There are two statistics that explain the Democrat obsession with illegal immigration and open borders.
97% of immigrants in the appropriate grouping identify themselves as Hispanic, but by the fourth generation that number falls to half. Only 7% of immigrants describe themselves as Americans, but 56% in the third generation call themselves Americans. Even the use of Spanish is slowly declining.
If a minority stops existing after a few generations, did it ever actually exist?
The Democrats had abandoned their working class base to chase what they pretended was a racial group when what they were actually chasing was the momentum of unlimited migration.
In the economics of identity politics, Hispanics, unlike African-Americans, are not an enduring group. And that is a serious challenge for Democrats and their leftist allies who treat politics as a game of demographic Risk played with minorities across the states and cities of the United States.
Democrats have pinned their hopes for a national majority on a European origin group whose minority status is cultural and linguistic. And even without the old melting pot, foreign languages and cultural affinities decline across generations as immigrants become Americans. What Democrats really want aren’t a lot of Hispanics, but an endless firehose of first generation immigrants.
Democrat political affiliation falls with each succeeding generation and Republican affiliation rises. A family that speaks English is less likely to vote Democrat or view themselves as an oppressed minority. Even in California, support for subsidized lawyers for illegal aliens falls from a decisive majority among immigrants to a near tie by the second generation. It’s why Trump improved on Romney’s numbers with Hispanic voters despite defying every politically correct recommendation of the post ‘12 RNC autopsy.
Hispanic immigration becomes less politically helpful with each generation. The Dem majorities grow thinner and less reliable. Hispanic immigration, unlike Islamic migration, produces diminishing political returns for its sponsors. The only solution to the retention problem lies with open borders.
The Democrats don’t value the DACA illegal aliens who benefited from Obama’s equally illegal amnesty because, as they claim, they’re really Americans. They only care about them to the extent that they aren’t. And even they’re useful only as a wedge issue for open borders and unlimited migration.
As long as the census counts heads instead of citizens, migration creates Dem districts. And in machine politics, illegal aliens and non-citizens can even vote in those districts. But it’s momentum, not minorities, that the Dems are really after. A constant flow of immigrants transforms America. But when the flow stops, then the immigrants are the ones who become transformed by America.
The decline of legal immigration makes illegal immigration into an even more urgent cause for the left. The troubled economy of the Obama years paradoxically dissuaded legal immigrants leading the Dems to lean more heavily on illegal migrants. Those statistics eventually led Obama to openly endorse illegal immigration, to implement an illegal unilateral amnesty and to push hard for a total alien amnesty.
The problem was political, but so was its solution. The Dems had to normalize illegal immigration (right down to banning the use of the term and replacing it with the euphemism ‘undocumented immigrant’) not just for the immediate political benefits of putting tens of millions of potential voters on the table, but the long term benefit of maintaining the momentum of unlimited migration through open borders.
It’s why the Democrats will never agree to secure the border. They might have cut such a deal decades ago (though they would have sabotaged it, as indeed they did after the last amnesty), but these days it’s a political third rail. Legalizing illegal aliens is a sideline to maintaining an open border. If they have to choose between the two, the Democrats will always choose the political lifeline of open borders.
Illegal aliens will produce diminishing returns. It’s the open border that feeds the Dem pipeline. The Dems will take amnesty if they can get it, but they’ll never trade it for an end to their political pipeline.
That’s why California has become a sanctuary state. It’s why so many Dem cities are going sanctuary. It’s why Dem officials are actively targeting businesses and local law enforcement that cooperate with immigration authorities. It’s because illegal aliens have displaced Hispanics as the core minority.
Hispanics, in their totality, are less politically reliable than illegal aliens. The future of the Dems does not lie with an imaginary minority that dissipates after a few generations, but with the open border. Illegal aliens embody the borderless state of the country. The symbol is politically compelling for the post-national left, but the reality is even more compelling for Democrat electoral demographics.
The new conquerors of California understand just how shaky their grip on power really is. 44.6% of California residents speak a language other than English at home. Almost a fifth don’t speak English very well. California has no close competitors among other states in this category. But these same numbers have been declining nationwide even as they continue to cluster in California and other entry states.
The Democrats have secured their overwhelming grip on power. Migration and immigration ended democracy in California. It’s transformed formerly contested elections into single party affairs where Republicans need not even bother showing up. But the Jerry Brown junta won’t last forever. A fresh supply of immigrants and migrants is needed to keep the post-democratic California in Dem hands.
