Michael Gerson: “Political Suicide”

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Michael
Gerson, former Bush administration speech writer and now one of many Neocon columnists at the Washington Post had this to say about Republicans, immigration and John McCain:

[I]t would be absurd to deny that the Republican ideological coalition
includes elements that are anti-immigrant — those who believe that
Hispanics, particularly Mexicans, are a threat to American culture and
identity. When Arizona Republican Senate candidate J.D. Hayworth calls
for a moratorium on legal immigration from Mexico, when
then-Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) refers to Miami as a "Third World
country," when state Rep. Russell Pearce (R), one of the authors of the
Arizona immigration law, says Mexicans' and Central Americans' "way of
doing business" is different, Latinos can reasonably assume that they
are unwelcome in certain Republican circles.

The intensity of these Republican attitudes is evident not just from
what activists say but also from what Republican leaders are being
forced to say. Sen. John McCain, a long-term supporter of humane,
comprehensive immigration reform, has run a commercial
feeding fears of "drug and human smuggling, home invasions, murder" by
illegal immigrants.

Never mind that the level of illegal immigration is down in Arizona or
that skyrocketing crime rates along the border are a myth. McCain's tag
line — "Complete the danged fence" — will rank as one of the most
humiliating capitulations in modern political history.

* * *

Republicans have now sent three clear signals to Hispanic voters:

California's Proposition 187, which was passed in 1994 and attempted
to deny illegal immigrants health care and public education before being
struck down in court; the immigration debate of 2006, dominated by
strident Republican opponents of reform; and now the Arizona
immigration law. According to a 2008 study by the Pew Hispanic
Center, 49 percent of Hispanics said that Democrats had more concern for
people of their background; 7 percent believed this was true of
Republicans. Since the Arizona controversy, this gap can only have
grown. In a matter of months, Hispanic voters in Arizona have gone from
being among the most pro-GOP in the nation to being among the most
hostile.

Immigration issues are emotional and complex. But this must be
recognized for what it is: political suicide. Consider that Hispanics
make up 40 percent of the K-12 students in Arizona, 44 percent in Texas,
47 percent in California, 54 percent in New Mexico. Whatever temporary
gains Republicans might make feeding resentment of this demographic
shift, the party identified with that resentment will eventually be
voted into singularity. In a matter of decades, the Republican Party
could cease to be a national party.

The media villagers and Beltway bloviators are sticking to their pre-conceived election narrative that "Republicans are resurgent" in 2010 (because we media elites say so), while failing entirely to report the actual story here, that the coalitions which make up the Republican Party are engaged in internecine warfare for control of the party and that the GOP is imploding from within.

There is historical precedent for this. The Whig Party was undermined by its own version of Tea Party conservatives, the anti-immigrant Know Nothing Party, and both of these political parties imploded from within giving rise to the Republican Party in the 1850s. Political realignment is always accompanied by public unrest, which is what we are seeing today.