Why Democratic Majority Is Not Demographic Inevitability (Part Two: The Politics of Immigration

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http://www.thenation.com/blog/173444/why-democratic-majority-not-demographic-inevitability-part-two-politics-immigration-refo

Why Democratic Majority Is Not Demographic Inevitability (Part Two: The Politics of Immigration Reform)


Protestors rally against the SB1070 immigration bill in Arizona in 2010. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin.)

In February, I wrote the first part in a promised series about why today's political conventional wisdom—that, as Jonathan Chait put it "conservative America will soon come to be dominated, in a semi-permanent fashion, by an ascendant Democratic coalition hostile to its outlook and interests"—may be premature. I cleared the decks by pointing to all those other moments—in 1964, 1972, 1974 (and, I didn't note, 1992)—when equally confident prognostications of permanent Democratic majorities came a cropper. This time, I take on the most conspicuous this-time-it's-going-to-be different argument: that the white vote in presidential elections has gone from almost 90 percent in 1980 to about seventy percent in 2012; that there are 24 million Hispanics currently eligible to vote and there will be 40 million by 2030; and that only 27 percent of Hispanic voters chose Mitt Romney for president (chart here)—and so, abracadabra, Democrats Über alles!

Now, it might hard for us to wrap our minds around a different way of seeing things in these days of Joe Arpaeio and Jan Brewer—and Susana Martinez, the Latina governor of New Mexico who promises to repeal her state's law allowing undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses even though her own grandparents were undocumented immigrants. But, taking the long view—and isn't that the whole point of this exercise?—it has to be acknowledged: party identities aren't passed on through the genes. Blocs of "natural Democrats" have become natural Republicans before. Indeed, in at least one instance, it happened with shocking rapidity. As I noted last time, in the 1960s, droves of white Democrat ethnics—Italians, Eastern Europeans, the Irish—started voting Republican in a backlash against the Democrats' continued embrace of civil rights in the wake of a failed open housing bill and the urban riots. Only an eye-blink earlier, they had been considered the soul of the New Deal coalition.

Not Jews, of course; they stayed Democratic—even as they joined the Italians, Eastern Europeans and Irish in moving out to the suburbs. And so: consider an interesting bon mot I once heard in a speech by David Brooks (not ordinarily much of a sage, I'll admit). He said the question going forward for the Republican Party was whether Hispanics would turn out to be Italians or Jews. That was in 2005, one of those brief windows when the "Italian Option" seemed like it just might be a possibility. A series of Bush Administration-supported bills for comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, were introduced. The next year, Bush boldly distanced himself from nativists in his party by calling the armed civilian border-patrollers of the Minutemen "vigilantes" even as other GOP pols were embracing them as citizen heroes, no more threatening than neighborhood watch volunteers (these were those long-ago days back before Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman...). Then, in 2007, an armada of braying callers spurred by hysterical right-wing talk-jocks like Rush Limbaugh drove the nail in the coffin for Karl Rove's dream to make the Republican Party safe for migrants from Mexico. And suddenly, over just about any imaginable time frame, it seemed Hispanics would be like Jews—Democratic loyalists, possibly forever.

But look at the lead headline in today's New York Times: "GOP Opposition on Migrant Law Seems to Erode." (The lead example is no less a Tea Party darling than Rand Paul.) The RNC's blockbuster save-the-party report released this week implores, "We must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our party's appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only." They actually seem serious about it this time. Admittedly, nobody ever went broke betting against the Grand Old Party's stubborn insistence never to venture beyond its core constituencies, but: What if? What if a genuine immigration reform law happens?

[denverbill]

1. I think Hispanics who pay attention see what the majority of the GOP is like.

They read the racist comments on news sites I'm sure, as do the rest of us. They hear Limbaugh. They hear about Republicans wanting to shoot illegals on site. It's not just immigration reform. There is a large block of Republicans that just want 'white culture' preserved and don't want any more Hispanics in America period. That block isn't suddenly going to become tolerant and reasonable.

[Johonny]

2. Isn't the main difference upward mobility

In the past immigrants entered a society with much more probability of upward mobility. Hence after a few generations became somewhat intermixed with the previous ruling majority. But upward mobility is pretty much stuck in neutral. It isn't really a race thing it is a socio-economic thing. Sure more minorities might vote Republican, but as racism lowers as a political driving force more whites at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder will shift as well. To me the driving force behind surge in numbers for Democrats has everything to do with the stall in upward mobility.

[CreekDog]

3. this is stupid --look what happened in California?

as close to a genetic realignment along Democratic lines that has solidified because of the demonization of immigrants which began in the 1990's and continues until today.

so deep is the wound to the Republican party from that, they may not recover, ever in this state.

the idea that something so far fetched, as well as policies of a few outlier politicians will allow immigrants and their families and supporters to somehow embrace the party that still hates them, but for a few exceptions, is that most ridiculous thing i've read in recent memory.