Something that has already been forgotten is that back in November, Republican elites started down the road to "immigration reform" largely assuming that they wouldn't have to grant the vote to illegal aliens.
But that left them with two obvious rhetorical problems:
First, since what they were for is amnesty but they can't admit that it's amnesty because Republican voters are against amnesty, that left them with nothing to call it. The Democrats immediately jumped in with their own helpful suggestion as to what to call the heart of the Schumer-Rubio bill: "a path to citizenship." But, of course, "a path to citizenship" is not what Republicans wanted.
Second, "a path to citizenship" just sounds nice. Naive American voters tend to think of citizenship as entailing responsibilities as well as privileges, even though that's increasingly less true in the real world.
Now, it should have been obvious to the GOP strategists that they were walking into this trap -- because it happened before. During Bush Push #2 in 2004, Karl Rove took citizenship off the table to placate Republican Congressmen, and immediately got rhetorically hammered by Democrats. As I wrote in VDARE on February 1, 2004:
For example, immigrants who become citizens vote for Democrats by landslide margins, so Congressional Republicans don't want more immigrants. KRAP [Karl Rove Amnesty Plan], therefore, denies citizenship to guest workers, leaving them a disenfranchised caste of unassimilated gastarbeiters.
But Bush's new Machiavellianism automatically cedes the rhetorical high ground to the Democrats, who are already pushing for "earned legalization" (i.e., giving illegals the vote). Bush is left contradictorily sputtering about how wonderful immigrants are and how we don't want them to become our fellow citizens.
Rove has spent three years telling the press what a brilliant political ploy amnesty would be, so his initial spin was: what a cynical political ploy!
On May 9, 2004, I noted in VDARE:
And, as I forecast, the Democrats have duly offered to not only give all illegal aliens amnesty, but also to put them on the road to citizenship…and, thus, to being good little Democrats.
The whole thing offers the Dems some slam-dunk soundbites. For example, Rep. Bob Menendez, one of the bill's sponsors, said Bush's proposal "is a pathway to deportation. This is a pathway to the American dream."
Touché!
They didn't get rolled. They're rolling over for their masters.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/5005030/horror-as-rapper-is-shot-on-stage-in-front-of-3000-fans-in-brazil.html
ReplyDeleteBrazil, what a vibrant place.
Vibrant
ReplyDeleteViolent.
Viobrant?
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/lawmakers-poised-override-quinns-gun-bill
ReplyDeleteBlue state allows concealed guns.
Lock and load and stop and frisk.
Brain Bust is more like it.
ReplyDeleteWhat can you say about a party that produces such intellectual heavyweights like Rubio, Bush II, Palin, Quayle, Bachman, Perry, McCain, Perry, and etc?
http://rt.com/news/snowden-nsa-interview-surveillance-831/
ReplyDeleteUSrael can do just about anything.
It uses cyber-terrorism to destroy another country, but the it's Snowden who has to hide from 'justice'.
You're assuming that the Republicans care about the country as a whole and not just big business. Unfortunately it seems that the Republican Party is more and more controlled by business, thus Republican support for Amnesty with No (Real) Enforcement. Increasingly neither party cares about facts or the interests of the U.S. as a whole--they just want power.
ReplyDeleteOff topic, but it is interesting how the old Anglo alliance still holds together:
ReplyDeleteSnowden stressed that the National Security Agency (NSA) often cooperates with foreign partners through a special body known as the Foreign Affairs Directorate (FAD). Referring to Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, also known as the ‘Five Eye Partners,’ he said their practices often go further than those of the NSA.
In particular he flagged the system used by the UK’s General Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), TEMPORA as one of the worst offenders.
“TEMPORA is the signals intelligence community's first ‘full-take’ internet buffer that doesn't care about content type and pays only marginal attention to the Human Rights Act,” said Snowden.
The UK buffer is able to hold a vast quantity of internet data for up to three days, said the whistleblower.
“You should never send information over British lines or British servers. Even the Queen’s ‘selfies’ with her lifeguards would be recorded, if they existed.”
A.K.A., Echelon.
ReplyDeleteThe "Anglo-Saxon powers" spying electronically goes back to Ultra during WWII.
the GOP "got rolled"?
ReplyDeleteLOL...shaking my head....Steve, I was born at night, but not LAST night!
