Chicago highlights Dem perils on immigration
By Chris Stirewalt Published August 07, 2017
A decade ago, Rahm Emanuel was instrumental in helping Democrats to retake the House of Representatives, in part by helping the party get back in touch with working-class white voters.
It is strangely fitting now that Emanuel, who went from head of the House Democratic campaign arm to a stint as White House chief of staff before becoming mayor of Chicago, is now one of those helping drive a wedge between Democrats and those very voters.
It may be good local politics for Emanuel to be taking his case against the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration to court. Chicago has a large immigrant community and Emanuel understandably would believe that maximal defiance of President Trump also helps his standing with more affluent, liberal residents. Given the problems with crime and economics that plague Chicago, Emanuel needs something to keep voters fired up.
But as Peter Beinart smartly points out, the shift on immigration policy on the left has come with jarring speed at considerable political costs.
Beinart reminds us that Emanuel’s former boss and fellow Chicagoan, Barack Obama, as a senator wrote of his “patriotic resentment” at seeing Mexican flags at pro-immigration rallies and his “frustration” at needing a translator to complete even basic tasks.
These would not be welcomed sentiments in much of the Democratic Party today, to say the least.
So how did we get from a place where Democrats’ platform was explicit about the fact that “those who enter our country’s borders illegally, and those who employ them, disrespect the rule of the law,” to a moment where Emanuel and other mayors are expending considerable resources to fight for illegal immigrants?
Some of it has to do with what happened on the Republican side when the previously mostly pro-immigration party flipped on the subject. You can draw the clearest of lines between the GOP revolt against a plan for amnesty in exchange for increased enforcement during the second term of George W. Bush.
When the GOP took a turn against immigration, Democrats moved the other way.
But there are other factors at work here, not the least of which is Democratic overreliance on political demography. The overwhelming belief among Democrats that future success is assured based on the rising number of minority – especially Hispanic – voters has led to some huge blind spots on the subject.
For Democrats, illegal immigration is increasingly treated as a social issue – a matter of principle – rather its long-standing status as an economic issue. When Democrats were still ardently pursuing middle-class white voters from industrial and agricultural regions of the country they made some of the same arguments that the Trump White House uses to support not just the crackdown on illegal immigration, but curbs on immigration itself.
When Emanuel and others defend protected status for those in the country illegally, including those working off the books and low wages, what must downscale voters who have seen little in the way of wage growth think?
Democrats make few arguments in defense of immigration, legal or illegal, but instead denounce Republican efforts to curb abuses. Centuries of varying success in America assimilating immigrants reveals one constant: Individuals in the most economic peril tend to be among the least accepting of immigration.
And the Democratic brand is supposed to be about individuals in economic peril, right?
By including an ardent defense of illegal immigrants in their evolving platform, Democrats are losing their chance to make the case to the broader electorate for not just legal immigration, but also their party’s effort to reengage with voters on the economy.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017...migration.html