The GOP is revisiting its stance on immigration because the GOP establishment is in need of a scapegoat to hang their 2012 failure on.
Whatever conservative issues you care about, and they are all on the chopping block, immigration is the fight the establishment has picked to shift the 2012 blame onto conservatives, and chart a liberal course for the future of the party.
Their irrational, counter-intuitive “blame conservatives” accusations have not been enough by themsleves. They believe that an anti-conservative “party fix” will do the job of officially placing the blame for 2012 on conservatives.
Of course, at a higher level, we’re talking about immigration right now because Obama is trying to make the Democratic Party unbeatable via amnesty, and the GOP establishment are playing their traditional role of selfish losers.
And yes, blaming 2012 on the people who ran the table against the Democrats in 2010 – the Tea Party – is absurd.
The non-jello-minded haven’t been distracted from the facts. In 2012 the GOP establishment got their presidential candidate, spent record amounts of money, and generally dominated the GOP landscape. The results? They followed the Tea Party Landslide of 2010 with the Establishment Shellshock of 2012.
So, don’t be surprised at the muddiness of this debate. The GOP establishment won’t actually say that anti-rule of law legislation will win more Hispanics to the GOP, because amnesty in 1986 did the opposite. It strengthened the Democrats and led to increased illegal immigration.
Instead they will say two things independently, but in close proximity to one another, waiting for us to connect the dots: A) The GOP needs to sell itself to Hispanics, and B) Rule- of-law conservatives are racists not to support the rewarding of immigration lawbreaking.
The problem is, amnesty or quasi-amnesty won’t make Hispanics into Republicans – we have hard evidence of this. And, opposing the rewarding of lawbreaking makes someone sensible and mature, not a racist.
This establishment move on immigration is nothing more than peer pressure straight out of the high school lunch room.
It’s true that the GOP needs to sell itself to the inner-conservative in everyone, including Hispanics, and it is true that Hispanics have a very strong and deep conservative streak, whatever political impulses they are acting on today.
But the GOP establishment is not doing this. Instead, they are trying to enter the liberalism market, fully conceding the playing field to their enemies.
They won’t argue that legal immigrants – Americans who can vote – like the idea of rewarding illegal immigrants, because legal immigrants don’t like the idea of rewarding illegal immigrants.
They won’t explain their “racist” accusation against people who support legal immigration and oppose illegal immigration, because the claim is perfect nonsense.
And, we can all expect the sycophants in the establishment-obedient wing of the conservative movement to help the establishment, using a variety of cynical justifications, such as, “Hey let’s get together and beat the racists!”.
The GOP establishment is using innuendo suggesting something they know to be false – that amnesty or quasi-amnesty legislation will strengthen the GOP. They are doing it to get the GOP to make a bold anti-conservative adjustment, which would have the effect of “officially” shifting the 2012 blame off of themselves, charting a liberal path for the future of the GOP, and handing long term victory to Obama.
This issue is about the GOP establishment hanging on to the driver’s seat by their fingernails.