The GOP's Anti-Immigration Jihad

Despicable Asshole

Compared to international rivals, American businesses are often (and rightly) criticized for focusing on the results of the next quarterly report rather than on where the company will be in a year, five years or ten years in the future.  The same could be said about today's GOP which is all about reviving up the aging, angry white base of the party - a demographic that is moving faster and faster toward a permanent minority status.  But that reality means nothing to GOP saboteurs and egomaniacs like Ted Cruz and his Christofascist/Tea Party supporters.   Likewise, compassion and decency towards the less fortunate means nothing to Cruz and his fellow "godly Christians."  A piece in Salon looks at the ugliness of Cruz and his cohorts.  Here are highlights:

In the GOP’s ongoing quest to be the 21st century’s answer to the Know-Nothing party, two events this week stand out as steps in the right direction. Ted Cruz announced that he was going to push for legislation that would roll back the administration’s order to desist in deporting undocumented young people who were brought here by their parents and are now as American as he is. This man has an instinct for the right wing zeitgeist and a knack for riding it right off the cliff.

As Simon Maloy pointed out earlier , this is yet another nail in the GOP’s long-term coffin as they solidify their reputation as uncaring xenophobes, once again led by Senator Cruz. He is tacking as far right as possible, undermining his own fellow Texans with a demand that they go much further than is politically wise. That plays well in the far reaches of the right wing, but it’s a killer if they want to be anything more than a rump, nativist Party in the future.

Cruz may be a fringe dweller, but he isn’t dumb. There are many ways to advance your cause in our government system that’s full of choke points and over the years the Republicans have proved themselves very adept at the one thing they truly care about — stopping what they don’t like. (That is after all, the essence of reactionary politics.)

The upshot is that the right’s reaction to this immigration crisis isn’t something that’s just going to go away when the right-wingers discover they cannot win the presidency. After all, they are operating under the assumption that illegal immigration is a grand Democratic conspiracy to create a huge wave of loyal voters decades from now. (If only the Democrats were that strategic.) And they believe that the nation is under cultural assault from people who are intent upon making all of us Real Americans eat tacos and drink Corona beer against our will. Cruz and Ingraham are both plugged into this collective conservative lizard brain and both feed it and derive their power from it.

And as we’ve seen so many times over the past few years, that power can be leveraged to obstruct change of any kind, even that which seeks to mitigate suffering in a crisis.  (Especially that which seeks to mitigate suffering in a crisis.) Stopping government from functioning is their agenda and getting their base all revved up is as good a way as any to get that done. If Democrats think they’ll benefit in the long run, they’re fine with that. For right now, the nation’s government is basically grinding to a halt — just the way they like it.