The Sydney Carton Party
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."
From "A Tale of Two Cities," Sydney Carton's words, as he rode the tumbrel to the guillotine, came to mind on reading the latest statistics on what open borders has done to a Republican Party that altruistically embraced it.
The Center for Immigration Studies reports that, since 1980, some 25.2 million immigrants have entered legally and been granted permanent status with "green cards" to work and become citizens.
"Immigration, Political Realignment and the Demise of Republican Political Prospects" is the title of the CIS report, which understates the crisis. Bottom line: The more immigrants in an electoral district, the more grim the GOP prospects. Consider a few of the largest counties in the nation.
Between 1980 and 2008, Los Angeles, No. 1, grew by 2.5 million to 10 million people. The immigrant share went from 22 percent to 41 percent. Over those decades, the GOP share of the presidential vote fell from 52 percent in Ronald Reagan's rout of Jimmy Carter to 29 percent for John McCain.
Orange County, the bastion of Barry Goldwater conservatism, saw its population rise from 1.9 million in 1980 to 3.2 million in 2008, with the immigrant share rising from 13 percent to 34 percent. Reagan swept Orange County with 68 percent. McCain got 50 percent.
Consider Cook County, the nation's second largest. While Cook grew by 350,000 from 1980 to 2008, the character of Chicago changed, with the immigrant share of the population rising from 12 percent to 25 percent. In those 28 years, the GOP share of the presidential vote fell from 40 percent to 23 percent.
In Kings County (Brooklyn), the immigrant share of the population rose from 24 percent to 44 percent and the Republican share of the presidential vote plummeted from 38 percent to 20 percent.
Richard Nixon and Reagan carried California seven times on presidential tickets. Both carried New York and Illinois in their greatest victories. Yet the GOP has not won one of those three pivotal states even once in the last five elections.
If California, New York and Illinois are moving out of reach for GOP presidential candidates and the party is being annihilated in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago, our three largest cities, what of red states Arizona, Texas and Florida?
They are going the same way.
Harris County, Texas, the nation's third-largest, grew by 1.4 million since 1980. Its immigrant population tripled as a share of total population to 25 percent. Where Reagan carried Harris with 58 percent, McCain lost it with 49 percent.
Dallas County added a million people to hit 2.5 million by 2008, as its immigrant population surged from 5 percent to 27 percent. Where Reagan won 59 percent of Dallas County, McCain got only 42 percent.
Phoenix is sited in the fourth-most-populous county, Maricopa. Its population in 30 years has gone from 1.5 million to 3.8 million. Where 5.5 percent of Maricopa was immigrant in 1980, the percentage is now above 15 percent. And where Reagan carried Maricopa with 65 percent, McCain, an Arizonan, carried Maricopa with only 54 percent.
In Dade (Miami), the immigrant share of the population has gone in 30 years from 36 percent to 58 percent and the GOP share of the vote has fallen from 60 percent to 42 percent. In Broward (Ft. Lauderdale), legal immigrants tripled as a share of the population, while the GOP presidential vote fell from 56 percent to 32 percent.
The correlation seems absolute. The more immigrants who come in and become citizens, the more Democratic the country becomes.
Why? Almost all immigrants, legal and illegal, are poorer and less skilled than Americans, and depend far more upon government.
According to CIS, of recent immigrants who became citizens by 2008, by 55-30 they identified as Democrats. Among immigrants who have not yet become citizens, 70 percent identify as Democrats, 15 percent as Republicans. The sooner Democrats get them naturalized, registered and voting, the sooner the bell tolls for the Grand Old Party.
Is the GOP problem its hard line on illegal immigration?
This is a myth. According to a Zogby survey done for CIS, 56 percent of Hispanics and 68 percent of African-Americans say legal immigration is too high. Only 7 percent of Hispanics and 4 percent of African-Americans say it's too low. On no issue is the gulf between elites and the people so wide and deep.
What would be a GOP policy that advanced both the national and party interest?
First, an offensive against the administration for laxity in enforcing our immigration laws against businesses that hire illegals. Each time a business is forced to let illegal workers go, the jobs go to some of our 25 million unemployed and underemployed.
Second, a Put-Americans-First moratorium on legal immigration until U.S. unemployment falls below 6 percent.
And what is Republican Lindsay Graham up to? Collaborating with Sen. Chuck Schumer on a path to citizenship for illegal aliens.
The Sydney Carton Party at work.
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Voters who oppose the rampant growth of a paternalistic Federal government should become loyal to principled candidates, regardless of party affiliation. There is no possibility of "throwing the bums out" of office without putting some other candidates in their place.
And with 'the bums' controlling both parties, what are the chances of a principled candidate getting on the party controlled ballot? And if that happens, what are the chances of winning when the bums control the vote counts? So much of what we think is true is not and the 'picture' that we all see really just hides the deep corruption in our political systems.
The ironic part in my mind that we were more likely to get amnesty under McCain than we are with Obama. I have my doubts that it will happen at all, but de-facto amnesty will continue.
"altruistically"??
The problem with immigration is NOT that it is damaging the Republican Party. The problem is that it is disinheriting the American people and our posterity. The Republican Party be hanged.
