As Peter Suderman
pointed
out yesterday, one of the major fauxplanations for House
Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s stunning primary loss to David Brat
is that Cantor was “soft”
on immigration. Exactly what that means is anybody’s guess,
given that Cantor wanted a militarized, wall-defended border with
Mexico and got a 100 percent rating from the anti-immigration group
FAIR.
As I argue in
this Daily Beast column, Cantor’s sins against the
ideals of limited government are long and numerous. Fact is, since
taking office in 2001, he never missed an opportunity to vote for
every major expansion of government power he was given, as long as
a Republican was in the White House. No Child Left Behind, Medicare
Part D, extension of the Patriot Act, TARP, auto bailouts, endless
war: It’s all there in his record. As a self-styled (read: sad and
pathetic) “Young Gun,” he also pushed the GOP’s Path to Prosperity
budget, which would grow annual spending over the next decade from
about $3.7 trillion to $5 trillion. On top of that, of course, he
hit all the sour notes possible on social issues: He was dismissive
of marriage equality, loved the drug war, and anti-abortion all the
way.
In other words, Cantor represents big government conservativism
in its most fulsome manifestation. And it’s this package of B.S.,
not anything related to immigration, that has driven voter
identification with the GOP down to 25 percent according to Gallup.
Until Republicans understand that they cannot mix libertarianish
rhetoric about reducing the size, scope, and spending of government
with a massive buildup of spending and regulation and a buttinsky,
intolerant attitude toward social issues, they will keep losing
elections.
Either own the fact that you are in favor of slightly less
spending than Democrats and want to marginalize social outgroups or
start living up to your rhetoric. Voters, it seems, are neither
stupid nor receptive to lies.
When it comes to immigration specificially, Sen. Rand Paul
(R-Ky.) is right that Republicans have become “trapped” by their
rhetoric on the topic, especially regarding the concept of
“amnesty.”
“We’ve been somewhat trapped by rhetoric and words, and
amnesty’s a word that has kind of trapped us,” he said, adding that
some people think it means giving undocumented immigrants a right
to vote, while others say it means allowing them to obtain legal
status without a penalty….
Paul is no champion of open borders or even last year’s Senate
immigration-reform bill (he explains his vote against
the plan here). But he is already being attacked by “real”
Republicans for even talking about immigration in
less-than-apocalyptic terms, especially by people who are quick to
say Eric Cantor got crushed because he was “soft” on
immigration.
As it happens,
64 percent of Republicans nationwide favor immigration reform.
They are joined by 71 percent of independents and 78 percent of
Democrats. Within Cantor’s own district,
a large majority of voters (as many as 72 percent) favored
immigration reform.
If the Republicans decide that
being virulently anti-immigrant and immigration reform is a way to
succeed, they will be on the losing side of not just that issue but
history.
Even though polls routinely show that immigration is actually
not a particularly important issue for voters, hostility to
immigrants confirms in many people’s mind a vision of the
Republicans as mean, intolerant, and white. That simply doesn’t
play well in an increasingly diverse and globalized America.
More to the point, large numbers of voters—including 65 percent
of the independents who decide all national elections—think that
government “has too much power.”
A majority of voters (55 percent) think the “government is
doing too much.” These are not new findings or recent turnarounds.
Voters have been saying the government does too much and spends too
much
for a long time.
The Republican Party, especially its doltish leadership, keeps
saying, “Yeah, yeah, we hear you, we’re on your side, shrink the
state, stop spending, we get it.” And yet when it is power it
cranks up spending and regulation like LBJ’s bastard child. And
when it is in opposition, it still proposes to spend more money in
the future and refuses to abide by its attractive libertarian
rhetoric by going on and on about abortion, drugs are bad mmkay,
gays need fixing, immigrants scare me, and all the rest. Think
about it, Republicans: Large majorities of Americans keep saying
they want a government that spends less and does less. Large
majorities are also favorably disposed to immigrants and
immigration. And you’re seriously fixating on keeping immigrants
out of country as a successful electoral ploy while laying out
budgets that increase spending by at least 35 percent over the
coming decade? Run the numbers again, pal.
As much as a single person could personify everything that sucks
about the contemporary GOP—a patently fake commitment to small,
limited government, a lack of social tolerance, and uncritical
support for a military-industrial complex that has lost the last
two wars it foisted on Americans—that person was Eric Cantor. Good
riddance.
Republicans who sound like him and legislate like him won’t be
any more successful come this November or in any other future
elections either.
News flash: Voters dislike Republicans (and Democrats, too) not
despite their policies and the way they wield power but
because of their policies and the way they wield
power.
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