In the three days since the 2012 election, a who’s who of Republicans have admitted the obvious: the party’s current position on immigration is politically untenable.
“I think members on both sides of the aisle want to resolve this issue,” House Speaker John Boehner said at a press conference on Capitol Hill Friday morning. Earlier in the week he told ABC News: “This issue has been around far too long. A comprehensive approach is long overdue, and I’m confident that the president, myself, others can find the common ground to take care of this issue once and for all.”
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed that sentiment Friday morning in an interview with CBS. “Right now for me the most powerful argument is that the changing demographics in the country really necessitate an even bigger tent for the Republican Party,” she said.
The piece goes on to report that Charles Krauthammer and Sean Hannity have both experienced deathbed conversions on the issue. Then things get sketchy.
“But, a broader question remains: While the Republican establishment — and even some of its conservative elements like Hannity — appear to have found religion on the need to cut a deal on immigration reform,” Cillizza asks, “can they sell it to a party base that continues to vehemently oppose anything that condones illegal immigrants gaining legal status?”
I’m going to answer that with no. No they can’t. Not in a million years.
Check out this post at National Review by Andrew McCarthy. He’s not only making the stupid and bigoted “all Muslims are terrorists” argument, but he’s actually arguing — and I’m not kidding, check it out for yourself — that Latinos are just like “Islamists.” They both love the nanny-state and hate capitalism (not sure where he’s getting all that from) and worse, they think they’re better than us — and by “us” I assume he means white people. In the dog whistle racism code book, I’m pretty sure you find this use of collective pronouns under “‘real Americans’ wink, wink.”
“Islamists, like many Hispanic activists, are the vanguard of a different culture that they passionately believe is superior to the culture of individual liberty,” he writes.
Seriously, the whole thing is as offensive as it is insane and people like Andy McCarthy are the GOP base. The same people who’ve made a hero of a white supremacist sheriff in Arizona. They aren’t going to start loving immigrants because it’s political suicide not to. No, they’re going to continue to hate the dirty brown people because they’re racists.
You think you’re going to bring them around? Yeah, good luck with that. After decades of courting racists, you can’t just ask them to turn it off. Either the racists go or the non-whites stay away. Your choice, GOP — who do you think you need more?
