Have The Immigrants’ Rallies Already Sparked A Backlash?
Ed Morrissey thinks so. He quotes a news article about backlash then writes:
The real irony of this situation is that prior to the series of protests, with their demands and rejection of American sovereignty, the immigration hardliners did not have the momentum to get their program passed. President Bush had enough juice left to get a moderate reform program passed, one which granted earned citizenship and only superficially addressed border security. Now that the protesters have rammed their strident demands down the throats of Americans, the hardliners have won new support from a broadening group of voters. When they remained “in the shadows”, they had a cachet of victimhood that lent sympathy to their plight. With them teaming up with the last and largest group of communist apologists and demanding that America stop enforcing its borders altogether, they no longer have the patina of waifs but as ungrateful and separatist activists.In truth, the only solution to this problem has to blend approaches from both sides. Border security has to come first, if for no other reason than any reform program has to rely on enforcement to attract people to register rather than opt out. After the border gets secured, then we can negotiate the status of those still left.
Some will disagree some of what Morrissey says here (or in his complete post) but he is probably correct on a key point.
The demonstrations proved to be an affirmation of political and social power by those who participated and by those who supported the demonstrations. Polls have shown great support for offering some kind of way for those already here to regulate their status, versus being deported (something Morrissey notes isn’t feasible anyway, given the huge numbers).
But the danger with big, flashy demonstrations is: if they are not handled and staged properly they can cause either counter demonstrations or a more profound political backlash.
So the key question remains: did the demonstrations advance the cause of the demonstrators or did the demonstrations give impetus to those who oppose any effort to eventually adjust the legal status of illegal aliens who are already here? He further writes:
Guest worker programs promise only to create a French solution where a permanent underclass exists with no hope of assimilation or equality. The only real option is normalization for those who have conducted themselves lawfully except for their entry, and a long path to citizenship marked by the payment of back taxes, fluency in English, and a fine for crossing our borders illegally.Unfortunately, these demonstrations have made that almost impossible to achieve. We will get the border security of the House legislation, but will have to wait for passions to cool and immigration-activist leadership to get smarter before we can rationally discuss the remainder.
Still, the key piece that has not yet emerged in this puzzle is how all of this played with the American public in general. Polls and constituent feedback will be all-important to politicos in Congress because they want to remain politicos in Congress.
The polls will give an indication as to whether the demonstrations advanced the demonstrators’ cause or represented a classic case of winning the battle but losing the war.
6 Responses to “Have The Immigrants’ Rallies Already Sparked A Backlash?”
Emphasis mine.
There are two points in this sentence that bear noting.
The Rude Pundit made an interesting point on the changed nature of protests. He suggests (in his insightful/inciteful way) that these events have become a sort of non-protest, the point that being that they’re too “handled and staged”. Combined with his earlier post, his on-the-ground observations suggest that “staged” is a perfect word to describe modern “protests”.
The other item is the ‘backlash’ meme. Every ‘news’ report I saw leading up to Monday dropped that word into the dialogue. In reports and interviews on a network morning show here in Canada, it was thrown in at least a dozen times over two hours.
If there is one thing this ‘style over substance’ administration has been proven to excel at, it’s spin and message management. Corporate media, always looking for the money ‘angle’ on a story, eat it up.
Back to TRP’s posts, American flags everywhere and singing of the anthem, in whatever language, are sidelined. A “small group from Pakistan who held a sign that said, “Islam is about love”" doesn’t get mentioned. A “young Latino with the crudely written “Let’s Kill Bush” poster” is depicted as a dangerous radical, without hearing his thought that “Bush sends people to die, so, you know, an eye for an eye.”
The real shame is separtist whackos make better copy than peaceful protesters with a multitude of heartfelt messages, and are far better suited for inflaming the ‘inevitable backlash’.
The Rasmussen overnight tracking polls on immigration don’t suggest much of a change as a result of the demonstrations.
I still haven’t seen a good solid comprehensive plan that could and would be implemented. We can come up w/ all sorts of solutions, but if we don’t follow up w/ action, they mean zip. Illegals know they are unlikely to be deported, so even if we said we would deport all that are illegal, they know it is unlikely to happen. So why wouldn’t they push for as much as they can possibly get?
Me personally, I’d like them to clean house and deport as many as possible, then work on an expedited process to get them back in the country legally, on work Visas that allowed the US to gain some tax money from them. Including a criminal background check. We get sales taxes from them in some states, not all, but many don’t pay any income tax. They get the exact same health benefits that someone legally gets going to a county hospital. Some have Children in school for whom they pay not one red cent via real estate taxes (here in TX anyhow). So I guess I’d sum it up as, No representation w/o taxation.
This is mostly momentary blathering. Very few people really care about immigration. The far-right nutjobs who fill the in boxes of Republicans (and send bricks!), and Latino immigrants themselves. Nobody else really cares – at least over the medium term. They pay attention for a moment, and then they ignore it again. But for those who DO pay attention to this issue, the politics will hurt the GOP considerably. The far-right continues to chafe at the Bush Administration’s unwillingness to “secure the borders” (as if that was as easy as “securing Iraq”…oh wait, it is). And Latinos are going to do to the national Republican Party what they did to the California Republican Party – abandon it. Expect future Presidential nominees to get no more than 25-30 percent of the Latino vote. No more 40-45 percent. And that’s going to kill the Republicans in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and, eventually, Texas. Yes, Texas, which is becoming a majority-minority state, though the political effects won’t be felt there for quite some time.
here in los angeles, it was fianlly pleasurable to drive during rush hour
sorry, but if they wanted to get my sympathy, that didnt help.
it also doesnt help that none who marched on monday have been out to the protests regarding the war.
what i saw were thousands of very selfish people who do little to make my life better, but who help to enrich the corporatists.
Elrod said—”very few people care about immigration”
That may be true now, but by the ’06 and ’08 elections I believe it will become the new hot button issue, that will divide Americans in an ugly confrontation—-about racism, xenophobia, and the shrinking middle class. I listen to a lot of right wing talk radio (not a wingnut myself tho), and let me tell you, they are really stirring the pot. There is a lot of voter anger out there about illegals crowding hospitals and schools, and taking jobs away from American workers.
I see it more and more as an issue of globalization—i.e. shrinking world resources, huge populations of people who can’t make ends meet no matter how hard they work in their own countries, corporations cleaning up with off-shore jobs that pay nothing, and increasing competition keeping down wages for jobs within this country.