Chavez indicts Republicans because Hispanics are hostile to them

In the wake of the GOP defeat, has the notion crossed your mind that the pro-open borders “conservative” Linda Chavez (who in 2007 said that all Republican opponents of the comprehensive immigration bill were motivated by racism) might perhaps have some second thoughts about the mass Hispanic immigration that dooms the Republican party, conservative politics, and liberty in this country? Hah.

Here, followed by my comments, is her November 21 syndicated column.

Welcome to America
by Linda Chavez

Republicans are finally worried that their failure to attract Hispanic voters in this year’s election spells trouble—perhaps for decades. But they’re not sure what to do about it. Moderates in the party are pushing for more efforts at “inclusion,” which usually means elevating a few Hispanics to symbolic but visible positions in national, state, and local politics. But with no Cabinet positions to hand out and so few prominent Hispanic elected officials to promote within their ranks, Republicans clearly won’t gain much leverage with this strategy.

Some conservative Republicans, on the other hand, are either in denial or think they can control the problem by limiting the growth in the Hispanic immigrant population. (Just ask the 14 out of 16 hard-line, anti-immigration Republicans who lost their seats this time around to pro-comprehensive reform Democrats how well this worked at the polls.) But even if hard-liners were successful at stopping illegal immigration and dramatically reducing the number of Hispanic immigrants admitted legally, it wouldn’t solve the simple demographic fact that U.S.-born Hispanics have higher fertility rates than whites or blacks. Hispanics will become a larger share of the population for the foreseeable future, though intermarriage rates will likely diminish their ethnic identification over time.

Still other Republicans hope that the party’s message of self-reliance, low taxes, defense of life and support for traditional marriage will win over entrepreneurial and religious Hispanics. But while I think these positions have tremendous appeal and are the bedrock on which to build support in the Hispanic community, they’re not enough.

The first thing Republicans have to overcome is a growing belief among Hispanics that they aren’t welcome in the party—or in America for that matter. According to a recent survey by America’s Voice—a liberal, pro-immigrant group—two-thirds of Hispanics think that discrimination against them has increased in the last two years because of the tone of the immigration debate. Republicans have to deal with the consequences.

Here’s a radical suggestion—but one that wouldn’t compromise Republican or conservative principles.

Why doesn’t the Republican Party launch an aggressive Welcome to America Campaign?

The idea would be to set up a network of volunteers to reach out to Hispanic immigrants, and especially their American-born children, to teach English, American history and civics. Estimates are that four in 10 Hispanic voters in this year’s election were naturalized citizens—and 75 percent of them cast their votes for President-elect Barack Obama.

But what if those new Americans had been helped to become U.S. citizens by local volunteers from the Federation of Republican Women, the Republican Men’s Club or the local Republican central committee? What if Republican volunteers approached employers in their area and offered to set up English classes during lunch breaks or after work for immigrant workers, or distributed DVDs and videos with language and civics instruction? This type of volunteerism has been ceded to Democrat-leaning groups over the years. Is it any wonder that when these new citizens register to vote, their instinct is to support the party that they’ve come to know firsthand?

I can already hear objections from both immigrant advocates and critics. The immigration hard-liners will complain that any such efforts might end up helping people who are illegally in the United States, while immigrant advocates will warn that Republican volunteers could become a Trojan Horse to turn in those same illegal immigrants.

To the hard-liners I would say that unless you’re part of the tiny minority that is willing to round up and deport every single illegal immigrant, along with their U.S. citizen offspring, wouldn’t it be better for everyone if these people at least spoke English? What’s more, we’re not talking about government dollars going to this effort, but individual volunteerism.

To the advocates, I’d argue that getting to know individuals who are members of groups you think you despise is often the best antidote to prejudice. Besides which it’s unlikely that the men and women who volunteer for this effort will be members of the local Minuteman chapter.

Republicans have nothing to lose by taking this approach—and much to gain including the goodwill of those they’ve helped and their extended family members. But, it’s not just the GOP that would become winners. Assimilating America’s newest immigrants is a big challenge—and all of us need to be part of the effort if we want America to thrive.

[end of Chavez article]

LA comments:

Chavez writes:

The first thing Republicans have to overcome is a growing belief among Hispanics that they aren’t welcome in the party—or in America for that matter. According to a recent survey by America’s Voice—a liberal, pro-immigrant group—two-thirds of Hispanics think that discrimination against them has increased in the last two years because of the tone of the immigration debate. Republicans have to deal with the consequences.

