Tim Dickinson, writing for Rolling Stone, has a nicely written article entitled “Blame Pedro” which focuses on the growing nativist sentiment in the Republican Party and its potentially disastrous electoral implications.
An interesting historical note from Grover Norquist:
Looking at the same trend, Norquist points to an even more dire precedent: In 1884, the GOP attacked Democrats as the party of Romanism. “It cost them the Roman Catholic vote for 110 years,” he says. “So it is entirely possible for a political party to be that stupid. It is my hope that it is not possible for a party to be that stupid twice.”
By way of trying to explain why the GOP would go this route after President Bush and Karl Rove had been moderately successful in courting Hispanic votes, the article suggests:
But after the election, red-meat commentators like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh needed a new scapegoat. “Right-wing radio couldn’t harp on the Democrats about the war or anything else because the GOP was basically in charge of every branch of government,” says Joe GarcÃa, director of Hispanic strategy at NDN. “So they turned the resentment of white Americans to this new ‘threat.’ It’s not your fault you’re fucked economically, it’s not the president’s fault — so it must be Pedro’s fault.”
Politicians don’t escape the idea that their hostile to Latinos by qualifying that they are only against the illegal ones. To a lot of Latinos, you’re still saying, “I want to deport your mom.” Not, as it turns out, a winning electoral strategy.
Darn. I was expecting a column about Napoleon Dynamite ruining the Republicans…
and to think, i got called out on another blog when i said it was all about the mexican hate machine. it isn’t the mexicans, i was told, it’s the illegals.
its always important for wedge issues to be painted as dehumanized as possible. otherwise folks might engage their brain before their hate.
Pedro is just a pawn with no agenda of his own except to make a living and survive.
Some people need Pedro to work below minimum wage and not complain when working conditions are bad,so if he stays undocumented (or illegal) that’s good.Others, like me, don’t think Pedro should be exploited,so we want everyone who is permanent,one way or the other, to have equal legal status. One fact that many don’t understand is that making illegals leave the country and letting legals stay would break up many families. I have a longtime friend in Chicago.He came to USA about 1960 from Poland and never had time ( as he said) to apply for citizenship. He married a woman who was born in Chicago of Polish refugees,therefore a citizen, and their son is of course a citizen.He worked for many years and paid taxes,bought a house and paid SS,and became middle class affluent. He became a citizen at almost 60 after 9/ll because they went to Europe on a family holiday twice and each time upon returning he was pulled aside at airport by security and questioned at length about his status while his wife and son had to wait for him a couple hours or so. The illegal status of many is a problem if we ever want to have any kind of border control. If not ,just open up the border and don’t check anyone .I don’t know how many illegal status immigrants are just in Chicago but there are many Polish and many Hispanic,and that’s just a start ethnically..It sure is not good. I’ve generally been more on the conservative Republican side of this issue,i.e, build a wall, fine employers,make ID’s unforgeable..
One last point, I go to Berlin occasionally and Germany badly needed workers after ww2 so they had a Turkish Gastarbeiter program until 1972,and the idea was that everyone was supposed to go back to Turkey after a certain time. Well, few went back because there was no ‘civilized way’ to make them, especially considering Germany’s history of moving people against their will.
Lou wrote:
Must…resist…making joke…that will…get me on the ADL’s shit list…get a fatwa issued against me…and send me straight to hell…all at once…
A friend of mine was a progressive Catholic political activist and a proud Democrat who enjoyed hitting the bars now and then. He always enjoyed that slogan of “Rum, Romanism and rebellion” – he said it sounded great to him!
Sounds like the Hunter S. Thompson quote:
“I wouldn’t recommend drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity for everyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”
Now I remember why I quit reading Rolling Stone. Simplistic middle school style conspiracy laden articles.
Like, the reason 80% of the American public did NOT approve of or back the Presidents amnesty plan is because Sean & Rush just dreamed it up?
Yeah, tell me how talk radio got 80% of the American public to just out of the blue, decide to “blame Pedro”. Talk radio is popular, but it ain’t that popular.
What you guys forget is that you don’t understand or communicate with that 80% of Americans (the ones that are opposed to illegal aliens) you only communicate with your (the other) 20%.
You’re “sphere of influence” for the most part, consists primarily of like minded bloggers who persist in patting themselves on each others backs for being so “enlightened”.
I’ll just sit back with an oversized, overpriced, watered-down soda and a 2-gallon bucket of popcorn, seeing as there’s such a powerful projector running…
I gotta agree, “Rolling Stone” is absolute crap. Stopped subscribing like 15 years ago, because the stories were just left wing conspiracies put to paper.
“Blame Pedro” actually started during the 1990s recession in California. Prop something or other. 183?. I have a vauge recollection of it. Who was the Republican governor behind it? Pete Wilson? Where’d he go?
That’s pretty much when the California GOP went in the hole, never to return (Arnie excepted, he’s as Republican as… Giulliani and McCain. D’oh!).
Build the fence and don’t give illegals drivers licenses, and this issue is dead. A little common sense on the part of the powers that be, and this issue dies.
Nah- the fence is just a symbol, and the wrong one.
I like immigrants who come legally. There are all kinds of problems that are heavy enough for citizenry to manage, without non-citizens piling on.
I’m thinking of education specifically. My son lives in Sierra Vista, AZ and is in high school there. It’s about 20 minutes north of Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico. I was visiting him there last week for his birthday when one student stabbed another student last week. Turned out the assailant is an illegal immigrant. There are naturally calls for deportation.
Several hundred students failed to turn up for school the next day, as more, retaliatory gang violence was expected. Now, obviously the problem of gangs goes far deeper than the membership of illegal immigrants, but it is a factor. The result here was that the learning process was greatly interrupted, mainly for citizens. It begs the question: Why are we educating non-citizens for free?
The regulars here know I have problem enough with the costs of educating citizens for free (property tax burden, anyone?), but why on earth are we piling on by adding non-citizens to the system?
This isn’t life-death emergency health care I’m talking about yanking. Can’t we take away true privilege items like our education system from non-citizens?
The fence doesn’t strike at the root of the problem. Eliminating the incentives that lure illegals- and keep them here when perhaps they couldn’t manage without these unearned benefits- would.
There are a lot of ‘fair share’ arguments coming from the left, but I don’t hear it in terms of immigrants and non-citizens, legal or illegal.
Branden Robinson posted:..Must…resist…making joke…that will…get me on the ADL’s shit list…get a fatwa issued against me…and send me straight to hell…all at once…
The above post reminds of when I was a teacher.Some of the more significant things I said(I was told years later) were left in the wings to be discussed among those who had an entirely different take than I intended or envisioned on what I said. I’ll also admit to not quite understanding what you post at times. But I enjoy your comments regardless.
lou,
You can always ask me to explain when I’m not making sense. If I’m incomprehensible to you, I’m probably just as opaque to others…