“altruistically”?? The problem with immigration is NOT that it is damaging the Republican Party. The problem is that it is disinheriting the American people and our posterity. The Republican Party be hanged."
Amen!
Gosh! It seems there's something good about rampant immigration after all. I'm with Dr. Wilson: "The Republican Party be hanged."
Amen Dr. Wilson. Culture matters. The 1965 immigration bill, authored by the traitorous Ted Kennedy, was the beginning of the end.
This country was finished with the Immigration Act of 1965 and Roe vs. Wade in 1973. This country is just a dead man walking.
The entire system must go.
Yes, John Marino, this country is a dead man walking. I remember the day that I realized that 'I live in a foreign country'. It's the realization that the country that I grew up in no longer exists, that it is an image in my mind that I carry and hold onto, but when I open my eyes to the fact of the present day reality I see that America no longer exists, that I live in a foreign country.
I think Mr. Buchanan understands what's really bad about mass immigration. I think he believes that we must work through the stupid party or, at least, that the stupid party is the only organization that has even a remote possibility of getting anything done on this front.
I also think that Mr. Buchanan's columns aren't aimed at folks like us who already have an understanding of what's at stake.
Folks, look for a near permanent majority for the Evil Party. Clinton and his henchmen in 1996 facilitated a fast path to citizenship for new arrivals (some of whom may have been legal) with the result that he achieved a substantial additional vote in that year. Depend on there being an amnesty for the illegals, likely before November. In gratitude, those who were illegal before 1996, but benefited from one of the earlier amnesties, voted in large numbers for the Clinton ticket. In 2012, as the population of (now)formerly illegal are made citizens, they'll be voting for the party that made them legal. Any losses the Evil Party sustains among US because of the amnesty will be made up by the votes of these "new" Americans. Los Angeles will be the criterion of what we can expect post 2012 for our nation. Time to have a serious look at the benefits of a breakup of the present American Union. (Cf. George Kennan, and the recent conference in South Carolina, something Dr Wilson can remark upon.)
If the stupid party were still able to make a credible case that they'd defend the borders and would kick out those who snuck into the country, they could win hands-down.
Unfortunately, after the dull-witted Bush tried to ram through amnesty twice, making such a claim cannot be done plausibly, and so for the GOP the party really is virtually over.
Bush 43 and his neo-con flunkies did more to cripple the Republican Party than Teddy Kennedy would have ever dared dream in his wildest fantasies.
Dr. Wilson, I take it this isn't exactly what you have in mind when you remind us that first we must destroy the Republican party!
Anyone else noticed this push lately for felon voting 'rights'? There is your winning coalition right there - the foreigners and the criminals, to keep the Stupid Evil Party in perpetual power.
Yes, most of the posters here have got it. The game is, in fact, over. It actually has been for some time now. As the blogger Vox Day said, "Obamacare is an exclamation point, not a wake-up call." Whatever brings about the collapse of the maggot-infested pile of dung should henceforth be our agenda. The states' nullification efforts are a start. What states really need to do is de-ratify the 16th amendment - basically eliminating their residents' legal requirement to continue funding Sodom-on-Potomac. (Yes, I'm aware that the 16th was probably not actually ratified back in 1913 - trouble is, the Body-Snatchers who occupy Federal judicial benches either insist it was or simply refuse to address the issue.) De-ratification would at least set the stage for a true break-up.
Pace, Sam Francis. I do not think the Republican love of illegal immigration is due to stupidity. It has to do with what has always been the sole function of the party---$$ for those in the know.
I doubt the 'Pubs will die due to immigration. More likely, they'll embrace the grievance industry while attempting to appeal to Hispanics' social conservatism. There's a tendency to view foreigners as mindless bots who vote Democrat without thinking, but as their numbers grow so will divisions within them. I'm afraid the GOP just won't be killed that easily.
Nor can I really muster any excitement about the prospect. The end of the GOP would leave us with just the Democrats, which is hardly where we want to be. Some entertain fantasies of a new conservative party arising in the wake of GOP failure, but this seems to depend on the old center-right nation myth, which I don't think holds true anymore. Opposition to the newly passed Obamacare, for example, is much less strident than is being trumpeted everywhere. We like our handouts and our rules and regulations and our diversity. It's a zombie nation because it's full of zombies. Let's just hope it staggers on for a few more decades.
Mr. Weber, One of the persistent myths is Hispanic "social conservatism." One hears frequently the phrase "family values." If this were true, how does one account for the fact that some fifty-two percent of Hispanic births are out of wedlock, second only to African-American's near seventy percent? And what of the fact that some thirty-two percent of occupants of U.S. prisons are of Hispanic origin. It would be difficult to imagine that there is in that population, apart from the Cubans, any major sector that could be described as socially conservative---depending, of course, on what one means by the phrase.
Hispanics in the US are certainly not very well behaved, but then neither is anyone really, and self-identified conservatives don't appear to be any more well behaved than anyone else. It's safe to say, though, that Hispanics generally tend to hold some pretty un-PC positions on social issues. I agree that it is usually overstated, but it does exist. I don't know if there's enough there for the GOP to make it into a winning strategy, but it may be enough to maintain them as an opposition party, especially as the country becomes more and more Hispanic and they find less and less to agree on.