That’s why California’s political elites have gone the furthest in embracing open borders. It’s why the new sanctuary state is backed by the threat of state power against those following the law of the land. They aren’t protecting illegal aliens, in the usual lefty arrangement they are protecting their own power. The power struggle over illegal immigration isn’t just about cheap votes today, but tomorrow.
The Democrats need to maintain higher percentages of immigrants relative to the immigrants of previous generations. It’s a demographic Ponzi scheme that like all such schemes can only end in disaster. But the Democrats have embraced it out of greed and have no choice now but to keep the scam going even if it bankrupts cities and states, and eventually tears the entire country apart.
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
When the Democrats bet everything on illegal migration, they alienated millions of voters who went on to help elect President Trump. The alienated working class vote forced them to double down even harder on illegal aliens. Losing traditional constituencies to identity politics has always radicalized Dems. And 2016 was no different. Instead of political accommodation, the Dems embraced #resistance.
But their new majority depends on open borders. A wall doesn’t just cut off the pathway of illegal aliens into this country; it cuts off the pathway of the Democrats to their new majority. And then their political Ponzi scheme falls apart, as such schemes usually do, when the momentum feeding it fails.
That’s why a border wall is a threat to the political survival of the Democrats. And it’s why they will do everything they can to stop it.
97% of immigrants in the appropriate grouping identify themselves as Hispanic, but by the fourth generation that number falls to half. Only 7% of immigrants describe themselves as Americans, but 56% in the third generation call themselves Americans. Even the use of Spanish is slowly declining.
If a minority stops existing after a few generations, did it ever actually exist?
The Democrats had abandoned their working class base to chase what they pretended was a racial group when what they were actually chasing was the momentum of unlimited migration.
In the economics of identity politics, Hispanics, unlike African-Americans, are not an enduring group. And that is a serious challenge for Democrats and their leftist allies who treat politics as a game of demographic Risk played with minorities across the states and cities of the United States.
Democrats have pinned their hopes for a national majority on a European origin group whose minority status is cultural and linguistic. And even without the old melting pot, foreign languages and cultural affinities decline across generations as immigrants become Americans. What Democrats really want aren’t a lot of Hispanics, but an endless firehose of first generation immigrants.
Democrat political affiliation falls with each succeeding generation and Republican affiliation rises. A family that speaks English is less likely to vote Democrat or view themselves as an oppressed minority. Even in California, support for subsidized lawyers for illegal aliens falls from a decisive majority among immigrants to a near tie by the second generation. It’s why Trump improved on Romney’s numbers with Hispanic voters despite defying every politically correct recommendation of the post ‘12 RNC autopsy.
Hispanic immigration becomes less politically helpful with each generation. The Dem majorities grow thinner and less reliable. Hispanic immigration, unlike Islamic migration, produces diminishing political returns for its sponsors. The only solution to the retention problem lies with open borders.
The Democrats don’t value the DACA illegal aliens who benefited from Obama’s equally illegal amnesty because, as they claim, they’re really Americans. They only care about them to the extent that they aren’t. And even they’re useful only as a wedge issue for open borders and unlimited migration.
As long as the census counts heads instead of citizens, migration creates Dem districts. And in machine politics, illegal aliens and non-citizens can even vote in those districts. But it’s momentum, not minorities, that the Dems are really after. A constant flow of immigrants transforms America. But when the flow stops, then the immigrants are the ones who become transformed by America.
The decline of legal immigration makes illegal immigration into an even more urgent cause for the left. The troubled economy of the Obama years paradoxically dissuaded legal immigrants leading the Dems to lean more heavily on illegal migrants. Those statistics eventually led Obama to openly endorse illegal immigration, to implement an illegal unilateral amnesty and to push hard for a total alien amnesty.
The problem was political, but so was its solution. The Dems had to normalize illegal immigration (right down to banning the use of the term and replacing it with the euphemism ‘undocumented immigrant’) not just for the immediate political benefits of putting tens of millions of potential voters on the table, but the long term benefit of maintaining the momentum of unlimited migration through open borders.
It’s why the Democrats will never agree to secure the border. They might have cut such a deal decades ago (though they would have sabotaged it, as indeed they did after the last amnesty), but these days it’s a political third rail. Legalizing illegal aliens is a sideline to maintaining an open border. If they have to choose between the two, the Democrats will always choose the political lifeline of open borders.
