The xenophobes in Murrieta are getting worse--with consequences for the GOP
by David Atkins
In addition to screaming at busloads of young children, the xenophobes in Murrieta are also passing this around:
Dengue fever! Leprosy!
Eclectablog has some appropriate commentary about the long-term consequences of this sort of thing:
Republicans killed immigration reform after forging a bipartisan Senate bill that cost one of its party’s most promising saviors most of his luster. And now it’s saying that Obama is purposely creating a disaster at the border as migrant children flood up from Central America, fleeing one humanitarian crisis and creating another one America cannot ignore.
Images of crowds yelling at young Latino refugees will be tough to forget.
To make sure their animosity to reform is clear, House Republicans have passed two bills calling for the deportation of DREAMers — even after the House Leadership signaled it was for legalization last year. And when President Obama unveils new executive actions likely designed to keep families and long-term, productive residents in the country, expect a massive conservative backlash.
House Democrats have renewed their charge to get 27 Republicans to sign discharge petition that would bring the Senate’s bill to the floor — or make those members pay for not doing so.
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To anyone who is paying attention, 2014 looks a lot like 1994 did in California when Republican Governor Pete Wilson was re-elected by running an anti-immigrant campaign fueled by his support of the now reviled Prop 187. It was good politics at the time and the way it alienated the state’s growing Latino vote turned Republicans into a larger third-party in California.
Republican hopes of expanding the Senate map with hundreds of millions of dollars of Koch money are disappearing in Michigan and New Hampshire, as they likely will soon in Colorado and Iowa. They need to win in red states like Arkansas, Alaska, and Louisiana to take the Senate — and those races are all toss ups.
President Obama’s approval rating lingers around 43 percent and he’s faced with real crises on the border and in Iraq.
But in just six months more than 10 million Americans have gained health insurance and nearly 1.4 million jobs have been created. We’re now in the 52nd straight month of private sector job growth. Predictions about Obamacare’s failure are being replaced with the reality of dealing with tens of million of Americans who rely on the law for coverage. And the ancillary fights to take away birth control coverage just remind women what a victory health care reform is for them.
Meanwhile, the GOP’s lingering unpopularity is nearly unprecedented. And its decisions to go full throttle with the policies that cost them the presidency in 2012 will not be forgotten.
Markos Moulitsas pointed out earlier that on issues like immigration and birth control, Republicans aren't gaining ground so much as taking rearguard actions against a rising tide that threatens to destroy them. Yes, on matters of inequality, economics, privacy and war the GOP is still all too healthy and there are far too many Democrats also doing their bidding. But Republicans are losing the culture wars badly--so badly that their control of the economic paradigm may well crumble alongside them so long as progressives hold the Democratic Party accountable to its platform and professed values.
The demise of the GOP can be overhyped, of course. They have a lot of money and gerrymandered districts. But that's also a cause for complacency on their part that could see them overlook their structural weaknesses and end up wandering in the wilderness for quite some time beginning as early as 2016 or 2020.
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