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Soul-Searching from Democrats on Immigration
File this jointly under “Better Late Than Never” and “We Told You So.” Liberal columnist Peter Beinart, writing in The Atlantic, has written a piece suggesting that the Democratic party needs to re-learn old lessons about the perception of immigration in America, to acknowledge that immigration does actually have costs, that those costs are disproportionately borne by one of their historic constituencies, and cultural assimilation (the old “melting pot”) is a vital component of a comprehensive immigration platform. He even says, effectively, that the liberal abandonment of principles it claimed to hold merely a decade ago was a key factor in the victory of Donald Trump. One wonders whether anyone on his side will heed his advice.
In 2005, a left-leaning blogger wrote, “Illegal immigration wreaks havoc economically, socially, and culturally; makes a mockery of the rule of law; and is disgraceful just on basic fairness grounds alone.” In 2006, a liberal columnist wrote that “immigration reduces the wages of domestic workers who compete with immigrants” and that “the fiscal burden of low-wage immigrants is also pretty clear.” His conclusion: “We’ll need to reduce the inflow of low-skill immigrants.” That same year, a Democratic senator wrote, “When I see Mexican flags waved at proimmigration demonstrations, I sometimes feel a flush of patriotic resentment. When I’m forced to use a translator to communicate with the guy fixing my car, I feel a certain frustration.”
The blogger was Glenn Greenwald. The columnist was Paul Krugman. The senator was Barack Obama.
So begins Beinart’s delving into what the Democrat party espoused 10 years ago. He recounts the rapid shift in rhetoric, and how it was in no small part fueled both by lobbying from the tech sector and by a myth that Latin-American immigration especially would produce a demographic wave that would obviate any white resistance to change. He’s mildly critical of the lobbying (he seems to favor the results but consider the effort tainted by “big business”) but very critical of the underlying assumptions of the demographic argument on the grounds that it entirely missed how it put poor whites (a group he considers a historic Democrat constituency) directly in competition for wages and government assistance with the immigrants. He is also critical of the Democrats’ abandonment of immigration enforcement for fueling the perception that all Latin immigrants must certainly be illegal. At several points Beinart queries why the Democrats abandoned enforcement both in rhetoric and in practice.
Where Beinart is most solid, though, is in his criticism of the Democrat multiculturalism obsession. By repeatedly downplaying assimilation by and of immigrants, by ignoring how slowly current immigrants are learning English (and thus also ignoring the importance of even having a main language), and by consistently browbeating native-born Americans with the “otherness” of immigrants, Beinart is one of the few liberal columnists who acknowledges that has both stoked the nativism liberals irrationally fear, but served as a barrier to immigrants and the native-born coming to terms with each other. He calls for a return to the melting-pot, and a return to rhetoric that emphasizes the commonalities we all share as human beings living in America.
In 2014, the University of California listed melting pot as a term it considered a “microaggression.” What if Hillary Clinton had traveled to one of its campuses and called that absurd? What if she had challenged elite universities to celebrate not merely multiculturalism and globalization but Americanness? What if she had said more boldly that the slowing rate of English-language acquisition was a problem she was determined to solve? What if she had acknowledged the challenges that mass immigration brings, and then insisted that Americans could overcome those challenges by focusing not on what makes them different but on what makes them the same?
Earlier in the piece, in the buildup to his main argument on assimilation, he makes a surprising point (emphasis mine):
[S]tudies by the Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam and others suggest that greater diversity makes Americans less charitable and less willing to redistribute wealth. People tend to be less generous when large segments of society don’t look or talk like them. Surprisingly, Putnam’s research suggests that greater diversity doesn’t reduce trust and cooperation just among people of different races or ethnicities—it also reduces trust and cooperation among people of the same race and ethnicity.
Greater diversity reduces the bonds of trust even within groups, not just between? This is hardly surprising to me as I’ve long argued that the diversity flail so often wielded by the Left is predicated on the very notion of creating distinct groups and driving wedges between them.
Beinart, however, does have several key weaknesses in his work. For one, he entirely attributes immigration perception problems to whites, as if black Americans do not have their own issues with immigration, and that their acquiescence to continued high immigration is to be taken for granted. This is a glaring void in his piece. Secondly, he treats immigration as a moral issue, particularly family reunification, a policy that is widely known to have been extensively abused and gamed. It seems as though Beinart thinks that America has a moral obligation to accept all comers, and he uses that belief to take a variety of cheap pot-shots at Trump, calling his policies “brutal” at one point without actually discussing them. Beinart must take his readers’ proclivities for granted. Finally he of course shows the usual liberal tendency to suggest economic redistributionist solutions to the costs of immigration, though to be fair he admits such solutions leave much wanting.
But again, where Beinart is absolutely correct is on the issue of assimilation:
Liberals must take seriously Americans’ yearning for social cohesion. To promote both mass immigration and greater economic redistribution, they must convince more native-born white Americans that immigrants will not weaken the bonds of national identity. This means dusting off a concept many on the left currently hate: assimilation.
Whether the Left will pay any attention to this is doubtful, at least in the short term. Judging by the way they have ignored Camile Paglia’s similar warnings vis. Men and Women, I suspect they will continue to devour their own rather than question their core assumptions of human nature. But it is encouraging that at least some on the Left are starting to notice that years of divisive diversity rhetoric and policy are actually making things worse for all parties, not better. It’s not like we haven’t tried to tell them this too.
Published in Immigration
Now if we could only find some movement to right the Right…
They always need just a little more power. Then it will work.
In the Soviet Union they took all the power. They took everything. It still didn’t work.
Republicans have probably gained seats from the creation of minority-majority districts. They intentionally draw the lines to get mostly black districts in an effort to get black congressman. This draws minorities out of several surrounding districts. In effect, it guarantees democrats 1 seat and increases republican chances in several nearby districts.
With the Wisconsin Partisan Gerrymandering case going to the Supreme Court in the fall, it’ll be interesting to see how the court threads that needle if they decide that “too partisan is Unconstitutional”.
It’s my understanding that the VRA effectively requires Minority-Majority districts. If the court overturns Partisan redistricting, will they also ban Minority-majority?
Quite right. Note that it was the “liberals” who did this — gerrymandering to increase the likelihood of minorities being elected to the House. Now, when it appears republicans are sometimes helped by it, gerrymandering is a Threat to the Republic!!
I think the minority-majority provisions were only required in states that were put under federal supervision. They were mostly in the south so it probably won’t be a factor in a Wisconsin case.
It also allows for some real doozies to remain in office. Once you get the Dem nod in one of those districts, you’re guaranteed a seat for life, no matter how stupid (Hank Johnson) or corrupt (Charlie Rangel) you are.
Not a direct factor in the specific case, but if they decide to outlaw gerrymanders for partisan purposes, can they keep them for racial purposes? Especially when there’s a really powerful correlation between race and partisan identity? It’s a little hard to see even Kennedy saying ok for one but not for the other. Either they both stay, they both go, or as I said, some interesting needle-threading to split the baby.
Except that it is against Muslim practice (in the Koran I believe) to intermarry and pass on a different faith. For that reason I don’t believe Muslim women are allowed marry outside Islam.
I don’t care how bad the health care bill is or how clueless GOP leaders are, the Dem’s don’t take the House next year without an enormous message makeover and a miraculous candidate recruitment effort. I’m done listening to pessimism. At least we have some semblance of a message. They don’t.
Depends on a lot of factors. It may be illegal in the Koran, but it does happen anyway. We have at least a couple of site members, for instance, in interfaith marriages.
Then don’t let any more in. Problem solved.