Grover Norquist and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) appear to be trying their best to use immigration policy to relegate the Republican Party to permanent minority status.
Democrats must be jumping with joy as Norquist and Rubio repeat over and over again: "Hispanics are the future of the Party. Hispanics are the future of the Party. Hispanics are the future of the Party" — in spite of clear evidence that most Hispanics are now, and will continue to be, Democrats.
As noted in an earlier blog, Hispanics have given Democratic presidential candidates an average of 64 percent of their votes since 1980. Norquist and Rubio must, therefore, know that if the GOP is to make substantial gains in the Hispanic community, it would have to move to the left, adopt Democratic policies, and fundamentally shift its view of the role of government. And it's not just me saying that.
For example, Jamelle Bouie, a staff writer at the liberal American Prospect, writes in the Washington Post: "Latinos disagree with Republicans on a range of policy priorities, and even when it comes to basic conceptions of the proper role of government."
Bouie gets it. Hispanic American voters, as a group, are more liberal than the average voter.
Democrats must also be immensely amused as Norquist and Rubio, along with their allies Sens. McCain (R-Ariz.), Flake (R-Ariz.), Graham (R-S.C.), et al., pander to Hispanics by creating still more Democratic voters with their path to citizenship for millions of illegal aliens.
Even better for the Democrats is the fact that Norquist and Rubio appear to be going out of their way to systematically insult a major portion of the Republican Party's base by carrying out despicable attacks on organizations that are their natural allies.
Norquist and Rubio marginalize old white guys and all those who support the rule of law because they assume that these folks will continue to vote Republican. After all, they reason, these people have nowhere else to go regardless of how poorly they are treated.
What Norquist and Rubio appear to be incapable of grasping is that if you denigrate your friends and treat them badly enough, they will eventually turn on you and any marginal gains with other voters will be more than offset by the loss of long-time supporters.
One has to look no further than Mia Love's race for a U.S. House seat in Utah to see what happens when GOP supporters are told by powerful party, religious, and business interests that they are not welcome in the Republican Party. They either vote Libertarian or stay home.
In the best-case scenario under the Norquist-Rubio vision, the GOP will be relegated to permanent minority status in a two-party system because Hispanics will never come to the GOP in large numbers. In the worst case scenario, a third party will replace the GOP as the only viable option to the Democratic Party.
Norquist and Rubio — with friends like these who needs enemies. Please, just "Leave Us Alone!"