Naturally (or unnaturally), it doesn’t seem to occur to Chavez that we’ve just had eight years of the most aggressively pro-Hispanic Republican president ever, and that this has not lessened but apparently increased Hispanic hostility to Republicans and Americans. It doesn’t occur to her that the just-defeated Republican nominee is even more fanatically pro-Hispanic immigration including illegal immigration than the incumbent. It doesn’t occur to her that Republicans have obsessed over how to attract Hispanics. None of this accrues any credit to the Republicans in Chavez’s book: if Hispanics are suspicious of Republicans, it must be the Republicans’ fault—just as, from the liberal and black point of view, if blacks are suspicious of whites, it must be whites’ fault, and nothing that America has ever done for blacks up to the election of Obama (and maybe even including the election of Obama) takes away whites’ guilt. It’s the same with Chavez: the GOP’s desparate, extravagant efforts to show their friendliness to Hispanics leave Republicans guiltier than ever, because Hispanics are more hostile to the Republicans than ever.

This is the wildly ethnocentric point of view of a woman who prior to the last few years never manifested any kind of ethnic Hispanic identity, a woman whose own ancestry is half British, who does not speak Spanish, who has no visible connection with any Hispanic community, and whose persona is more “Anglo” than that of many white ethnics. Yet now her nonwhite half, along with the full panoply of ethnic resentment that accompanies it, has taken her over in her middle age, just as happened in the case of the youthful half-black Barack Obama who had no connection with the black community, as he tells in his book. Since, in Chavez’s now hyperactive ethnic consciousness, only whites can be at fault and not Hispanics, it doesn’t occur to her that many Hispanics come here with a built-in and unappeasable hostility against America. It doesn’t occur to her that people who identify with illegal aliens of their own ethnic group and demand that America embrace these lawbreakers as the price of Hispanic political support are not loyal Americans and never will be, and therefore that there is nothing that Republicans can do to win Hispanics’ favor, other than simply surrender to the Hispanic takeover of the United States.

Thus when Chavez says, “Republicans have to deal with the consequences,” she is not helpfully advising or warning Republicans on how to avoid a bad outcome, she is expressing her vengeful pleasure at the prospect of the downfall of the Republican party, of conservatism, and of America at the hands of her fellow Hispanics.

LA continues:

But what about Chavez’s suggestion that Republicans launch an “aggressive Welcome to America Campaign,” involving lots of help to Hispanic immigrants in the English language, civics lessons, and so on? Before I answer, remember that this proposal is coming from a woman who thinks that any opposition to the most radical and irresponsible immigration bill in U.S. history is motivated by racism, meaning that the very condition of Chavez’ outreach proposal is that Republicans first sign on to the comprehensive immigration bill, a bill that includes instant permanent legal residency for all illegal aliens and vastly increased legal immigration. Now, having just surrendered to the demands of the highly ethnocentric and Mexican-nationalist Hispanic community, a surrender that includes the abandonment of America’s laws and sovereignty, what moral authority would Republicans have to teach Hispanics anything about America? Try to picture it: the Republicans, having yielded to comprehensive reform and amnesty, are defeated, the Hispanics are victorious, and Chavez thinks that the Hispanics will now respect these tail-wagging Republicans as their teachers and guides to America.

Chavez’s proposal—we should surrender to the aliens, then assimilate them—is virtually identical to an idea floated by Mark Steyn a couple of years ago. He said that as Westerners give way to Muslims, we must make friends with them and try to win them to Western ways so that they will be nice to us after they’ve taken over. It’s the type of absurdity that only a neocon could conceive. How can people who are in the midst of transferring control of their society to their adversaries assimilate their adversaries to that society? The assimilation process would seem to be going in the opposite direction, wouldn’t it?

LA continues:

Chavez writes:

According to a recent survey by America’s Voice—a liberal, pro-immigrant group—two-thirds of Hispanics think that discrimination against them has increased in the last two years because of the tone of the immigration debate. Republicans have to deal with the consequences.

What does she mean, the tone of the immigration debate? Does she mean the massive illegal alien marches in spring 2006, some of the largest in American history, which presented themselves as a claim by illegal aliens that they have rights in America, that they “are” Americans, and which for some strange reason offended a lot of Americans? Was it the horrendous immigration bill of 2006, which the Republican Senate passed, and the Republican House wisely refused to consider? Was it the even worse immigration bill of 2007, which sparked the biggest telephone campaign to Congress in American history, leading to the failure of the bill to get to a Senate vote?

