This is a Test: A successful, crystallizing piece by Ramesh Ponnuru argues that a tough stand on controlling immigration is now a defining issue for conservatives (and, more significantly, maybe for Republicans generally). You used to be able to run for president as a GOP while pushing amnesty, just as you used to be able to run as a GOP while defending abortion (or as a Dem while opposing abortion). No longer. Run as an amnesty man now and you are Jeb Bush. (Even Marco Rubio, an actual member of the Amnesty Gang of 8, is trying desperately to make voters forget that.)
1) But I’m not sure immigration has become a defining issue for the reason Ponnuru gives — i.e. because it’s seen as a proxy for whether Candidate X is conservative on a range of other issues. Maybe it’s become a defining issue because (in itself) it’s an issue voters care about! Was there ever any passion for amnesty among the mass of conservative (or even Republican) voters? It was mostly a push by business elites, donors, strategists and think tankers–now unmasked as that.
2) If immigration only ranks as the third or fourth most important issue in polls — behind “the economy” and terrrorism — how could it be a “litmus test”? Maybe because the differences between the candidates on those other issues — the economy and terrorism — aren’t that great. On immigration they’re stark. Or maybe because voters have no easy way of assessing rival economic plans, but the can suss out an amnesty backer (e.g., if he or she uses the phrase “fix our broken immigration system” or “virtual fence”). Anyway, voters are allowed to have three or four litmus tests.
3) Here’s a big difference between the immigration litmus test and the abortion litmus test: When the line was drawn (in both parties) on abortion, the Dems wound up with a rough working majority on their side — something we were in the process of discovering in state legislatures when the Supreme Court short-circuited democracy in Roe. On immigration, if the line is drawn anywhere near where it now seems to be (e.g. no “amnesty first,” if at all, and no big increase in overall legal immigration levels) Republicans may find a majority on their side, while Dems wind up wishing they hadn’t made support for amnesty a litmus test for their candidates.
That is what we’re in the middle of finding out, anyway.
Three (3) thoughts on @RameshPonnuru’s immigration litmus test https://t.co/ITuAe9C3iU
Kaus on amnesty as a litmus test for Republicans – and Democrats. https://t.co/9WtMakT1gQ
And voters are allowed to oppose amnesty, oppose immigration for any reason at all. The rich didn’t get rich by being selfless.
Illegal immigration is also a simple binary issue. Economics can be finessed with a blizzard of proposals that get reinterpreted by the MSM (who get to inject their biases into the mix).
But abuse of immigration laws and the Visa 1-B program has become so blatant, and the outcome so clear-cut, that even a “bitter clinger” can understand it.
Binary “litmus tests” arise because most voters are incapable of comprehending any candidates’ public policy proposals.
Abortion arose as a relatively accurate proxy for the abandonment of traditional civil institutions which policed behaviors seen as essential to strong family structure. Voters correctly associated support for abortion with support for a myriad of public policies which weakened private social order and empowered government.
Opposition to immigration (along with anti-trade protectionism) is mostly misplaced angst about job losses and wage stagnation. Despite its political saliency, opposition to immigration cannot succeed as a political litmus test because it does not address the root causes of its constituents’ misfortunes, which are stagnant economic growth and technological advancement.
If opposition to immigration becomes a durable political litmus test, we are likely to see the economic trends which it purports to correct worsen rather than improve, which could lead to a dangerous downward spiral.