Your Humble Blogger is astonished, again and again, to discover just how important people think illegal immigration is. I mean, yes, I should have figured it out by now, but I am still astonished. What the hell, people! There are actual problems, here.
Ah, well. Given that people really are upset about Spanish-speaking furriners (or possibly furriers, but that’s another kettle of proverbial) taking over and turning this country into a … um … well, given that people really are upset, it makes sense that the Presidential Election should address the issue, at least somewhat. Ezra Klein, over at Tapped, talks about immigration and the dems, talking about the need to make the case for “why Republicans are systemically unwilling to actually crack down on the cause of illegal immigration: Employers who want to undercut wage, benefit, and safety regulations.”
Myself, I think that if we made the case persuasively that Republicans were supporting employers who want to undercut wage, benefit and safety regulations and that Democrats were opposing such employers, then illegal immigration wouldn’t need to enter into it. We’d have our majorities in the two Houses and a Democrat in the White House, and we’d have campaigned on a progressive platform which would allow us to govern like progressives. It wouldn’t last, of course, as nothing does, but while it was not lasting, we could get some things done, wouldn’t you think?
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
Well, and I think this is the wrong election to campaign on an anti-free-market platform like that, since there are “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” libertarian types who will vote Dem this time, who might not vote at all if that were the platform.
Perhaps running on law-and-order rhetoric of “Republicans say to enforce the current law, not to make new ones, but they aren’t, because they’re in the pocket of corporations who want to keep their welfare” might work, but I don’t think any of the current candidates will do that. Partially because they want the option to be in those pockets, as well, no doubt.
Except maybe the junior Senator from New York, which is another reason to like her, despite her other problems. And, honestly, not to apologize for being duped by OOP and his SCoC&C has a kind of integrity. It would have been better if she hadn’t been duped, but we can’t all be Barack Obama, and it seems more and more that he isn’t Barack Obama, after all, but someone slightly less pure.
peace
Matt
I don’t think the Democratic party should ever be trying to position itself to win the votes of people who think that minimum wage laws are a bad idea.
If the swell of undocumented aliens looking for work in the U.S. must be addressed as a campaign issue, I’d like to see this trend linked to the trade policies that have systematically destroyed the Mexican agricultural economy. Yes, there are employers here who want cheap labor, but there needs to be a large pool of desparate people to fill those jobs for that venal desire to be fulfilled.
NAFTA has made it much harder for many, many people in Mexico to live decently while remaining at home. Since our policies have destroyed their livelihoods, we ought not to act surprised when they come here looking to find work to feed their families.
Okay, but the Democratic Party IS in the position of NEEDING “the votes of people who think that minimum wage laws are a bad idea” in order to win elections (or Presidential ones, anyway), and I think a Democratic Party that panders to not-strictly-speaking progressives is a better party to have in power than a Republican Party that panders to dittoheads, for example.
peace
Matt
Having first treated the minimum wage issue from a moral perspective, which is where any consideration ought to begin, let me now look at it in terms of practical politics, since Matt is suggesting that pandering to a constituency with whom you disagree on a basic moral principle may be good politics.
Whoever gets the most votes will be elected. The question for the serious politician is, “How do you build a coalition that will bring in the most votes?”
Trying to attract voters whose core beliefs are completely opposite of those of the party’s base is not the way to go about buiding a large and strong coalition. That’s what the Democrats would be doing if they tried to avoid making it look like they look out for the needs and the interests of working people.
What the Republicans are trying to do by fanning fears of immigration is split the vote of the working people who are the natural constituency of the Democratic party and who are a majority of Americans. A sound Democratic strategy for dealing with the immigration issue is one that holds this natural consistuency together.
Pandering to libertarians by not being strong on the minimum wage and worker safety will not do anything to hold together the Democratic coalition of working people, and will do little to build any sort of strong coalition, since you are setting yourself up to continually have to appeal to groups whose interests will (unless they can be redefined) generally be opposed.
So I think it is a losing strategy, whether it is considered in moral or political terms.
If I can bring this back to a point I was trying to make in the entry… I think one of the problems my Party faces is that its natural constituency does not largely believe that it effectively opposes those companies that are undercutting their wages, benefits (particularly health care) and safety. If, for instance, Republicans are actively supporting mine owners who are letting their miners die in the mines rather than taking care of safety, but Democrats are simply ignoring them, then there is little reason for miner’s families (and other people who care about the issue) to vote for Democrats on that issue, or to make that issue a voting issue.
Now, (a) I think that’s overstating the actual case, and (2) the actual case doesn’t matter so much as the perception, which is sadly against the Dems. Given that, I think the advice to whip up support for the Dems by saying we will root out illegal immigration on the employers side is whistling in the proverbial.
As for practicality, my Party is in an unusual position, where the other Party has let themselves get in the hands of a cabal of incompetents and crooks, and everybody hates them. If we can’t win the Presidency in 2008 without the libertarians, we simply can’t win the Presidency. And, in fact, we have won the last four Presidential elections, three of them outright by popular vote, and the fourth a slender loss after substantial suppression of legitimate votes. I’m happy to get votes from free-market libertarians, but if they are willing to stay home (or vote Lib), I’m also happy to get along without them, particularly if it means holding together a coalition and governing from it. Nothing against libertarians, you understand.
Thanks,
-V.
anyone supporting a living wage retroactive to 1492 would certainly turn heads.
as i recently understand it, nafta’s investment, property rights, labor, and environmental provisions all could stand repair, as could this country’s wage levels and employer-based health system (gotta say that, when talking of wage hikes) — but few dems would touch nafta’s broken aspects — and that’s no hyperbole.