Kevin Drum Outlines The Minimum Liberals Will Accept From GOP On Immigration
11/11/2012
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Blogger Kevin Drum of liberal Mother Jones is a sensible fellow, with (at least by the standards of us pundits) strong powers of logic and data analysis. He's like me in some ways: same age, same part of the country, similar career path (although he made a lotmore money during the Tech Bubble and has no kids). So, I always like to check out his opinions.

I think this one should give Republican strategists pause. Remember, this is coming from the logical wing of the Democratic party:

The GOP's Immigration Problem Goes Way Beyond Immigration

—By Kevin Drum| Thu Nov. 8, 2012 11:02 PM PST

Losing a couple of elections in a row to a radical socialist can apparently make your life flash before your eyes. Here is Sean Hannity on immigration::

We’ve got to get rid of the immigration issue altogether. It’s simple to me to fix it. I think you control the border first. You create a pathway for those people that are here. You don’t say you’ve got to go home. And that is a position that I’ve evolved on. Because, you know what, it’s got to be resolved. The majority of people here, if some people have criminal records you can send them home, but if people are here, law-abiding, participating for years, their kids are born here, you know, it’s first secure the border, pathway to citizenship, done, whatever little penalties you want to put in there, if you want, and it’s done.

... I know they don't want to hear this, and I know that a lot of Republicans are deeply invested in a belief that liberals, not conservatives, are the real racial scaremongers. And I also know that it's almost impossible to talk about this because even the slightest suggestion of racial hostility is instantly toxic.

But as Bernie Goldberg admitted earlier this year, "There is a strain of bigotry — and that's the word I want to use — running through conservative America....That has to leave the conservative movement....I am sick of it." He's right. Lightening up on immigration won't be enough. Like it or not, conservatives are going to need a much more thorough housecleaning if they want to survive in an increasingly diverse future. No more gratuitous ethnic mockery. No more pretense that reverse racism is the real racism. No more suggestions that minorities just want a handout. No more screeching about the incipient threat of Sharia law. No more saturation coverage of the pathetic New Black Panthers. No more complaining that blacks get to use the N word but whites don't. No more summers of hate on Fox News. No more tolerance for Dinesh D'Souza and his "roots of Obama's rage" schtick; or for Glenn Beck saying Obama has a "deep-seated hatred of white people"; or for Rush Limbaugh claiming that "Obama's entire economic program is reparations." No more jeering at the mere concept of "diversity." And no more too-clever-by-half attempts to say all this stuff without really saying it, and then pretending to be shocked when you're called on it.

Got that?

Immigration isn't some technical issue like tax rates where the two sides can reach a compromise. It's a test of morals. Amnesty won't be just a practical tool for Democrats to solidify their majority; it will also be a symbolic milestone permanently delegitimizing any and all skepticism about the Democratic-run government electing a new people to elect a Democratic-run government.

And the only way the Republicans can pass this test is ... well, seriously, they can never pass it. There will always be some Republican out there who says something suggesting that he is not a goodthinker when it comes to immigration and diversity. And, like that guy in Missouri with his musings on abortion, you will never hear the end of it.

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