Republicans Make a Play for the Latino Vote!
You know, Paul Ryan's self-image is of a rugged individualist, upwardly-mobile, eager to take risks and strike out for new frontiers, a pioneer willing to move thousands of miles and become a stranger in a strange land in search of opportunity--and not somebody obedient to picky bureaucratic rules and regulations.
In short, Paul Ryan's self-image--and the self-image of a great deal of his cheering section, it happens--is that he is an illegal immigrant from Oaxaca.
But he really does not like illegal immigrants from Oaxaca:
Sara Inés Calderón:
Paul Ryan Compares Latinos To Animals, Decries "Anchor Babies": Yesterday, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan held several town halls, one of which stirred up the topic of immigration and so-called “anchor babies.”… Ryan… noted that “anchor babies cost money,” which is like saying U.S. citizen children cost money — how is it worse when they’re Latino kids?…
Ryan began to talk about border security, saying that “catch and release” doesn’t work. “Are you talking about people or fish?” a woman in bold framed glasses blurted out…
Why, Paul, don't you like these rugged individualist, upwardly-mobile, eager to take risks and strike out for new frontiers, pioneers willing to move thousands of miles and become a stranger in a strange land in search of opportunity who are not obedient to picky bureaucratic rules and regulations?
You know, back at the start of the 1980s I decided to become a Democrat for two reasons, a little one and a big one. The little one was that the Democrats seemed to need good economists to advise them more than the Republicans did, and I thought that would hold true for the future. Boy was I wrong!
The big one was that it seemed to me that Lyndon Baines Johnson and Hubert Horatio Humphrey had done a very good thing in dragging the Democratic Party, kicking and screaming in many of its members, all-in on civil rights--that Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan had done a very bad thing in thinking that they now had the opportunity to get all the white people who did not like Black people voting for Republicans--that the rest of the Republican Party (with the honorable exception of Jack Kemp) had done a very bad thing in falling into line--and that virtue needed to be rewarded.
And now we have reached a pass in which--because their first language is Spanish and their skins are browner than those of the Irish and they have no freckles--no Republican politician dares see that illegal immigrants from Oaxaca, rugged individualist, upwardly-mobile, eager to take risks and strike out for new frontiers, pioneers willing to move thousands of miles and become a stranger in a strange land in search of opportunity who are not obedient to picky bureaucratic rules and regulations, ought to be part of their natural base.
So every day I thank God I became a Democrat.
