Have conservative voters lost their minds?

I am at a total loss as to why conservatives, because of their opposition to the president on immigration, are turning against the House Republicans. I’ve been getting one e-mail after another from people saying they’ve had it with the Republicans in Congress and are not voting for them. But what happened since 2004 that they are more angry at the Republicans now than then? The GOP House STOPPED the president’s immigration bill in 2006.

A reader sent me a transcript of a Rush Limbaugh conversation with a caller, and for once I am in agreement with Limbaugh. He’s saying to the caller exactly what I just said, and with the same sense of amazement—that the GOP House OPPOSED Bush on immigration. So why are the conservatives suddenly so angry at the Republicans? I just don’t get it. The sensible thing is to want to keep the Republicans in charge of the House at least until Jorge W. leaves office, so that they can stop any further open-borders schemes he hatches.

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Dimitri K. makes a chilling point about conservative attitudes:

This supports your view that current conservatives are actually “family-values” liberals, whereas Democrats are totalitarian-state liberals, for whom the state substitutes for family. Both types don’t care about anything beyond their point of fixation—strong family or strong state. By the way, many think that the U.S. is in a better position than Europe because of those family values. I really hesitate. The left at least does not approve of Sharia law, but family-values conservatives may see it as an implementation of their strong-family dreams. Just stop genital mutilation, and they are OK with Islam.

A VFR reader writes:

I heard that call and was just astonished at how stupid the caller was. He complains about illegal aliens but then he insisted he wasn’t mad at Bush, just the Republican Congress!

LA replies:

But this attitude does not seem to be limited to the certifiably stupid. To my distress, many conservatives seem to have missed what happened this year, something I played up at VFR as much as I could: the House Republicans’ brave, totally unyielding stand against the president’s open-borders bill. Many conservatives seem to have accepted the mainstream media’s lying spin on this, that the Congress is “do-nothing” on immigration, rather than the truth, which is that the House Republican caucus did such a great and unprecedented thing in refusing even to discuss the amnesty and “guest-worker ”bill passed by the Senate. They just said no, an unprecedented event in the world of politics for which they deserve enormous credit. Why can’t conservatives see this? Maybe they’re stupid after all….

Spencer Warren writes:

I agree with your arguments in why voters should support the House Republicans.

But the anger against them is understandable in light of:

1. Their massive domestic spending and failure to reform liberal programs. Indeed they enacted an unfunded Medicare drug benefit in a program that is already headed toward bankruptcy well ahead of Social Security. (True, had they done nothing they might have lost the House earlier!)

2. Corruption scandals.

3. Earmarking abuses, which reflect how they represent the K Street lobbyists more than the people who elect them. The public uprising against immigration resulted in passage in the House of a much better immigration bill, and also resulted in the House standing fast and stopping the disastrous Senate bill endorsed by B. This was a rare triumph of democracy over special interests. And a rare one that may be short-lived.

4. From my point of view, I also wish the House Republicans had put pressure on the usurping left-wing courts with hearings to focus public attention on this issue. They also could have moved to impeach Justice Rinehart of the very liberal Ninth Circuit, which often is reversed by the Supreme Court. Rinehart rules in cases brought by the ACLU when his wife is affiliated with the ACLU. He is a good target. Just hearings on his impeachment would have effectively raised this crucial domestic issue, second in importance to immigration, in my opinion. The House also did nothing when the Federal courts nullified the law they originated to require a de novo Federal court hearing on whether Terri Schiavo’s constitutional rights were being denied. They thus encouraged the courts to become even more arrogant, if that were possible.

Derek C. adds some useful perspective to the issue, among other things qualifying my admiring statements about the House Republicans:

The White House can be blamed for conservative insouciance vis-a-vis the immigration issue. Bush, despite several promises, still hasn’t signed the bill authorizing the wall on the border, and when and if he does, it will be a low-key ceremony. So, the one critical issue the House has going for it is being hushed up by their party leader. You won’t see any national ads warning voters that Pelosi as Speaker means amnesty next year along with doubled, if not trebled, legal immigration. It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that Bush and the Democrats have sealed some deal where the Dems get to pass amnesty while Bush is given only the most cursory of hearings to appease the Move-On types. [LA adds: Derek’s guess makes complete sense to me.]

Another problem is that the G.O.P. House has had over a decade to pass serious border reforms. I know that they would not have gotten through the Senate or the White House, but still, the show of good faith would have been salutary, especially right after 9/11. They’ve only resorted to it in the past year because they can see the hangman’s noose. Cynicism is hardly inspiring, and it’s doubly depressing when politicians put forward immigration reform only when they’re sinking, thus taking this most serious of issues down with them. Still, the House’s action this year merits keeping them in office, if only to block much worse measures that will surely follow if the Democrats win.

Ben writes:

Something else you must keep in mind. I have no idea where that caller (on Rush Limbaugh) was from but his local congressman might have sold him out. For example, my Republican congressman not only voted against the federal marriage amendment but also voted for amnesty. He scored a F- on immigration when I checked it out on the Internet. He has voted for every amnesty bill and any other destructive immigration bill.

Having said that though, each Republican should check his congressman and vote based on his individual performance, not the performance of the GOP as a whole. I would suggest finding out what your congressmen did and make a choice based on his actions. I have zero reason to vote for my Republican congressman but many people in other districts should consider theirs. I also agree with Spencer Warren, Republican voters have every reason to feel betrayed at every level.

The problem with men like Rush Limbaugh is, they have supported every destructive policy (whether outright such as Dubai ports or by saying nothing for 17 years about immigration) that the Republicans have supported and then come election throws his hands up in the air and screams, “I just can’t understand you people turning on the GOP!!” Even though he makes a strong point against people turning on the house, if men like Limbaugh who have much power had sided with true conservatism all these years and used his power to try and bring the GOP more to the right rather then accepting their slide to the left as some great strategy to destroy the Dems once and for all, then things might have been very different and the attitudes going in to this election might have been more upbeat in voting for the GOP. Instead he has spent the last three weeks talking constantly about why we should continue to support the GOP. Namely the Dems are much worse. If it wasn’t for the House and their stand against Bush this year on immigration (which was brought on mostly by the minutemen and their rally of the immigration issue, God bless them), Limbaugh would have nothing to use to justify the re-election of the GOP.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 24, 2006 02:02 AM | Send