Brain surgery

Over at TownHall.com, Michael (“the Big Brain”) Medved writes:

Friday’s Wall Street Journal reported more alarming news for the Republican Party: according to the new WSJ/NBC Poll, Hispanics now identify themselves as Democrats rather than Republicans by a horrifyingly lopsided margin of 51% to 21%…. The new poll should come as a sobering reminder that the current hysteria against “illegal aliens” (and even opposition to further legal immigration by Tom Tancredo and his followers) is helping to alienate the most rapidly growing ethnic segment of the American electorate.

Hey, I’m just ballparking here for the moment, but let’s say that while 14 percent of the population is Hispanic, only eight percent of the electorate is Hispanic. And while Medved uses a benchmark of 45 percent Hispanic vote for Bush in 2004 down to 21 percent today, we know that the 45 percent figure is hogwash, based on one faulty poll which was wildly out of line with every other poll on Hispanic voting patterns. But let’s be generous and guestimate that the previous average Hispanic support for the Republican party over several elections was 36 percent and that it has dropped to 21 percent as a result of Republican opposition to amnesty. Fifteen percent of eight percent of the electorate is 1.2 percent of the electorate that the GOP loses by opposing amnesty.

Big Brain talks about how Hispanics will be “alienated” by Republican opposition to legalization. Strangely, it hasn’t occurred to him that non-Hispanic white Republicans might be alienated by Republican support for legalization. Based on the kind of passion that exists on this issue and the number of people who have been saying that they will not support any Republican who votes for amnesty, a conservative guess is that if the Republicans passed the amnesty they would lose ten percent of the non-Hispanic white vote. Let’s say conservatively that non-Hispanic whites, who form 67 percent of the population, form 70 percent of the electorate. Ten percent of 70 percent is seven percent of the electorate that the GOP would lose by supporting amnesty.

So, by stopping the Kill America bill the Republicans would lose 1.2 percent of the electorate, but by supporting the Kill America bill they would lose seven percent of the electorate.

If Big Brain were actually concerned about the well being of the Republican party, not to mention the well-being of America, instead of being concerned with how to carry out the liberal and neocon agenda of destroying America’s borders, laws, sovereignty, and Anglo-European majority culture, he would have noticed that alienating whites is a lot more harmful politically than alienating Hispanics. But he can’t notice this. To notice it, he would have to take seriously and respect the European American majority population of this country. But because his entire orientation is to get rid of that majority, it is out of the question for him to regard their feelings, their votes, and their possible alienation as legitimate factors to be considered, though he does regard the alienation of Hispanics as not just a legitimate factor to be taken into account, but as the ruling factor.

But let’s us consider further this issue of alienation. To repeat the passage quoted above:

The new poll should come as a sobering reminder that the current hysteria against “illegal aliens” … is helping to alienate the most rapidly growing ethnic segment of the American electorate.

Leaving aside his scare quotes around “illegal aliens” which in and of themselves disqualify him from participating in this debate, what is he saying? He’s saying that if the Republican party opposes the legalization of 12 million illegal aliens (or, as he calls them, “illegal aliens”), Hispanic citizens will be permanently turned off by that. He’s saying that Republicans and conservatives must surrender to the feelings of Hispanics who are more loyal to their fellow Hispanics than they are to American law and to America itself. Notice that BB does not object to these Hispanics who according to his own belief demand the destruction of our laws and sovereignty for the sake of their fellow Hispanics. No, he objects to the European American majority who resist the destruction of our laws and sovereignty, and he calls them hysterical bigots for doing so. His position comes down to saying that because we already have tens of millions of Hispanics who are more loyal to their ethnic group than to America, we have no choice but to admit tens of millions more such Hispanics.

He’s too wrapped up in his open-borders frenzy to realize it, but Big Brain has just made the most compelling case, not just against the legalization of Hispanic illegal aliens, but against the further continuation of legal Hispanic immigration. He can’t see what a devastating thing he has said about Hispanics, because his entire assumption is that Hispanics are good and that anyone who opposes any kind or amount of Hispanic immigration is bad.

Finally, Big Brain recycles the Big Lie:

The anti-immigrant posturing of former Governor Pete Wilson in 1994 helped transform the nation’s largest state from a battleground that Republicans often won (with strong Hispanic support) into an-all-but uncontested Democratic fiefdom where only a GOP anomaly like Arnold the Governator (with his outspoken record of sympathy and support for his fellow immigrants) can secure enough Latino backing to prevail.

No, BB. Wilson won a huge upset victory and so did Prop 187, and Wilson left office in 1998 with high approval ratings, while the hapless Dan Lundgren pandering to Hispanics in 1998 was creamed. See Steve Sailer’s evisceration of the Big Lie about Prop. 187.

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Stephen T. writes:

You know Michael Medved bailed out of his longtime home in Los Angeles to move to Seattle about 8 years ago. Listening to his reasoning at the time, one heard a lot of happy-talk about better family values there, a more fulfilling religious community, less traffic, etc. But given the timing of his departure—coming at exactly the point when illegal immigration into southern California was really reaching critical mass—and the nature of his destination—the Pacific northwest, one of the last areas relatively untouched by the Mexican invasion—I never bought any of his lofty reasons. Michael Medved, just like tens of thousands of other Californians, left for one reason and one reason only: to escape the toxic wave of Mestizo culture that was ruining California. Now, from a lofty perch in a leafy, all-Anglo Seattle suburb, he lectures those of us who stayed about our “hysteria against illegal aliens.”

