Peter Brimelow in WND: GOP Does Not Have A Hispanic Problem
04/21/2013
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James Fulford writes: This column was posted to WND.com four days ago. It was quickly posted to FreeRepublic.com, and just as quickly pulled by moderators. This is because even before the $PLC started smearing us, we were banned by FreeRepublic for being “divisive.”

This was inspired, apparently, by Steve Sailer’s seminal article GOP Future Depends on Winning Larger Share of the White Vote, November 28, 2000. FreeRepublic was wrong then, and is wrong now. Since Sailer wrote that article we’ve seen George W. Bush win a presidential election in which he galvanized the white vote, and John McCain and Mitt Romney lose elections in which they didn’t. VDARE.com’s conclusions remain relevant, and FreeRepublic remains irrelevant, and of course unfree. This version of Peter Brimelow’s article contains many added links.

Everyone knows that the Republican Party needs to extend amnesty to 12-20 million illegal aliens in order to win the Hispanic vote. Right? But, to quote Josh Billings: “It’s not what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

And it’s not just that Hispanics will never vote Republican anyway—because they are poor and naturally like government redistribution, and because they have eyes and can see that Marco Rubio is a white Cuban, not a Mexican.

Both those things are true, of course, but the real reason the current Hispanic hysteria is wrong is that there simply aren’t that many Hispanic voters. Whites will continue to dominate the U.S. electorate for the foreseeable future.

And it’s whites—especially the white working class, above all in the North—who are up for grabs.

Hispanics cast perhaps 10 percent of the votes in the 2012 presidential election. (All these numbers are a little fuzzy because exit polling is inexact.) Whites cast 72 percent.

And, remember, this was an election in which minority turnout rose because of Democratic anti-white race-baiting, and GOP turnout fell because of Mitt Romney’s wimpish failure to motivate the Republican base.

Indeed, incredibly, this is the second presidential election in which white turnout fell—it was down in 2008, too, for GOP nominee John McAmnesty.

(See a pattern here?)

But at least everybody knows that Hispanic immigration (legal and—shhh!—illegal) has made California a Democratic stronghold. Right?

Again, incredibly, this is something that “everybody knows” that, to quote Billings again, “just ain’t so.” Romney got just 48 percent of the white vote in California in 2012, according to Reuters/ Ipsos. McCain got a mere 46 percent in 2008.

Quite obviously, the GOP cannot carry California if it can’t carry the white vote.

Indeed, the amazing truth is that the demographics of California are not much more unfavorable to the GOP than the demographics of Texas.

In 2012, 22 percent of California’s votes were cast by Hispanics, 55 percent by whites.

And 20 percent of Texas’ votes were cast by Hispanics, 63 percent by whites. (An estimate based on the 2008 exit polls—exit polls weren’t taken in Texas in 2012.)

But the GOP carried Texas 57 percent vs. 41 percent. It lost California 60 percent to 37 percent. The difference: Texas whites voted 76 percent for the GOP.

Even a small increase in the GOP’s share of the white vote would swamp any conceivable increase in its share of the Hispanic vote.

And there’s plenty of room for an increase. GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney got only about 57 percent of whites in 2012—fatally less than the 60 percent congressional Republicans got in the tea-party mid-term election in 2010.

In contrast, Ronald Reagan got a 64 percent white share in 1984. Richard Nixon got 67 percent back in 1972.

Of course, because of mass non-white immigration and the fact that racial voting patterns are pretty well fixed, the U.S. electorate is shifting a point or 2 against the GOP every election cycle.

But the GOP would easily counter that by returning to Reagan Era levels of white share and turnout.

Indeed, even if immigration continues at current levels, the GOP could still win the 2052 presidential election—if it could increase its white share to 70 percent.

Remember, that would be only 3 points higher that Richard Nixon’s white share in 1972. And, remarkably, it’s double-digits below the white shares the GOP presidential campaign has already actually achieved in some states in 2012: for example, 82 percent in Alabama, 84 percent in Louisiana, and an incredible 88 percent in Mississippi.

On the other hand, there’s a whole tier of largely white Northern states—basically Greater New England, from Portland, Maine to Portland, Ore.—where Romney underperformed, because his white share was significantly below average.

Thus Romney lost the six key Midwest states—Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin—because his white share averaged 52 percent—6 points below the national average.

Unbelievably, Romney lost the white vote in conservative Iowa—and consequently, of course, lost the state.

Above all, Romney did particularly badly among the white working class in these six states. Thus he did only 2 points worse among whites with college degrees in the six states than he did nationally. But among the white “some college” component, he came in 6 points worse than nationally. And among the white “no college” voters, he performed 11 points worse than across the country—finishing tied with Obama.

So the GOP’s problem is not that it can’t win Hispanics—it’s that it can’t mobilize its white base. Above all, it has lost its grip on the white working class—what used to be called the Reagan Democrats.

Why don’t you know about this? Because you haven’t been told—for several reasons:

  • Politicians and pundits, usually lawyers and liberal arts types, are seriously innumerate. My favorite example: Faith and Freedom’s Ralph Reed, a fanatical amnesty enthusiast, was quoted back in 2000(yes, this outreach nonsense has been going on that long!) that the GOP had to give up trying to drive its white share “over 70 percent.” Reed clearly didn’t know that Bob Dole, his candidate in 1996, had received only 49 percent of the white vote.
  • Politics really is all about money. Politicians talk about Hispanics, but it’s just a rationale for getting cheap labor to their donors.
  • “Hitler’s Revenge”—America’s political class was so traumatized by World War II and the civil rights struggle that it has convinced itself that any discussion of whites is racism.

But whites have rights, too. And, until Ted Kennedy’s 1965 Immigration Act opened the floodgates to non-traditional immigration, these “whites” were what was called “Americans.”

For the GOP, immigration is not a problem but a solution. An anti-unemployment immigration moratorium, attrition of the illegal presence through enforcement and closing the anchor-baby loophole, coupled with Official English and the abolition of affirmative action, which (absurdly) currently advantages immigrants, all are exactly what is needed to bring back the Reagan Democrats.

Maybe it can’t happen. But maybe, too, the GOP is doomed.


Peter Brimelow is the editor of VDARE.com. His best-selling book, “Alien Nation: Common Sense About America’s Immigration Disaster,” is now available in kindle format.

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