Radical Right Reality Check

Politicians and “free market” think tanks sacrifice principles for political expediency on immigration

By Rob Schofield

North Carolina’s ongoing debate over immigration and, in particular, the admission of a few hundred undocumented students into our community college system has produced a significant amount of hot air of late. As noted recently in this space, this should come as no particular surprise. Raising fears about “the other” has always been a surefire way for cynical politicians and public figures to motivate and mobilize constituents – especially when the tide of events is turning against them on the core issues that really make a difference in people’s lives.

The tactic has been used by politicians of both political parties around the issue of race and crime for decades and worked with particular effectiveness for President Bush with the deliberately manufactured controversy over gay marriage in 2004. Flag burning has also been dredged up from time to time for this purpose.

The downside to this kind of cynical game playing, of course, (in addition to promoting unwarranted fear and social discord) is the way in which it tends to shove the real issues out of the limelight.

As New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd noted the other day in discussing the flap over Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith and the inordinate attention devoted by he and his fellow Republican candidates to proving their conservative religious bona fides:

“The world is globalizing, nuclear weapons are proliferating, the Middle East is seething, but Republicans are still arguing the Scopes trial.”

When playing to fears becomes irresistible

If there is an “up side” to this brand of highly cynical politics it is the light it sheds on the sincerity and ultimate motives of those who employ such tactics. All effective politicians and political figures make compromises, but it’s always instructive and enlightening to see just how far some will go in abandoning what had appeared to be principled stances.

For political candidates, it’s usually the insatiable desire to get elected that drives such behavior. The most recent case in point at the national level is former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee. As the Washington Post noted in an outstanding editorial yesterday, 

“THE IDEA that 12 million illegal residents of the United States can be induced to quit the country en masse within four months is absurd on its face — a non-starter in logistical, humanitarian, political, diplomatic, commercial and economic terms that would leave an indelible stain on this country for years. Yet that is the wrathful centerpiece of Mike Huckabee’s "Secure America Plan," which the Republican presidential candidate issued the other day in the course of his party’s escalating enthusiasm for nastier-than-thou prescriptions to deal with illegal immigrants.

Never mind that Mr. Huckabee, when he was governor of Arkansas, actually pursued a pragmatic policy in regard to illegal aliens, urging that exemplary youngsters be eligible for scholarships to public universities even if they were undocumented because, as he put it, "we are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did." Having lately surged enough in the polls to sniff the sweet smell of success, he is not about to let experience, common sense or simple decency get in the way of short-term electoral advantage.”

Here in North Carolina, all five major Democrat and Republican candidates for governor have felt compelled to play the immigrant-bashing game when it comes to the Community College controversy, though Fred Smith and Bill Graham have been, by far, the most frequent and enthusiastic participants.

Think tank partisanship

When it comes to groups and organizations, the motives are only occasionally less clear. Some, of course, are simply happy to have the attention and will often say or do whatever it takes (however outrageous) to worm their way into a news article.

For more established organizations, however, the recent embrace of the anti-immigrant banner is clearly a function of thinly veiled partisanship and short-term political opportunism. The staffs of these groups are smart enough to understand that immigrants pose no real threat to the state’s overall well-being – particularly for them and their comparatively well-heeled supporters. But they are also smart enough to understand that fear sells and that one of the best hopes for “conservatives” – particularly conservative Republicans in the 2008 election is to promote an anti-immigrant backlash.  

How else can one explain the sudden enthusiasm of local market fundamentalist groups that ordinarily devote their energies to opposing government for a vast new law enforcement bureaucracy and the deportation of millions of people in a way that would, if ever really implemented, cause wages to spike and injure thousands of large and small businesses?

At the J.W. Pope Civitas Institute, for example, where the former head of the state Republican Party presides and multiple former Republican officials, candidates and staffers hang their hats on the board or staff, the “anti-statist” group has been transformed of late into a font of “reports” and commentaries on the threat posed by “illegals” and the need for an aggressive government response.

Meanwhile over at the Locke Foundation, the group’s most visible spokesperson for “free markets” and “limited government,” John Hood, authored a column this week in which he characterized those who support allowing 300+ immigrants to pay more than $7,000 per year to attend community college as, in effect, extremists.

Here’s Hood on his newfound appreciation for the issue:

“I come from the free-market, limited-government division of the conservative corps. I don’t agree with government-imposed barriers to international trade in goods and services, including labor. I don’t like the idea of subjecting private citizens and employers to intrusive regulations. I think immigration is a sign of a country’s health, not a source of weakness….But the more I hear Gov. Mike Easley, Community College President Martin Lancaster, UNC President Erskine Bowles, and others advocate government services and subsidies for people who flout the law, the more it turns me off.”

And this about the dastardly plot by Democratic politicians:

“These students may be currently paying enough tuition to offset the operating and capital costs off their education (emphasis on the word “may”) but it is glaringly obvious that the next step is to propose in-state tuition status for them.”

Meanwhile, other members of the Locke tribe are also helping to execute the ’08 electoral game plan. Here in Raleigh this week, the News & Observer ran columns by both Mark Rotterman and Rick Martinez decrying the admission of undocumented students just 48 hours apart. Neither Hood nor Martinez or Rotterman even hints at the Bush administration’s failure to accomplish anything in seven years on the immigration issue.

Reality Check

In short, as is almost always the case, Civitas and Locke are for free markets and limited government – except when it puts them at odds with Republican electoral ambitions. It’s at such points that partisan instincts almost always take hold and that such groups, like Mike Huckabee, do what the have to do and say what they have to say.

Fortunately, as in the past, the tenor of the debate is likely to change eventually – especially once the pressure of a presidential election years subsides. As the Washington Post noted,

“America has had its paroxysms of anti-immigrant fervor in the past, also accompanied by spasms of violence and persecution. Today, as in the past, the national atmosphere is subverting the discussion, drowning out reason.…In such an ugly environment, the best one can hope for is candidates who can appeal to the nation’s self-interest as well as its better instincts; who can explain that resolving the immigration mess through a comprehensive approach is not only an economic imperative but also the only realistic way out of a political swamp.”

Let’s hope that when a modicum of reason and sanity return, the recent candidate opportunism and think tank partisanship haven’t too badly damaged the republic. And until then, get used to hearing a lot from the right-wingers about immigrants and “irresponsible” policies from Democrats.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 9:32 am and is filed under Radical Right Reality Check. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.