As usual, Paul Krugman hits the nail on the head, this time with regard to the nature of the Republican Party. Krugman refers to efforts by various Republican presidential candidates to use crimes committed by illegal immigrants as fodder against each other. Yet, as Krugman notes:
Strangely, nobody seems to be trying to make a national political issue out of other horrifying crimes, like the Connecticut home invasion in which two paroled convicts, both white, are accused of killing a mother and her two daughters. Oh, and by the way: over all, Hispanic immigrants appear to commit relatively few crimes - in fact, their incarceration rate is actually lower than that of native-born non-Hispanic whites.
So much for facts, we already knew Republicans didn't like those things. Too messy and inconvenient; they interfere with the simplistic, child-like, false-naive, black-and-white view of the world they like to peddle. But WHY does the GOP peddle xenophobic and racist trash as the country turns "majority minority?" Here's Krugman:
To appreciate what's going on here you need to understand the difference between the goals of the modern Republican Party and the strategy it uses to win elections.The people who run the G.O.P. are concerned, above all, with making America safe for the rich. Their ultimate goal, as Grover Norquist once put it, is to get America back to the way it was "up until Teddy Roosevelt, when the socialists took over," getting rid of "the income tax, the death tax, regulation, all that."
But right-wing economic ideology has never been a vote-winner. Instead, the party's electoral strategy has depended largely on exploiting racial fear and animosity.
So, there you have it: the Republican Party wants to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, but they can't exactly say that so they use "wedge issues" like immigration, play up racial tensions, and do whatever they can to distract people from their REAL interests, which are decidedly NOT making the rich richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class squeezed.
Krugman concludes:
So now we have the spectacle of Republicans competing over who can be most convincingly anti-Hispanic. I know, officially they're not hostile to Hispanics in general, only to illegal immigrants, but that's a distinction neither the G.O.P. base nor Hispanic voters takes seriously.Today's G.O.P., in short, is trapped by its history of cynicism. For decades it has exploited racial animosity to win over white voters - and now, when Republican politicians need to reach out to an increasingly diverse country, the base won't let them.
I believe the expression is "hoisted by their own petard." Perhaps there IS some justice in the world after all.
Well, if they have another going project, then somebody better tell Grover Norquist. Caus ehe seems pretty sure that making white people richer IS the GOP's purpose.
And I fail to see how disagreeing w/Republicans equals "hating." It's not like he's wishing slow, painful death on them. He just think they're wrong. Or are you arguing that disagreeing with someone is functionally the same as hating them?
Is the Republican Party embracing hateful, anti-immigration rhetoric or not?
Let's discuss the item that was presented: the numbers say that more white criminals are incarcerated than Hispanics.
No matter how you dress it up in modern issues, the message is the same. Stop throwing sand in our eyes, or trying to. I know what's going on because I am a direct descendant of both the slave holders and the New England federalists who, moving West became Abolitionists, and there is no substitute for having heard family arguments over the years. How gullible can these modern apologists be for the Republican Party of today, which magically morphed itself from the hated Abolitionists who produced the Empancipation Proclamation into the modern day cozily racist privileged culture of corruption? Ha. The message is the same. Ha, ha.
Or perhaps some of you are too young to remember how the Republicans started their "Southern Strategy" back in 1968 to capitalize on racism in the South?
"Until 15 or 20 years ago, meatpacking plants in the United States were staffed by highly paid, unionized employees who earned about $18 an hour, adjusted for inflation. Today, the processing and packing plants are largely staffed by low-paid non- union workers from places like Mexico and Guatemala. Many of them start at $6 an hour."
I realize that we have an aging population which many experts say will lead to a shortage of workers. There may also be a legitimate shortage of workers for some jobs now. We need to have a legitimate study of the issue. We may indeed need to have a guest worker program at some point. However, the guest workers need to be here because they are filling a shortage of American workers and they need to be treated fairly. They do NOT need to be here as cheap exploited workers to raise the profits of corporations.
While on the subject of agriculture, it's the most heavily subsidized industry in the US. Agriculture can bring in UNLIMITED numbers of guest workers on H visas.
Other industries want the same H visa guest worker expansions.
I'd hate to the see the rest of economy function like America's corporate farms.
With 20 years of stagnant real wages, it's time for the government to embrace old fashioned Democratic Party values and implement policies that help everybody, especially the working middle classes.