criminals even as we should be more welcoming to those who earn PhDs or bring other skills. But I also argue that illegal immigration, particularly from Mexico, is steeply declining and likely to continue to; that even most Republicans, to say nothing of the larger electorate, are moderate on immigration, and that immigrants tend to work hard.
I respect the restrictionist position, but there is one argument they advance that I do not understand. They say that unless we stop immigration – legal and illegal – there is no chance for conservative governance or for the Republican Party. I say, unless Republicans refrain from causing a stampede to the Democrats by denigrating Mexicans as “rapists” and urging “deportation” (even of American citizens!), we will not win another national election.
The demographic reality is already baked into the cake. The share of the electorate that considers itself Hispanic grew by 49 percent between 2000 and 2012, compared with 5.8 percent growth for the non-Hispanic portion. Hispanics are disproportionately young. The median age for native-born Hispanics is just 18, compared with 42 for non-Hispanic whites. The vast majority of Hispanic youths (93 percent) are native-born and thus eligible to vote when they turn 18, as 800,000 Hispanics do yearly. Generational replacement alone could double the number of Hispanic voters by 2032.
While it’s true that Hispanics remain only 10 percent of voters for now, their share of the electorate is growing in key swing states. In North Carolina, for example, the Hispanic share is projected to increase from 3.1 percent (2012) to 4.5 percent (2016). The white percentage is expected to drop by two points. Assuming 2012 turnout rates, North Carolina, which voted for Romney, would go to the Democrats. The picture is similar in Florida, Nevada, Colorado, and Virginia.
Hispanic voter participation rates are among the lowest of any race or ethnic group. Only about half of eligible voters participate in presidential years and many fewer in off years. But that could change very fast. The presence of Barack Obama on the ballot shot black voter participation rates through the ceiling in 2008 and 2012. A Hispanic Democratic nominee might do the same for that demographic — as could the presence on the Republican ticket of a candidate who favors deporting American-born children of illegal immigrants.
“Oh please,” say the restrictionists, “Republicans can’t pander to Hispanics the way Democrats do.”
Nor should they. How about just appealing to them as Americans and not insulting them?
Consider the results of recent races. Greg Abbott, governor of Texas, won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote. Georgia’s Republican Governor, Nathan Deal, won 47 percent of Hispanics, as did Gov. Sam Brownback in Kansas. In New Jersey in 2013, Gov. Chris Christie got 51 percent of the Hispanic vote. They were all winners. As Pew’s Mark Hugo Lopez, explained in 2014, “It’s not a massive phenomenon, but Latinos identified less with the Democratic Party and a growing share identified with Republicans.” It is not necessary for Republicans to win a majority of Hispanic votes to win elections. What they cannot survive is a trend in which African-American sized percentages of Hispanics vote Democrat.
In 2014, 49 percent of Hispanic voters said their number one issue was the economy, which was more than the 45 percent of the whole electorate who named the economy as the top issue, and dwarfed the 16 percent of Hispanics who cited immigration.
But that was in a year when Republicans were not at war with immigrants.
Everything depends on tone. With an inclusive message, there’s no limit to what Republicans might achieve, even on restricting immigration. But if the Trump claxon comes to define Republicanism, the list of those fleeing will start with Hispanics, but won’t end there. What’s left will be moribund.
Published in Immigration
And you are right about this too. How often have I heard Democrats say, “They have the money.” Or “It’s always Big Business.”
Yes. Sorry.
I call dibs on this one:
There is a high rate of intermarriage between Hispanics and other ethnicities. I should know, as I’m the result of one.
Ooohh, then I’m out.
A big mistake that Mona is making here is assuming that all Hispanics are reflexively against border security and for amnesty. As a Hispanic and a native of the Texas-Mexico border, I can assure you that is not the case.
Even supposing that is true (as I think the truth of the matter doesn’t effect the ultimate argument), if the left winning or gaming their arguments, even a blockade won’t fix that.
“Some form of…” feels like a bit of a weasel phrase. You could get that percentage up to nearly 100% of all North Americans depending on how you define “welfare”. How many Fortune 500 corporations are on “some form of” welfare?
Dude, I’m driving the bus like Neal Cassady. We go from border town to border town and recruit the best talent possible. I’m thinking an RV like from Stripes is worthier than a Scooby Doo shag carpet van.
The sheer volume of Genghis Kahn’s DNA in the average Chinese citizen has set the bar high but we can do it. 1000 years from now when we are all some homogenous light brown color I wan’t our genes to be everywhere in the known world and beyond. 23 and Me and Ed G and BrentB67 and Mike LaRoche.
I didn’t say that the borders shouldn’t be enforcedly. Obvious, or at least more narrowly, I believe that borders should be enforced.
But even if we cut off immigration, that won’t stop the growing welfare state. Slow it a bit, but not stop it. Republicans largely gave up on making a major push to shrink government after the 1995-96 shutdown. I don’t expect a Republican candidate for president will ever make a serious case for smaller government again.
Here’s the quote:
Mona, did you read Peggy Noonan last week? She presented anecdotal evidence that many Hispanics might be thrilled with Trump’s tone. It’s certainly a possibility to consider, unless you think being Hispanic makes you genetically unable to appreciate the value of border enforcement.
