By Paul Nachman
07/24/2006
Washington Post columnist David Broder has a reputation as a political sage, but nowadays he seems to be in his dotage. Witness his credulous broadcast of electoral advice ("The GOP Lag Among Latinos," 7/23/06) for fellow Republicans from Florida’s race-hustling Senator Mel Martinez.Martinez, via Broder, goes through the usual song & dance about how the Republicans, over the long haul, will destroy their support among Hispanics if they act mean and enforce our immigration laws. Thus I remind readers of the point made so often at VDARE by Steve Sailer (in my words):
Republicans now garner about 35% of the Hispanic vote, so for every 100 new Hispanic voters, the Republicans lose a net 30 votes. If Republicans cave on border enforcement, their share might "surge" to 40%. (It’s hard to out-pander the Democrats among the poverty-class entrants that constitute much of the illegal-alien flow.) Then, over the long term, Republicans would lose "only" 20 net votes for every 100 people in the resulting immigration tsunami from the south. And Martinez asserts that immigration capitulation is a shrewd long-term strategy for Republicans? That’s like the old joke about the merchant who loses a little on each item he sells but makes up for it by selling in volume.
An obvious implication of Martinez’s advice to the GOP is that Hispanics are incompatible with the rule of law, which is the basis for our polity. In which case, why would we permit any Hispanic immigration? Evidently we need to put Martinez in touch with our Rob Sanchez, sisters Lupe Moreno and Angie Morfin and the American patriots of the newly-formed organization You Don’t Speak for Me.
Martinez-via-Broder also complained about the recent unsuccessful attempt by most of the House Republicans to end the "voting rights" requirement that ballots be provided in foreign languages. So I guess we need to keep pounding away on the obvious point here: If immigrants are voters, they must be citizens. And to become citizens, they're supposed to demonstrate English competence. So why should they need ballots in, say, Spanish? I certainly don’t want people voting in our elections if they can’t even follow the public debate on the issues. Who does? (Another possibility: The debate is entirely different in English and in, say, Spanish.)
Maybe Broder should be encouraged to resume thinking for himself — or retire.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.