But immigration patriots should take heart from unreported news around the country showing that common sense on mass immigration is emerging as a winning political issue.
Liberal Republican Jeff Flake managed to reinvent himself as a restrictionist, backing Arizona’s SB 1070 law and thereby securing his own election. Of course, John McCain also did the same thing in Arizona in 2010. Immigration patriots will have to watch Flake very closely. But hypocrisy is, proverbially, the homage that vice pays to virtue.
In Iowa, Congressman Steve King overcame a redistricting process that weakened the traditional conservative majority of his Iowa district, and managed to secure reelection with almost 53% of the vote. Liberals smeared Congressman King continuously as a white nationalist for holding such “extreme” positions as questioning diversity and believing English should be the official language. MSM reportorials have already focused on King as an unreconstructed holdout against the conventional wisdom that the GOP should immediately surrender on illegal immigration. King’s solid victory in the face of difficult circumstances strengthens his position in the upcoming amnesty battle. (Note: in perhaps his most disgraceful performance, Romney lost Iowa 52-46, receiving only a 51% white share).
Significantly, Barletta shows the effectiveness of the “inreach” that could save the GOP, and the historic American nation…if Conservatism Inc. would allow it. Congressional districts do not neatly follow county lines so it is difficult to make a perfect comparison, but Barletta won a greater share of the vote than Mitt Romney in all but one county in his district. The exception: Perry County, where Congressman Barletta took 67.6% of a smaller voting pool, compared to Romney’s 68.6%.
Romney lost Pennsylvania 52-47, receiving only a 57% white share. But in this critical swing state, where Democrats have a one million registered voter advantage, Barletta proves that the Republicans have a potential blue-collar path to victory — if they will take it.
As former Congressman Tom Tancredo has noted, Reps. Matt Salmon of Arizona and Tom Cotton of Arkansas have both been elected. Both candidates usedimmigration as a centerpiece of their campaigns. Tancredo informed patriots in an email: “Remember those names — I promise you, they are all rising stars.”
Salmon is a former Congressman who has reclaimed now Senator Jeff Flake’s old seat. Cotton is a young Harvard-educated former Army Ranger heavily promoted by the Establishment conservative movement. (NRO’s Jay Nordlinger did a four-part series of columns on him.) He has been endorsed by Tancredo and Team America PAC and is saying the right things — but it will be interesting to see how this rookie Congressman will react to the push for amnesty by both Establishment Republicans and Conservatism Inc.
Almost unremarked in the MSM, the South continued its transition to a one-party Republican stronghold. Arkansas is now Republican territory for the first time since Reconstruction: the GOP captured the state Senate and installed a Republican speaker in the House. Republicans also won a supermajority in Tennessee in both chambers of the legislature. And Republicans won another decisive victory in the swing state of North Carolina, where they expanded their majority in the general assembly and won the governor’s race.
In Kansas, Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s endorsed candidates won over half of their races, as the state GOP maintained its majorities and pushed further to the right. Even the Treason Lobby mouthpiece Imagine2050, which sneered that Kobach was somehow hurt by the election, conceded that general view in Kansas was that the patriotic immigration reform community’s rising star had his hand strengthened in the state.
Around the country, most members of State Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI), a group of state legislators opposed to illegal immigration, won re-election. Thus Daryl Metcalfe, the current leader of the group, was elected with 100% of the vote, running unopposed.
Another example: Kieran Michael Lalor, an immigration patriot who attracted VDARE.com’s attention particularly because of his eloquent denunciation of New York State Democrats’ use of taxpayer money to help undocumented Democrats through the Obama Administrative Amnesty process (undenounced, needless to say, by Mitt Romney), was elected in New York’s 105th State Assembly district. Wikipedia’s entry on Lalor (which, curiously, had not been updated at presstime to reflect his election) does report that he published a book, This Recruit, about his experiences going through U.S. Marine Corps basic training in Parris Island.
There was other positive news in referendums from the states.
In Oklahoma, anti-white racial preferences took a hit, with voters approving a ban on Affirmative Action in state government hiring, education, and contracting. The ban passed by 59%-41%.
In Montana, patriotic immigration reformers won a crushing victory when Referendum 121 dramatically restricted certain state services from illegal immigrants, including the ability to acquire state licenses, employment, welfare, or aid for university students.
The Montana ACLU predictably opposed the measure, using the “no human being is illegal” slogan (in Spanish). Some state legislators were also opposed, claiming that referendum 121 somehow was an expansion of government bureaucracy, even though it was an attempt to limit the use of government programs. Montana’s own low-rent $PLC, the “Montana Human Rights Network,” also condemned the measure as a “right wing legislative referenda undermines our shared values of dignity, security, and fairness.”
Significantly, this far surpassed the less than 55% of voters who supported Mitt Romney — in a state that is supposedly solid red.
Generally, because of the donor-driven decision of the Romney campaign consultants to dial down primary themes like “self-deportation,” immigration played little role in the 2012 general election.
But immigration patriots certainly suffered painful defeats in this election cycle. One of the worst: the failure of the referendum against the so-called DREAM Act in Maryland, guaranteeing discounted tuition for illegal immigrants while denying it to actual Americans from out of state. (Needless to say, this referendum was a grass-roots initiative, the state GOP having run away).
But the DREAM Act’s margin in the occupied Old Line State was less than President Obama’s margin — only 58% of voters supported the DREAM Act, while Obama won 61.7%. (It should also be noted, amidst the cries for “moderation,” that same -ex marriage only squeaked to victory in Maryland by 4%.)
Immigration patriots should draw three lessons from the 2012 elections.
First, Peter Brimelow and Edwin S. Rubenstein’s 1997 prediction of “electing a new people” is coming true--but it has not taken over the entire country (yet). Conservatism Inc. is rushing to surrender, but some conservative writers are recognizing what patriotic activists have been trying to tell them for decades. This opens up intellectual space for patriotic immigration reformers.
Second, regardless of what the Beltway Right tries this cycle or next, the immigration battle will continue in the states.
Patriotic immigration reformers are winning at the state level and are performing better than the national party as a whole. Unlike tax cuts for billionaires, common-sense immigration reform has the ability to draw Reagan Democrats and split the “progressive” coalition. Regardless of the party line, state legislators want to win. They will continue to pursue this issue as long as they continue to receive pressure (and votes) from their constituents.
Third, and perhaps most important: the transformation of the GOP into the “Generic American Party” is continuing — regardless of what the Beltway Right has to say about it.
In areas of Republican strength, notably the South, the GOP has become the “white party.” There are entire states where every white state elected official is a Republican and every black is a Democrat. [Southern White Democrats Face End of Era in Congress, By Naftali Bendavid, WSJ, August 8, 2012]
Even if the Beltway GOP completely switches sides on amnesty, there is no evidence to suggest that their surrender will do anything to win over minority voters — and it will simply hasten Republican decline.
The good news for patriotic immigration reformers: it is now clear that the only way to create a Republican Party that “can win again” is to focus on “inreach” to the white base, work hard to court working class voters, stand for economic fairness and protection of American jobs, and boldly proclaim an immigration moratorium.
The bad news: Conservatism Inc. would rather lose than be accused of being Politically Incorrect.
James Kirkpatrick travels around the United States looking for a waiter who can speak English.