Heck, even Mike H appears to have gotten some of Genghis’s leftovers.
I’m up for it.
No, we’ll all be a whiteish/greyish colour:
This doesn’t call Mexicans rapists. It calls a subset of the Mexicans being dumped on the US by the Mexican government rapists. That’s a subset (of a subset) of the Mexican population.
It’s like comparing Muslim extremists to Nazis. It’s only the extremists who are akin to Nazis, not the entire Muslim population.
I thought everything was bigger in Texas.
Hey-ooooo!
I’m glad my solution is gaining traction. The red blooded American males have perked up like George C Scott when Peter Sellers describes the nubile maiden 10/1 ratio to men in the post-apocalyptic mineshaft society.
I’d say sorry for hijacking but I’m not sorry. All of the elites reading this can eat Trump’s hair all day long as long as Jeb is waiting to buy the election and sink the election with his hubris. You all deserved Trump and still do. He’s the beast lumbering inexorably toward Bethlehem and you’re all unable or unwilling to jettison Jeb and save yourselves. Enjoy the ride then, because it’s a wild one.
Exactly, but Mona and others are very willing to advance that falsehood. These Republicans harm their own cause. Minorites can smell liberal pandering a mile away. It means they will take what you give them, but they won’t ever trust you. You already are showing that you are a pushover for the bigotry charge, and in their minds (and rightly so) they see this as an indication of guilt feelings. If you feel guilty, then maybe there’s a reason…..
They essentially allow the left to claim bigotry when there is none and they make it difficult for the rest of us to even talk about these problems.
As long as we can agree that the sentences “Catholic priests are child molesters. And some, I suppose, are good people” are similarly inoffensive, I will withdraw the objection.
Ms. Charen:
Thank you for the finger-waving lecture. NTK used to be appointment-podcasting for me. Not even Jay can keep me returning. Those who continue to tune in can enjoy listening to her derided Ted Cruz.
When I think of Marco Rubio and his mellifluous “tone” on immigration, I’m reminded that two years ago I read an account of some of the Senate Judiciary Committee amendments and votes. At one point, the committee was considering a limit of no more than one DUI conviction to be eligible for Rubio-Schumer legalization. The Hispanic lobby evidently went berserk and let the Democratic senators know it. As a result, the provision coming out of that committee allowed illegal immigrants as many as three DUI convictions before being denied Rubio-Schumer legalization.
Please forgive me. I simply cannot get past granting rewards for bad behavior. If, in the assessment of tonemasters such as Ms. Charen, that constitutes poor tone, tough [Redacted for CoC]. I’m tired of watching the rule of law get railroaded in this country. Want to live in a banana republic where the laws are applied however the elites in government feel like it? Go home.
This isn’t suicide, it’s more a mercy-killing.
The GOP is sick and it’s dying. Just look at their 2008 and 2012 candidates and the results. They are impotent and feeble in the Senate and Congress. They didn’t nurture their own health.
I still can’t abide the stand Mona takes here.
It’s not conservative.
She essentially is allowing people to wantonly distort perfectly clear English to mean whatever they wish and take offense. So they can call someone a bigot or whatever based on their own feelings. The GOP will never win with influential people in it’s ranks who are on board agreeing with these killer memes.
We should all have no sympathy for people who choose to be offended. Do we really have to say “not all” when we explicitly are referring to a subset?
And as a thought experiment…. so Donald Trump thinks *all* Mexicans are rapists? Even the women? So obviously he is either completely deluded or he didn’t ever mean *all*
Does Mona Charen really think that folks who are so quick to take offense, and so unable to comprehend nuance and context, and folks who are so near-paranoia they will automatically believe someone is a racist with little-to-no-evidence, are ever going to vote Republican?
You were saying…?
Except, that isn’t what he said.
When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best…
They’re sending people that have lots of problems…
They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
What part of ‘they’re not sending their best’ translates to you to mean ‘ all Mexicans are rapists’?
Oh, DocJay, we all love it when you go on your occasional Jeremiad*! And Totally Awesome, Boss, Bodacious poem:
“… somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
Aaaaah, utter genius!
*Jeremiad = a long, mournful complaint or lamentation; a list of woes.
Mona,
We seem to be having a conversation without you.
Are you still here?
With regard to your the paragraphs in your post which go:
I couldn’t agree with you more.
Could we start by insisting that our candidates begin by speaking to the prospective voters in English, the language that generations of immigrants to this country have struggled to master so that they could prosper and advance?
Rather than ostentatiously lapsing into Spanish at every opportunity, and even, in one instance, falsely claiming Hispanic ethnicity?
I get the ‘outreach’ argument, and certainly don’t object to a candidate who’s fluent in Spanish using it on occasion.
But if you want to appeal to voters as “Americans,” shouldn’t you speak to them in the language of America?
Can you bring yourself to agree with Donald Trump on this one?
Actually, I was enjoying reading the serious discussion interspersed with bits of comic relief.
The part that says, “They’re rapists.”
I like Mona; I like Jay. But I too stopped listening to the NTK podcast because it began to be like listening to my elderly parents complain about how awful the world has become.