Look, I suppose SOME of the GOP base will fall for this excuse, this manufactured consensus wisdom that GOP was duped by those oh so clever Democrats. Well, ok, most of them will fall for it...sadly.
Look, the GOP is selling out for MONEY, honey. And they are looking to take the money and cover their collective tuchus while doing it. How nice of you to help them cover it.
The GOP pols know that the Big Money wants amnesty because amnesty will send a signal to the teeming millions overseas that all they have to do is come here illegally and wait....
And the Big Money wants all that cheap labor and all those potential consumers over here in america as fast as possible. More livestock for the cattle ranch that is america....
And the Big Money will pay the politicians who go along--either while they are in office with donations or after they are out with speaking fees, or both ways.
And if a politician does NOT go along with amnesty, they may be targeted by Big Money in the primaries. And if you do not play the game by the Big Money rules when in office, the speaking fees are not quite as opulent when you are no longer in office....
The GOP pols are not being "rolled" or duped by the Democrats. They are going along with the amnesty for the same reason as the Dems--MONEY. M...O...N...E....Y.
Neither the Dem nor GOP pols care about the future of their parties. They care about MONEY, honey....
Go on, steve, do your thing. But I aint buying that excuse....
OT: Epic stupidity at The Atlantic
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/07/the-great-wall-of-texas-how-the-us-is-repeating-one-of-historys-great-blunders/277617/
We shouldn't build a border fence because Hadrian's Wall caused the fall of the Roman Empire. That level of stupidity
ReplyDeleteI don't think Republicans ever really thought they could get away with having a cheap-labor helot class. It's just such an implausible notion to entertain.
ReplyDeleteConsider that in the wake of any "comprehensive immigration reform" without a path to citizenship, the projected trajectory of the electorate would immediately become more vibrant, due to increased legal immigration as well as the Dreamer provisions and/or birthright citizenship for the permanent guest-workers' children. In this new environment, citizenship for the former illegals would inevitably follow.
Second, can you imagine the optics of second-class non-citizenship? Think of how easy it would be for the Democrats and the media to propagandize for naturalization: "This is Consuela. She lives in America and has enjoyed legal status since CIR was passed. Her children are US citizens. And yet, she may still never realize her American Dream of become a full citizen in her adopted country." Etc. etc.
No, the Republican brain trust can't possibly be stupid enough to fail to realize that citizenship is the only endgame that amnesty can have. Rather, Rovian apparatchiks don't mind handing the future of the country over to liberals and the people who vote for them. Like structural deficits or unfunded pensions, it'll be someone else's problem down the line, so who cares?
But I think Steve does have a broader point here, namely that a party that won't criticize any aspect of immigration will be unable to explain why the concessions it is forced to make to its patriotic base are good ideas.
So the GOP is forced into absurd positions that expose the contradiction between the plutocrats' interests and the base's interests: "Let's build a fence to keep out the hardworking natural conservatives who will grow our GDP!"
The Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz had more brains than the GOP brains trust.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile Obama and Pelosi have both expressed their concern this week that if the Republicans don't allow the amnesty to go through they will never win another presidential election. How Touching; glad to hear they have our interests at heart.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP just gets more pathetic by the day.
ReplyDeleteWhat's even worse is that the establishment running dogs in the media have it in their heads that trouble in Egypt and the possibility of a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan is somehow a problem for Obama and an opportunity for Republicans. HELLO?! Nobody cares who rules Egypt, and just about everyone would be jumping for joy at the idea of finally saying goodbye to that god-forsaken Central Asian cesspool. If the GOP were smart (which it isn't) they would either advocate for no more war, or at the very least stop talking about foreign policy.
Out overclass truly is the most worthless in the world.
Is chumminess leading to more 'corruption' in culture?
ReplyDeleteToday, most people call each other by first name from the first time they meet. An air of chumminess is everywhere. Facebook says anyone can be your friends, and people have all sorts of twitter friends.
One thing I notice about a lot of younger film critics is they are chummy and friends with one another. Many of them are immature, have no movie sense, and suck so bad. But they are the 'leading lights' of the film criticism community. But how did they get so prominent? Could it be they are oh-so-chummy with people who publish and edit journals and sites? Are people being favored and hired for their chumminess and personalities?
It's like all movie critics are twitter-connected to one another. A kind of chummy hive mind-set seems to be setting in.