Illegal aliens will produce diminishing returns. It’s the open border that feeds the Dem pipeline. The Dems will take amnesty if they can get it, but they’ll never trade it for an end to their political pipeline.
That’s why California has become a sanctuary state. It’s why so many Dem cities are going sanctuary. It’s why Dem officials are actively targeting businesses and local law enforcement that cooperate with immigration authorities. It’s because illegal aliens have displaced Hispanics as the core minority.
Hispanics, in their totality, are less politically reliable than illegal aliens. The future of the Dems does not lie with an imaginary minority that dissipates after a few generations, but with the open border. Illegal aliens embody the borderless state of the country. The symbol is politically compelling for the post-national left, but the reality is even more compelling for Democrat electoral demographics.
The new conquerors of California understand just how shaky their grip on power really is. 44.6% of California residents speak a language other than English at home. Almost a fifth don’t speak English very well. California has no close competitors among other states in this category. But these same numbers have been declining nationwide even as they continue to cluster in California and other entry states.
The Democrats have secured their overwhelming grip on power. Migration and immigration ended democracy in California. It’s transformed formerly contested elections into single party affairs where Republicans need not even bother showing up. But the Jerry Brown junta won’t last forever. A fresh supply of immigrants and migrants is needed to keep the post-democratic California in Dem hands.
That’s why California’s political elites have gone the furthest in embracing open borders. It’s why the new sanctuary state is backed by the threat of state power against those following the law of the land. They aren’t protecting illegal aliens, in the usual lefty arrangement they are protecting their own power. The power struggle over illegal immigration isn’t just about cheap votes today, but tomorrow.
The Democrats need to maintain higher percentages of immigrants relative to the immigrants of previous generations. It’s a demographic Ponzi scheme that like all such schemes can only end in disaster. But the Democrats have embraced it out of greed and have no choice now but to keep the scam going even if it bankrupts cities and states, and eventually tears the entire country apart.
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
When the Democrats bet everything on illegal migration, they alienated millions of voters who went on to help elect President Trump. The alienated working class vote forced them to double down even harder on illegal aliens. Losing traditional constituencies to identity politics has always radicalized Dems. And 2016 was no different. Instead of political accommodation, the Dems embraced #resistance.
But their new majority depends on open borders. A wall doesn’t just cut off the pathway of illegal aliens into this country; it cuts off the pathway of the Democrats to their new majority. And then their political Ponzi scheme falls apart, as such schemes usually do, when the momentum feeding it fails.
That’s why a border wall is a threat to the political survival of the Democrats. And it’s why they will do everything they can to stop it.
Comments
That's one of the main reasons, perhaps *the* main reason, that the Roman Empire collapsed, open borders.
ReplyDeleteIronically, it is the richest who are least hurt by open borders, so they don't seem to see the danger. It is mainly the ordinary people who bear the burden of suffering.
Spot on understanding of our current political logjam.....sad commentary. The morass grows out of desperation.
ReplyDeleteGreat article, Sultan. I wish you would try to solve one of the greatest mysteries the world has known: Why didn't the Democrats enact a complete illegal alien amnesty, with instant voting rights for the new citizens, during Obama's first year as President, when the Democrats controlled the House and had a 60-vote majority in the U.S. Senate, even after Ted Kennedy died in August of 2009 (a Democrat was appointed to serve in the seat until the special election in January 2010 resulted in Republican Scott Brown taking the seat)? Even with less than 60, several Republican Senators would have voted for the amnesty.
ReplyDeleteI do not accept the answer that "they were too busy with ObamaCare" without further evidence that this actually prevented them from enacting an amnesty. I see no reason why they could not have done both simultaneously.
Such an amnesty would have locked-in Democratic Party domination of the Presidency and many other offices across the country, and control of the U.S. Supreme Court, and the rest of the federal courts. It would have locked-in an ability to keep the border uncontrolled, thereby maintaining the pipeline that you rightly recognize as vital to the Democrats' survival as a political force.
