Immigration Restriction--Ruined by its Success?
At first read, Scott McConnell’s review of Mark Krikorian’s The New Case Against Immigration—Both Legal and Illegal seems like a rather courteous, and not particularly surprising, examination of the volume. McConnell rightly credits Krikorian with crafting a well-researched, levelheaded book that will be indispensable once the immigration debate gets going again during a McCain or Obama presidency.
Dig a little deeper, however, and one discovers another message altogether, one that’s left partially concealed and which has been overlooked by most all those who’ve blogged and commented on the review thus far. It’s a message that, to say the least, brings into question McConnell’s commitment to what can be called “patriotic immigration reform.”
McConnell’s major criticism (if that’s the right word) of Krikorian’s book is that the immigration reform movement has been ruined by its success in the Republican Party. McConnell started out his adult life among the liberal Left, and according to his own account, migrated rightward over the course of the ’80s due to his interest in Commentary magazine and the neoconservative intellectual movement. In the 90s, McConnell took up more controversial and unequivocally rightwing causes such as immigration reform and opposition to affirmative action and broke sharply with the neocons on foreign policy, opposing the bombings in Serbia. By 2000, he was working on Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaign, and by 2002, he was the editor of Pat Buchanan’s magazine. It’s thus natural that McConnell would worry that immigration reform might become just another plank in the War Party’s agenda—or worse, part of some talk-radio jingoism about keepin’ out the wetbacks and bombin’ the towelheads (though I find that McConnell greatly exaggerates the preponderance of these kinds of sentiments among average Republican voters.)
Our friend Daniel Larison has already noted the contradiction between, on the one hand, McConnell’s advocating the idea that the ethnicity of Mexican’s shouldn’t be of any importance to the immigration question and then, on the other, his concern with Spanish-only enclaves and recent immigrants’ passionate attachment to the Mexican homeland.
For me, there’s an even more glaring contradiction between McConnell’s claim that ethnicity doesn’t matter and his endorsement, some 10 paragraphs later, of Nathan Glazer and Daniel Moynihan’s contention that the ethnic composition of the American nation is “the single most important determinant of American foreign policy.”
In the end, it’s McConnell’s belief that Glazer and Moynihan are right that leads him to question, if not reject, his former commitments to immigration restriction—and even speculate about “re-determining” American foreign policy through an new influx of new immigrants:
[O]ne fact seems indisputable: those from the new immigrant groups have played a very secondary role in the Bush/McCain foreign policy—torture apologist John Yoo being a notable exception. Asian-Americans, educationally and professionally on track to become a growing part of America’s elite, have evinced very little enthusiasm for the War Party agenda. While Hispanics have volunteered in great numbers for military service, the nascent Latino political class, largely Democratic, shows almost no inclination to tub thump about democracy in the Middle East, striking Iran, or rolling back Russian influence in the Caucasus.
Furthermore, McConnell observes that these new Asian and Latino immigrants wouldn’t much fit in at a meeting of the immigration reform movement, which is “attracting people from the same social strata as those volunteering for military service: working-class whites.”
One could give all this a charitable reading and say that McConnell doesn’t want the immigration hawks among the antiwar Right to alienate potential Asian and Latino allies. Sound advice. But then McConnell clearly has something much grander in mind:
To the extent that the existing American political class is now given to grandiose and probably self-destructive visions of America’s role in the world, modifying its composition through immigration seems much less of a bad idea than it might have ten years ago. [My emphasis]
On June 17, 1953, a large brunt of the German working class took to the streets of Berlin to protest life in the Worker’s Paradise. It didn’t take long for the East German state to bring out the army. Bertolt Brecht—not exactly a champion of liberty but one who saw things clearly in this instance— suggested:
Would it not be easier
In that case, for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
McConnell is suggesting much of the same—that the arrival of more “antiwar” Latinos and Asians would be a good thing as they’d displace all those pro-war rednecks.
McConnell and I are in agreement on most foreign-policy issues; however, I find his demographic-engineering project rather appalling, and not-particularly well conceived. McConnell should heed the advice of his erstwhile neocon colleagues who warned of the multiplying “unintended consequences” that arise when one tries to engineer desired outcomes through public policy—like, say, trying to end the Iraq war through increased immigration.
As McConnell points out, though Latinos sign up for the military in legions (many hoping to earn citizenship status in the process), they’re mostly indifferent towards foreign policy. This makes them functionally antiwar, but then it also makes them much like the rest of the population. And Antiwar America has had little success in reigning in Washington’s engaged and impassioned foreign policy-making class—which has never been particularly “representative” of the American population as a whole anyway.