Consider Ebert and Siskel back in the days. Though both were Chicago critics, they never spoke to one another and only began to do so cuz they became hosts of a TV show. Even so, they saw one another as rivals and weren't chummy unless they had to be. And both of them had to deal with real newspaper bosses who were not into chummy mode.
Or consider Sarris, Kael, Simon, MacDonald, and Kauffmann in the 60s and 70s. They might discuss stuff at a gathering of critics, but they were not chummy with one another. And William Shawn wasn't chummy with Kael and played the neutral role of editor.
Village Voice hired Sarris cuz he was a prominent voice of the new film culture. And Shawn hired Kael cuz of her fresh voice with Bonnie and Clyde thing. There was no chumminess involved. Indeed, Sarris felt sort of as an outsider at the Voice cuz he wasn't 'radical'. And Shawn didn't personally like Kael but kept her on cuz she was good.
So, chumminess didn't get you very far.
But today, if you're chummy with some editor or publisher, you get picked cuz you know him/her or cuz you're chummy with him/her. Indeed, all of journalism feels that way, especially with the chum-chum thing between Obama and the media.
Maybe that is the downside friendliness and casualness. You think you're being nice and all, but you're often judging people by likability than for the person's actual worth.
It's like what Renata Adler said about what happened to New Yorker once the chum-chum network took over. And Tina Brown was a clown, and so is David Remnick, especially in his chummy article on Springsteen(ripped apart by Leon Wieseltier in one of his better pieces).
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/magazine/politics/105712/washington-diarist-saint-in-the-city-springsteen
Adler, for the sin of striking out at chummery, was exiled from the magazine community in 1999 for over a decade. It didn't matter that she's Jewish and female. If you're not a chummy chum, you're gone.
Another danger is fannery. Though Adler's piece on Kael in NYRB was way over the top, it seems like a lot of people were out to get her cuz they were big fans of Kael.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jul/07/renata-adler-new-york-author-interview
But chummery is worse than fannery. At least fans respect a person for his or her talent. With chummery, talent may have nothing to do with it. It's just a matter of whom you're chummy with.
Since the Republicans will never look out for white interests because the Republicans are NOT and NEVER WILL BE the party of white natives, since that is the undeniable naked fact, the only hope for white natives, which is to say traditional Americans, is the DEATH of the Republican Party. What step two would be or even if there would be a step two is not nearly as vital as that the killing con by the Republican Party end.
ReplyDeleteA path to gimmedats is more like it.
ReplyDelete[QUOTE]Meanwhile Obama and Pelosi have both expressed their concern this week that if the Republicans don't allow the amnesty to go through they will never win another presidential election. How Touching; glad to hear they have our interests at heart./QUOTE]
ReplyDeleteWhy would Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi lose any sleep at night if the GOP never wins another presidential election again ?
The reason they want amnesty passed is because it will speed up the death of the GOP even faster, not because they believe it will actually save the GOP.
Obama and Pelosi would NEVER support a political bill that helps Republicans more than it helps Democrats.
Americans are entitled to a job at a decent, "living wage": Republican heresy.
ReplyDeleteAll businesses are entitled to the workers they want at the price they want to pay them: Republican dogma.
GOP Brain Trust
ReplyDeleteThat must be one of them there oxymorons I keep hearin' about.
To do something about the GOP "braintrust", hamper their ability to get their message out.
ReplyDeleteThe way you do that is to discredit their little helpers: bloggers, talk jocks, pundits, etc. GOP leaders need those people to get the message out.
If those intermediaries think that pushing a GOP line will harm their careers, only a small number will do it.
For a tangible example, help me discredit amnesty fans like @EdMorrissey and @MKHammer. If the former thinks hyping amnesty will harm his career, he's going to run from hyping amnesty.
http://gawker.com/5994914/anne-franks-stepsister-she-would-have-probably-been-a-belieber
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newrepublic.com/article/113327/hannah-arendt-agent-reviews-stanley-kauffmann
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newrepublic.com/article/film/103451/tnr-film-classics-the-exorcist-february-9-1974
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClaNnaMgbF0
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newrepublic.com/article/film/102820/tnr-film-classics-animal-farm-january-17-1955
TNR Film Classics
Obama and Pelosi would NEVER support a political bill that helps Republicans more than it helps Democrats.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to hear the Democratic talking points if there were 11 million illegal invaders fromn a demographic that voted 70 percent Republican.