Gratuitous Swipe at Phyllis Schlafly

I happened to notice Matt Yglesias tweeting a link to this piece by Phyllis Schlafly, noted unintentional comedian. She's at her unintentional-comic best, arguing quite brazenly that Republicans must oppose immigration because immigrants all vote for Democrats. It's honestly quite hilarious; you should go read it, and laugh at it. I have two somewhat more serious points to make about it, though, one of which is on the issue of immigration and one of which ties in with my last post.

First, Schlafly argues that she doesn't oppose immigration for racial reasons, since even new European immigrants seem to be left-wing. Furthermore, this fact, that immigrants and children of recent immigrants are more left-wing than the existing median of the society to which they immigrate, seems common to all Western democracies. I would simply like to note that there's a reason for that, a reason rooted in what conservatism has become in the modern world: an apologia for entrenched power. Immigrants by definition enter a society which already has a power structure and one in which they have no pre-existing position. The faction which generally seeks to keep power where it lies and uphold existing power structures, even when power is quite significantly concentrated or when those in power got their power unjustly, will naturally not tend to appeal to their concerns. Immigrants, then, have perhaps the most fundamental motive of any group to turn to the faction supporting the deconstruction of existing power dynamics, and of a generally more egalitarian and inclusive distribution of power throughout society.

Second, toward the end of her piece Schlafly describes limiting immigration as something which must happen "[i]f the Republican party is to remain a party that is conservative and nationally competitive." It is no coincidence, I think, that the thing she's arguing for to achieve both of those goals is one which would, she hopes, keep the nation from getting less conservative. But it's too late. The modern Republican Party's very definition of conservatism is one which the American middle finds flatly unacceptable. Republicans have had amazing success getting people to look past that basic fact, and vote for them anyway; they may yet continue to do so in this year's midterms. But in Presidential years, when turnout is uniformly high even among less-empowered groups (see above), it is no longer possible for a party to be "conservative" the way Schlafly and her ideological kin use the word and also competitive. It's too late. And yeah, a big part of why it's too late is America's changing racial identity, the long-term decline in the percentage of the population who can reasonably identify with the historically-powerful rather than the historically-powerless. There is doubtless much more at work as well, though; something must be forcing the Republicans to define themselves in such unacceptable terms rather than adjusting to remain competitive.

Like I said in my last piece, I could write a dozen blog posts about why this is going on and barely scratch the surface. I just thought it was interesting that basically the very next thing I read after writing that post was one hell of an illustration of my point: Republicans are at this point so very wedded to a truly radical ideology, they're admitting as much and acknowledging the need to change the composition of the electorate to their advantage, rather than, I don't know, trying to convince the actual median voter that they should vote Republican. God forbid they have to do that, that the majority of the people might actually get to choose how to govern themselves. Oh, and of course the great thing about admitting it is that you just make it worse; you do very little but send to these Hispanics and Asians and Muslims the very strong message that no, the Republican Party does not like you, it does not think you can be real Americans, and it does not want you here, as such. Thanks, Phyllis, for saying out loud the really, really embarrassing thing you're all thinking.