James W. writes:

Medved: “Sure, Republicans might still win occasional local fights in Utah or Nebraska or Alabama, but they would become just as irrelevant in national terms as they are today in the State of California.”

Well that’s what happens when one group of people takes over the country of another group of people. It’s remarkable that Medved, the big conservative, is only concerned about this because it’s the *party* that will be losing out. After all they’d still be the same hardworking, family-values, good Hispanic people that he praises all the time. And presumably they’ll be savvy enough to choose and shape a party to represent them whether it starts with the letter R or not.

American Cassandra writes:

It seems to me that, quite of lot of those genius commentators you mention, who say that Hispanics are “a natural Republican constituency,” are basing their opinion solely on the fact that Hispanics are largely Christian. But, I don’t think I’ve ever heard them deal with this: blacks are also largely Christian. Using their special logic, which apparently doesn’t work the same way as our earth logic, blacks are actually a natural Republican constituency as well. How very odd that blacks, who clearly, have to be a natural Republican constituency, vote, what, 90% for Democrats? Did it really escape their attention that the best way to figure out whether a group of people is likely to vote Republican is to, well, look at whether they tend to vote Republican? It is very strange that Republican strategists haven’t noticed that pursuing a policy that simultaneously reduces the proportion of their biggest supporters in the American population, and also reduces their supporters in absolute numbers by alienating and demoralizing them is not a winning strategy. I think I see what’s going on though: I think they are using the same logic which leads them to say that low skilled, crime prone high school dropouts are a serious crisis if they are born in this country, and indisputably our problem because we have no idea how to integrate them into an advanced economy, but they are the life-blood of our economy, to be sought in as great numbers as possible if they are born outside of this country and we have no reason to deal with them at all.

There is something incredibly weird going on when it comes to immigration. Why do people’s brains shut down? Do you remember those public service ads comparing a brain on drugs to an egg in a frying pan? They were all the rage when I was in school. Forget drugs. “This is your brain. (whole egg) This is your brain on liberalism. (Fried egg). Any questions?”

LA replies:

Cassandra has independently come up with her own version of VFR’s long-time running gag, originated by Carl Simpson:

“This is your brain.
This is your brain on Dubya.”

David B. writes:

The pro-immigration “conservatives” had pretty much given up on the claim of Conservative Hispanics Voters until Medved’s column. In 2004, Bush barely exceeded his 2000 percentage, yet there were claims that he had “45% of the Hispanic vote.” If true, our “War President” would have had an enormous landslide.

A decade ago, both Medved (on his radio show) and Ben Stein (in TAS) were boosting Dan Lundgren as the “next Reagan.” As you write, Lundgren pandered his way to a landslide defeat in 1998.

Ray G. writes:

Great job skewering Big Brain Medved….it’s not that I detest him, but on the issue of immigration, he’s just horrible, day after day on his radio program. Continually mocks Tancredo, Hunter or anyone who actually advocates enforcing laws about the border and immigration.

But you are quite right, these type of people must believe deep down that the nation should be de-constructed and that everyone in the world has a God-given right to immigrate to the USA, which is quite odd. They also seem to believe that laws should not be applied equally—that Latinos are allowed to break laws in the interest of growing the GOP and/or the GDP. Shameful.

Joseph C. writes:

I realize now why I can never understand the logic in the drivel emanating from Michael Medved’s word processor. It is because there is not supposed to be any logic—just feelings and guilt about belonging to the white majority population.

Regardless of what the current Hispanic legal residents think of the GOP’s stance on illegal immigration (or, for that matter, legal immigration), pure demographics makes Hispanic immigration death for the Republicans. Until the percentage of Hispanics that vote Republican exceeds 50 percent, admitting more Hispanics to the U.S. only hurts the GOP at the polls.

Whether or not Hispanics are eight percent of the electorate today or 13 percent is irrelevant. If they are Democrats, then it is better off to risk their wrath than to court their vote while enlarging their presence. Better 100 percent of eight percent are against you than 65 percent of 20 percent. And 65 percent for the Democrats is probably at the low end, especially when considering that most of the GOP’s Hispanic (admittedly a loose term) support comes from Cubans, and they are not the ones invading the US.

I always thought Medved was a dope for not realizing this. Now I understand I was the dope for thinking he did not realize this. Medved can easily see this logic—he just chooses to ignore it or doesn’t care.

LA replies:

Of course. See my short 1996 article at the Social Contract which makes this same pea-brain point that the Big Brain doesn’t get: “GOP Strategy 2000: Immigration restriction as the path to Republican survival.”

However, what persuades you that he sees the logic and chooses to ignore it?

David L. writes:

For years I had admired Michael Medved’s clarity of logic and adherence to facts while he debated many important issues. Unfortunately the issue of illegal immigration seems to have exposed an ugly side to Medved’s character.

Whenever a caller to his radio show challenges Medved on illegal immigration for any valid reason, Mr. Medved’s famed ability to debate degrades within seconds to screaming “YOU’RE AN IDIOT” to the caller and hanging up.

I’m certain that I’m not the only listener now turning off the Medved show, and I suspect that Medved’s audience and influence will continue to diminish.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 19, 2007 08:59 PM | Send