So, yes, outrageous and appalling things were attempted on the immigration front over those two years, and they were stopped by a free people and their elected representatives. And that is what Chavez is referring to when she speaks of the “tone of the immigration debate” which has caused two-thirds of Hispanics to think that “discrimination” against them has increased. What she means is that the legal and illegal Hispanics didn’t get what they wanted. And in the world of ethnic leftism and identity politics (which Chavez once made a whole career out of opposing), if your group doesn’t get what it demands, no matter how unreasonable the demand, that means that white people are discriminating against you. And because discrimination is the worst sin there is, the people who decline to give your group what it wants are the worst people alive. So when Chavez (who is a Republican) mutters, in a plainly threatening tone, that “Republicans have to deal with the consequences,” she is saying that Republicans deserve to be punished for stopping the two worst pieces of legislation in American history, because stopping that legislation was a horrible act of bigotry. And of what shall their condign punishment consist? Of permanent electoral extinction.

In Chavez’s world, either you supported these terrible bills, or you’re a racist who deserves to be eclipsed in your own country.

- end of initial entry -

Alan Roebuck writes:

I’m always on the lookout for simple ways to summarize important truths and counter leftist propaganda. I would say that Chavez is talking about wooing those Hispanics who see themselves as Hispanic (of whichever tribe) rather than American. Well then, one of the biggest flaws in Chavez’s argument is that it assumes these Hispanics are a neutral group, waiting to pledge themselves to whichever party will woo them by simply being nice to them. As Chavez sees it, the Democrats have been conspicuously nice to Hispanics, and now it is up to the Republicans to follow suit.

But of course no group is neutral. The people Chavez wants Republicans to woo have an allegiance to their own people rather than to America. And the Democrats have been superior suitors precisely because their philosophy of dissolving America appeals to this chauvinism. Just being nice to people will never win their allegiance; you must at least appear to agree with their deepest convictions. And Republicans cannot agree with the deepest convictions of those whose first loyalty is to their ethnic group rather than to America without ceasing to be even nominally conservative.

LA replies:

Of course. That’s what’s been absurd about the “Republicans must do more to win over Hispanics” argument all along. The “more” that Republicans have to do is to give Hispanics everything the Democrats are giving them, and then some. But that would require Republicans to be a pro-open borders, pro-legalization of illegals, anti-rule of law, anti-American, pro-big-government party.

Now Chavez says that’s not true. According to her, it’s only necessary for Republicans to support open borders and the legalization of illegals, allowing the effective Hispanic takeover of America. And then, once the Hispanics have taken over America as a result of Republican support for open borders and the legalization of illegals, the Republicans can win over the Hispanics by teaching them traditional Republican beliefs such as American patriotism, small government, and the rule of law!

Ilion Troas writes:

You write:

“Chavez’s proposal—we should surrender to the aliens, then assimilate them—is virtually identical to an idea floated by Mark Steyn a couple of years ago. He said that as Westerners give way to Muslims, we must make friends with them and try to win them to Western ways so that they will be nice to us after they’ve taken over. It’s the type of absurdity that only a neocon could conceive. How can people who are in the midst of transferring control of their society to their adversaries assimilate their adversaries to that society? The assimilation process would seem to be going in the opposite direction, wouldn’t it?”

You seriously misrepresent Steyn. I mean, as in completely totally a**-backwards. Perhaps that idee fixe concerning the evil neo-cons is blinding you.

Steyn was floating no such proposal. He was reporting—and mocking—the sublic statement and rationale for proactive dhimmitude of an important politician in Sweden.

LA replies:

Apparently you think your mere assertion that I have the point totally wrong is a sufficient proof that I have the point totally wrong. I don’t think you’re aware of the number of times I have made this characterization and other characterizations of Steyn’s positions, and they have been challenged, and I have successfully defended them. Here is a collection of my writings about Steyn.

Back up your argument with actual quotes of Steyn, and I will reply. Until then, your comment is mere bluff. Show your cards, and then I’ll show mine.

And by the way, I’m not sure offhand (and it’s too late at night to check it out) if the item I initially linked to back up my point about Steyn is the most relevant to that point. I have many articles on Steyn, and I looked quickly for one that seemed to be related. So I’m just letting you know that, in the event the linked entry does not happen to back up my point, there are others that will.

November 27

Karen writes from England:

The Republicans should simply forget about Hispanics. They are undesirable aliens, full stop. Apart from a few aberrations and several inflitrators, Hispanics will never support the GOP. They are not going to support a party which stands for the values of old traditional white English speaking America. They want to transform the country into a Spanish speaking mestizo basket case. Strategies to attract them are, therefore, a waste of time and money and destined to fail. Republicans need to concentrate on their core traditionalist white supporters who want the USA to return to its white majority traditional ways. Traditionalism would bring the white voters back on board. However that means dropping liberalism completely and that is something they will find very hard to do. The choice is thus stark.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 26, 2008 04:31 PM | Send