More importantly, Iraq won’t be America’s last war. And it’s likely that future ones will have little in common with our current boondoggles in the Middle East. It’s rather easy to imagine a recurrence in the near future of the kinds of border disputes and small wars between the U.S. and Mexico that were going on throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. (Everyone knows about James Polk, many forget that Woodrow Wilson invaded our neighbor to the south twice before his first term was up (!).) Diplomatic and military conflicts over water and other natural resources seem plausible as well.
It’s also easy to imagine that in any of these conflicts the massive unassimilated (and, in McConnell’s mind, “antiwar”) Latino population would have little loyalty to the United State and perhaps even engage in insubordination, subversion, and secession. After all, according to Zogby, 58% of Mexicans believe that the American South West “rightfully belongs to Mexico.” Mexico’s vast system of U.S. consulates would also be there to stir up unrest.
“Antiwar” Asian present similar problems. With the Chinese, there’s strong anecdotal evidence of a passionate attachment to the Middle Kingdom among recent immigrants, even—or perhaps especially—among the highly educated destined for elite status. Again, there is a serious danger for conflicts of loyalty if, say, an international crisis over Taiwan came about. Among the second generation of East Asians, the trend is towards assimilation towards their white classmates and colleagues—thus the sons and daughters of hardworking “conservative” restaurant owners become conventional liberals. And again, this just brings us back to where we started—a population that’s either ineffectual in confronting the Washington elite or else a part it.
All these “unintended consequences” aside, it’s important to point out that McConnell doesn’t want an new “antiwar” demographic so much a new foreign-policy establishment—one that takes after not Wolfowitz and Albright but McConnell’s all-time hero, George Kennan. McConnell longs for a return to Washington of those Wise Men capable of forming an enlightened, responsible conception of national interest. A worthy goal, indeed! But altering America’s demographics doesn’t seem a very good way of bringing this about. In many ways, McConnell needs to take more seriously Glazer and Moynihan’s claim regarding the connection between ethno-cultural identity and foreign policy.
As McConnell himself makes clear in his superb retrospective on Kennan from a few years back, George Kennan was George Kennan in many ways by dint of his Presbyterian—and, for lack of a better word, WASP—cultural heritage. One wonders whether someone like Kennan could rise to prominence in a country that lacked an Anglo-Saxon tradition—that is, a predominantly British ethnic core and an Anglo-Protestant culture, in Samuel Huntington’s terminology, to which all immigrants—Catholic, Jew, brown, yellow, white—would conform.
Sooner or latter, the Iraq War will be over; massive demographic transformations last forever. McConnell might be bit exasperated with lower, middle-class rednecks braying about how much they love Bush on talk-radio; however, it’s hard to argue that the antiwar Right or the immigration reform movement would be better suited for an alliance with anyone else. And let’s remember, these “Jacksonians” might not be antiwar, but they definitely have a strong, visceral sense of “America First!” Finding common ground with them would seem a far more realistic and ethical solution than instigating the kind demographic transformation dreamed up by the editor of Pat Buchanan’s magazine.
Comments
I t should not be necessary to point out that the publisher of The American Conservative, Ron Unz, does NOT favor immigration restrictions. Unz irked GOP leaders when he publicly opposed the successful anti-illegal immigration initiative, Proposition 187. McConnell must have noticed this and adjusted accordingly.
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McConnell: “While Hispanics have volunteered in great numbers for military service, the nascent Latino political class, largely Democratic, shows almost no inclination to tub thump about democracy in the Middle East, striking Iran, or rolling back Russian influence in the Caucasus. ...America’s role in the world, modifying its composition through immigration seems much less of a bad idea than it might have ten years ago.”
This is analogous to the neoconservative argument that mestizos will save Catholicism in America. These must be God’s chosen people. Not only are they going to save Christianity, but now the American foreign policy establishment too.
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First… from what I understand, the current demographics of America is already antiwar, yet our leaders aren’t listening. How much more of a percentage would be needed to make them listen? Well, just look at the current financial crisis… congress is getting calls from the people at a rate of 50 to 1 against the bailout, yet besides for a brave and likely short lived stand by a rag-tag group of fiscal conservatives in the House, the will of the people is being ignored. 50 to 1! Think about that for a moment. 50 to 1 is ten times more than we could ever hope to muster for issues such as immigration reform or an antiwar stance, under any demographic, and they’re not listening.
