IMMIGATION IMPACT ON THE LATINO VOTE
A curious thing is happening with the immigration legislation.
The Republican controlled House of Representative might even pass a meaningful
law. They have been passing anti abortion and anti health care bills, ad nausea—nonsense
legislation. They know the Senate will kill the legislation and if not that,
the President will not sign it into law. Good lord, they passed the anti Health
care bill 39 times and the Senate killed it each time. All of a sudden, it looks like the immigration
bill will pass.
We have learned that nothing passes in Congress unless the “big
money” in the country approves it. We all know the Supreme Courts of the United
States guaranteed this kind of failure for congress with their Citizens United
Decision. We all know, at least 90% of us according to the latest Gallup Poll, know
that congress has failed to govern. We also know that the Republican Party
wants the government to fail in all things that help the people. They do not want
the government to work. The only time it will not fail is when it does the
bidding of the rich. So, how is the immigration bill helping the rich? I see
nothing in the bill that would help them directly, aside from the possibility of
cheap labor. I expect there will be fine print to provide a fast tract for servant
level workers to citizenship: nanny, housekeepers, cooks, chuffers, yard
workers, etc. This does not seem to be enough for them to allow the bill to pass
so there must be something else. Maybe that something else is their realization
the “Latino vote” is growing rapidly even without the immigration bill.
If Latino population identify Republicans as Latino xenophobes,
because the block they immigration bill, the republicans will lose elections
even with their most vigorous voter suppression efforts and gerrymandering. The
Republican Party is labeled as the “small tent party” for a reason. They form
what we can describe as an exclusive political “moral group” for themselves. They
follow the Lakoff model, which is a reference to George Lakoff (Moral Politics; Amazon.com)), who posed
the idea that we can describe American Politics based on a family model; a “natural”
or “moral order” or social hierarchy; a father with an obedient wife and well
disciplined children. If the parents properly discipline the children, they
will learn to take care of themselves as adults. They will not need nor want government.
The “morally correct” model of government is when Republicans are in charge. In
that case, government is the father figure and the “father” expects the citizens
to be well-disciplined children. Latinos and African Americans are not a part
of that family and can never be part of that family—by definition, they are not
well disciplined. They are illegal or if born in the Untied States their birth certificates
are no good especially if they are Hawaiian birth certificates. Only white,
European, Protestants are allowed. In contrast, when Democrats are in charge of
government it is a nanny state; the government is a nurturing government, which
in the eyes of Republicans is immoral. Welfare is immoral. A nanny government based
on fairness and empathy is an immoral government a Republican government is
based on authority—one system is alien to the other.
No matter how hard they, the Republicans, try to describe it
as a big tent party, it is not. It is an exclusive club. George W. Bush awkwardly
tried to describe himself as a “compassionate” conservative, while he was
trying to destroy social security and welfare. The “economic elite” can finance
the immigration bill to that will help make Latinos become citizens but they will
still not be Republicans any more than African Americans are Republicans in their eyes.
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