Last week’s election results undoubtedly left many readers deeply disappointed, if not disaffected, including those of you who couldn’t bring yourselves to cast your ballot for Mitt Romney for any number of well documented reasons. The prospect of a president unencumbered by electoral consequences, whose administration has already shown itself to be flagrantly indifferent to-if not contemptuous of-the rule of law and quaint Constitutional notions like the separation of powers, seems daunting to ordinary, patriotic citizens.
What’s more, the same malleable, anemic species of Republican which has represented GOP voters for the past two years, and whose leadership has led not only to political defeat but unprecedented encroachments upon personal autonomy, has been returned to Congress. Not to stand up for the principles of the men and women who elected them, but with the intent of compromising with the President and cementing his agenda into law, including the completion through congressional action of the vast amnesty Barack Obama has begun to implement through executive action.
Make no mistake, President Obama will attempt to fulfill his promise to repay the support he received from Latino voters this election cycle. The implementation of DACA and promulgation of administrative amnesty over the past two years was merely the down payment of a much larger loan floated by the Democratic Party’s most prized constituency. Repaid, of course, with citizenship for the 11-20 million illegal aliens currently living in this country.
I doubt that either Barack Obama or John Boehner will wait for the next session of Congress to begin; certainly it doesn’t appear that members of Congress are hesitant to begin strip-mining what remains of American citizenship. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s rumblings about neutering the filibuster-which was the only legislative tool that prevented the DREAM Act from being enacted in the last lame duck session of Congress-don’t augur well for those of us who want to prevent this from happening. This upcoming session will see a reprise of the last lame duck session, only with fewer opportunities to obstruct whatever stalking horse for amnesty is presented before Congress.
The fact that every credible exit poll, like every other measurable barometer of public opinion, demonstrated overwhelming voter opposition to amnesty will mean nothing to the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, much less the man who owes his office to individuals, unions, and corporations who will be the chief beneficiaries of any future negations of federal immigration law. The American people serve as an impediment which needs to be removed in a nation where too many old, white men exist, according to the despicable Al Cardenas, the current head of the curiously named American Conservative Union.
This meta-narrative, fostered by the usual suspects in the mainstream media and elsewhere among open borders dogmatists, will be emphasized in the weeks and months ahead. And just as in previous years with equally catastrophic amnesty proposals, this theme will be regurgitated by cretinous political apparatchiks, putative conservatives-such as Charles Krauthammer-and Republican Party lackies like Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity.
What makes this upcoming battle even more difficult is the seeming justification open borders enthusiasts have in pursuing their agenda by virtue of the latest electoral outcome. Almost to a man, they are touting the defeat of Mitt “Green Card Stapler” Romney-a man who endorsed the codification of DACA into federal law-as vindication of their mantra that the Republican Party needs to abandon any pretense of respect for our national borders, our language or our unique heritage as Americans.
While it’s easy to grasp why Democrats would want to enact legislation ensuring a spigot of reliable, straight ticket voters in future elections, it’s more difficult to discern why the Republican Party would want to legalize-and ultimately, enfranchise-millions upon millions of voters who will ultimately deprive its officeholders and political candidates of any decision-making authority. As poorly as Mitt Romney fared in capturing the Hispanic vote in aggregate terms, he performed even worse with specific sub-demographics within the Latino electorate. As the Pew Hispanic Center points out, Romney’s share of Hispanic voters who identified themselves as non-college graduates was thirteen points less than that among those who had graduated from college.
What better solution to the Republican Party’s demographic bind than to naturalize and enfranchise millions of future voters who have not only failed to attend college, but have not even progressed beyond high school? Makes perfect sense to me. Why even bother compromising your principles if Texas is going to become a blue state in a mere four years, as Jeb Bush-a potential presidential nominee to some of our country’s more sun-addled inhabitants-believes?
Furthermore, the notion that Hispanic voters-particularly, first and second generation immigrants-support the Democrats because of their support for unfettered immigration, or conversely, oppose Republicans due to their perceived opposition to such a policy, is empirically false. As Heather Mac Donald has pointed out repeatedly-including in the immediate aftermath of Mitt Romney’s loss-what binds this community to the Democratic Party, like past waves of immigrants who aligned with that party’s standard bearers, is support for and dependency upon a vast network of welfare programs, as well as wealth transfers which take the form of confiscatory taxes levied upon high income earners.
That is why the Democratic Party-including Barack Obama and Harry Reid, among others-is so eager to legalize millions of illegal aliens, over sixty percent of whom come from Mexico. It sees these individuals as part of its immutable political base and a gateway to power, just as leaders of public sector and service employees’ unions see them as potential dues-paying members, i.e. a gateway to the accumulation of wealth, most of it extracted at the expense of American taxpayers.
Unfortunately, unlike past waves of immigrants, there are very few incentives for these newcomers to assimilate our language, much less adopt the free market ethos that open borders fetishists at places like the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Cato Institute ostensibly venerate. Add to this the reality that there is no time for these newcomers to assimilate-even if they had the inclination to do so-as successive waves of immigration further dilute their attenuated connection to this country, and we are left stranded at the current impasse where our nation, along with much of Europe, is functionally bankrupt.
There is no sugarcoating the challenge we face in the days ahead, but face it we must. Amnesty is not the answer.
CSX can transport a ton of illegals 500 miles on a gallon of gas.