The Koch Brothers are funding a pretty smart voter outreach initiative and it has Democrats in an uproar. Public policy, backed by the Democratic Party platform, has eliminated two generations of traditionally Democratic voters. In response, President Obama is attempting to create a whole new host of clients for the Democratic Party through a legally dubious Executive Action.
It’s the traditionally elitist approach of the Democratic Party to assume, if they can grant favors to a group of people, they can buy their loyalty for generations. It’s worked for them because Republicans have ceded votes in ethnic communities. We’ve ceded those votes because we: “hate identity politics,” don’t have time to engage in culture battles, and are plagued with short-term crisis strategies in electoral politics. Republicans are reactionaries to culture changes rather than influencers of the culture. That indifference to the culture battle is not only shrinking the Republican Party, it’s damaging the Republic. We don’t have to write off these voters to the Democratic Party.
Politics is downstream from the culture and the culture is downstream from ideas.
Let’s start with this — an idea today can become public policy next decade; legal same-sex marriage is proof. In 1999, it would be laughable to think that two men could be married. Nature, biology, and history tell us that same sex “marriage” is impossible but someone came up with the idea that “marriage is about love and nobody can control with whom they fall in love.” This idea came from a political action committee which, at its inception, was trying to get people elected who would pass laws which said: you can’t beat up gay people, pick on the kids of gay couples, nor fire them because of their choice of sexual partners. From that fight to be “left alone” sprang an idea to redefine the definition of marriage in this country. THAT idea turned into an arrogant statement by the Mayor of San Francisco, a reactionary response by the Right, and a cultural repudiation of the idea that marriage was more than just a public statement of love.
It could have been handled differently, 35 years ago, and LGBT voters could be solid Republican voters today. Had conservatives treated the AIDS epidemic with alarm rather than indifference, and worked alongside the LGBT community on issues of common agreement (disease, violence, workplace discrimination and unfair taxation), LGBT voters would be Republican voters today.
AIDS may have been one of the biggest motivations for committed gay relationships. In 1985, the Republican LA County Supervisor Mike Antonovich attributed the AIDS epidemic to promiscuity and offered monogomy as a solution to the epidemic. Antonovich’s “idea” (along with other conservatives’ similar comments at the time) may have been a catalyst for the same-sex marriage movement. I can’t help but think how, if Republicans had taken the lead for legal civil-unions, stood against violence directed at homosexuals, and passed legislation against workplace discrimination in the 1980s, we would have staved off the silly notion that the Pope is a bigot for evangelizing the message of traditional marriage today.
The marriage legal battle is lost. There are Republicans who will continue to fight thus unwinnable political fight and there are Republicans who have recognized a political loss and choose to work through the culture to advance the definition of marriage as one man, one woman, for life.
This didn’t have to happen.
Ideas are spread among like-minded people and friends.
I used the same sex marriage example for two reasons: (1) we’ve debated this issue a lot here and (2) it represents a perfect definition of how Republicans lost on this issue because of reactionary responses rather than engagement. As heated as that issue has been, I’m probably going to rattle some cages with this next statement.
In 2015, there are some 12-20 million illegal immigrants in this country. By 2024, at least 90% of them will be registered to vote. If you understand and accept that premise, you might ask yourself this question, “How can we get them all to vote Republican?” Today, I see the cultural Marxists winning the battle for immigration amnesty. They are framing the argument along the same lines as they did the same sex marriage argument: equality, justice, opportunity. The arguments they offer may seem like a perversion of those qualities but their arguments are gaining traction. I know this because the President passed an Executive Order, which offers a pathway to citizenship to resident foreign nationals and a Republican-controlled legislative branch just sneered.
The sneer has been the oft-used but wholly ineffective Republican response to everything the cultural Marxists have advanced. Since FDR initiated the welfare state, Republicans haven’t offered any good response to the growth of the welfare state other than the sneer. We deliver some great “I told you so” speeches but are powerless as the cultural Marxists create perpetual clients of the welfare state, more crony capitalists to service the welfare state, and a powerful constituency with financial interests aligned with the Democratic Party. That has to change and it has to change now.
The idea that 12-20 million illegal immigrants should be American citizens is gaining traction.
Right or wrong, some form of amnesty will be part of an immigration reform package. Make no mistake about it, this country needs immigration reform. Before you start calling me a RINO, ask yourself if you are happy with an immigration system which allows 12-20 million foreign nationals to live, work, and play here without recourse. If you’re unhappy with that system (I am), you support SOME sort of immigration reform.
Conservatives often say we support LEGAL immigration (we do) but we oppose rewarding people who have contempt for our laws. I’m not disagreeing with that sentiment but I can offer a better way to approach this issue — help these people become American citizens. That’s exactly what the Koch Brothers are doing through the LIBRE initiative.
I said that ideas are spread among like-minded people and friends. If conservatives understand and accept that we’re not going to deport 12-20 million people, we stand to gain tremendously if we make them our friends. Only through friends will we advance the ideas of individual liberty, good citizenship, equality of opportunity, and the notion of American Exceptionalism. By helping illegal immigrants get legal, we can share the very American ideas we cherish. I think these foreign nationals cherish those ideas, too. If we help them today. Republicans stand to gain a huge voting bloc of people for the 2024 election.
Most illegal immigrants are culturally conservative. They are religious, believe in the traditional family, want to work, own a home, and be self-reliant. A legitimate case could be made that they are “economic refugees,” refugees from a country with a corrupt government with contempt for the Rule of Law. The more conservatives can identify with these “refugees” and affirm that the country of their birth is being run by tyrants, the more we can demonstrate that the Democratic Party’s vision is closer to their home country’s than is the vision of the Republican Party.
I want to be clear — I’m not advocating blanket amnesty nor am I supporting the “comprehensive immigration reform” idea the Gang of Seven’s Plan. I’m not confident in a Republican political solution to immigration reform; those hapless souls will sneer rather than engage. I’m calling for a grass roots, cultural response to what is a serious opportunity to beat the cultural Marxists. Unless you’re willing to deport these immigrants, with your own force and on your own dime, those folks are staying here. Help them to become naturalized American citizens and you’ll change electoral politics for decades.
Politics is downstream from the culture. The culture is downstream from ideas. Ideas are spread among friends. It’s time to make some new friends.
If Republicans are willing to posit the idea that freedom is better than government dependence to people who fled a failed collectivist regimes, we can create 12-20 million good Americans…Nuevo Americanos…Nuevo Americanos deben ser Republicanos.