Many groups of recent foreign ancestry move from the left side to the right side of American politics after a generation or two. The Jews are an exception. The democratic party has been more of a plantation system for the last 150 years than anything else. Rich elites and power politicians constituting a tiny minority that corrals recent immigrants to form a confederacy of disparate interests. After a generation or two their descendants become republicans or at least Reagan democrats. The democratic party can't survive without a steady stream of foreigners to back fill that loss. Today's Mexicans are the next generations Americans screaming about illegal immigration from Africa, the Mideast and Central Asia. In fact it will some of the very same people. Jorge Ramos will without a doubt be one of the first people demanding we don't allow them in.
ReplyDeleteWhich is also the reason we must do everything we can to ensure it is done.
ReplyDeleteI am amazed at how Trump has managed to get the left to drop the mask. Up until his appearance the strategy seemed to still be gradualism. Now, all cards on the table. Wow!
ReplyDeleteA wonderful summary that goes behind the tropes and cliches, the rent a soundbite notions of our medias concerns. As ever you`ve hit that "third rail"-the one they pretend isn`t what drives them.
ReplyDeleteNow you`ve pointed out this "big principle" of what the liberals and democrats are doing to us all-we have no excuse not to know. So thank you from England,
If there's one thing I know about the people from central and south America, a majority of them have a solid Catholic-based work ethic. And it doesn't take long for a person who works to figure out how to excel within a system that offers a predictable and consistent adherence to the Rule of Law. By comparison to their home countries, the USA is head and shoulders above. It will only take one generation to create new conservative-minded people. Whether or not the Democratic party comprehends this properly is another story.
ReplyDelete@Allen J Farrish I was dreading the general amnesty I thought would be swiftly enacted in 2009. My guess is that they were too cocky about the extent of their mandate and were taken by surprise in the tea party election of 2010. After that, the chances of a general amnesty were much smaller. The chutzpah of today's minority demonRats in thinking they could get force their dream amenity through in the budget deal is quite astounding. If they succeed before March then they surely will have demonstrated political success greater than the 2016 election which will have been overturned.
ReplyDeleteRE: "In the economics of identity politics, Hispanics, unlike African-Americans, are not an enduring group. ... What Democrats really want aren’t a lot of Hispanics, but an endless firehose of first generation immigrants."
ReplyDeleteThat is devastating prose. Is this the reason why the Left is also encouraging a lack of assimilation (because they want the immigrates to consider themselves as non-American longer)?
Aztlan
ReplyDeleteit is not about votes....that is the BIG lie....
Its about importing the 3rd world into the USA so to destroy it from within....
50+ million illegal aliens is a great start...NOW
THANK THE POLITICIANS AND THEIR MEDIA!!
Very astute, and in a way optimistic. I had thought we were lost due to "birthright" citizenship. The "Dreamers" won't be deported, and they'll have kids, who will have kids of their own, and so on. But the Sultan explains why that fails to create the result sought by the "amnesty" people.
ReplyDeleteExcellent analysis and the reason why ending chain migration, even more so than building a border wall, is extremely important. Illegal aliens can't vote (at least not outside California), but chain migration provides the constant stream of "legal" immigration Democrat require. When Nancy Pelosi says that President Trump's immigration plan is to "make America white again," what she really means is that ending chain migration will make America America again by ending the "firehose" provided by chain migration. This is the battle, less so than whether 1.8 million Illegals might one day gain citizenship. Chain migration adds more than a half-million first generation legal immigrants annually. Ending chain immigration is the top priority!
ReplyDeleteLet me give the point of view of this conservative, very pro-America Hispanic: I DESPISE the left's so called compassion, inclusiveness, anti-racism, and all the rest of the tricks in the leftist bag.
ReplyDeleteHow can I believe any of it when it comes from a bunch of idealogues who preach one thing and do the complete opposite? Think about it. The left preaches anti-racism, but they hate the white race. They caterwaul against slavery, but when it comes to "doing the jobs Americans won't do" - a leftist euphemism for under-paid, menial positions in dismal environments - it's "Bring on the illiterate illegals! They'll work for peanuts and they will vote democrat as an aded bonus." And I'm supposed to get misty-eyed over that?
I happen to be a (gasp!) educated white Hispanic, who speaks English without an accent. I suppose that, in the inclusive and non-discriminating eyes of the left, that prevents me from qualifying as a "real Hispanic."
The left's treatment of Hispanics is not compassionate, inclusive, non-racist, or any of the other qualities they undeservedly endow themselves with. It is paternalistic, condescending, elitist, and downright neo-colonialist. Feel free to tell them I, a Hispanic, say so. With my compliments, of course.
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