On the other hand, in the very long run, considering the tendency of hispaniards to be antisemitic, believe in stuff like the protocols of zion and generally be very slow to change their minds about anything (which is reinforced by multiculturalism/non-assimilation), I can see a time when a fully hispanicized America would have a very different view of Israel and conduct foreign policy via that view. Assuming of course that the country could even survive such an invasion, which is very much in question. Since agents of Israel appear to be behind both the push for non-european immigration and multiculturalism, the irony is thick. Of course Israel has its own demographic crises and may not survive to reap what it has sown here, as they are likely to be outbred by palestinians before that comes to pass.
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Just another reason why my subscription to the “American Conservative” will lapse this fall.
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American Immigration policy and tepid border control....combined with our debt-driven service economy is punishing both sides of the border. The money sent back to Latin America relieves those nations of the responsibility for taking care of their own problems while draining money from our own economy and suppressing prices/wages on the one hand and creating unfair, usually non-insured competition on the other. In effect, our policy is encouraging the ongoing development of a Petrol-Narco State in Mexico that will become a far larger problem than the immigrants themselves.
It’s of little long term consequence however because the Oligarchy fer ijits aborning here will remove any need for observing distinctions between Latin America and el Norte. In 30-50 more years of the current Statist Amateur Hour, the Framers will be as remote a symbol to the average American as are Napoleon or de Gaulle to the residents of the Parisian banlieue today.
Multi-culturalism as practiced and instituionalized today is anti-culturalism.
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Perhaps TAC is trying to establish a “nuanced” policy that gets them back respect from former neocon associates without driving away paleocons. The latter can be dumped later after the new neocon cooptation.
McConnell himself seems to be animated principally by his opposition to the Iraq War, a mere symptom of the crisis of the regime. Having never served in the military, like many others emotionally he does not want military success to highlight shirkers.
Living in the East coast cocoon does not lend oneself to experience the displacement of a people and civilization.
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I think what we’ll see is Hispanics, Asians and Muslims trying to influence U.S. policy to the benefit of their home countries.
50 years from now the isolationist movement will still be as white as a Bruce Springsteen concert.
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Thank you, Mr. Spencer, for an excellent analysis of an awful review. Beside what you mention, McConnell’s argument ignores the fact that a large portion the foreign policy establishment that he rightly deplores, if not exactly made up mostly of immigrants, is comprised of Zionist neoconservatives and liberals who are not representative or particularly of fond of the white, Christian American majority; which is why most of them also favor high immigration. Yes, let’s forget about the many well documented economic, social, cultural and political problems caused by large scale Third World immigration - at least in McConnell’s imagination, our future multicultural elite will be less Wilsonian abroad. This kind of reasoning is on par with that with which John Lukacs concluded his review of Pat Buchanan’s book (Hitler was evil, therefore war with Germany was necessary). I have had serious misgivings about TAC since that time and this only reinforces them. This charter subscriber is about ready to pull the plug.
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Scott McConnell’s liberal-left roots are obvious in the editorial management of TAC. He is not a ture to the roots Russell Kirk, and definately NOT a “in your heart” populist conservative. Sad.
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This is an excellent piece. Perhaps there really will come a day when invading the Middle East takes a back seat to small wars and counter-insurgencies in our own land.
It’s sad, too, to see how far TAC has declined. I was a charter subscriber. After a couple of years I saw the writing on the wall and let the subscription lapse. I am happy I did.
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I cancelled my subscription to American Conservative because of their treatment of the immigration issue. They urged readers to vote for a Democratic Congress in 2006 at the precise time when it became clear that a Republican majority was necessary to stop amnesty in the House. Richard Spencer has hit the nail on the head here. The consequences of our lax immigration policies will be with us forever.
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Favouring immigration for foreign policy reasons is not new. In a pamphlet for the American Immigration Control Foundation back in the 80s John Lukacs mentioned that some Cold War hawks justified immigration from certain Central American countries because the immigrants were anti-communist.
How did that work out in Miami?
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“And let’s remember, these “Jacksonians” might not be antiwar, but they definitely have a strong, visceral sense of “America First!” Finding common ground with them would seem a far more realistic and ethical solution than instigating the kind demographic transformation dreamed up by the editor of Pat Buchanan’s magazine.”
Want them to be antiwar? Reinstate the draft and send them to the front.
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The Cubans and Nicaraguans in south Florida are mostly pro-mass immigration today.
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/5yz9xo">Miami</i>
So are the Salvadorans in California.
So the Cold War is over (hopefully) but the anti-communist migration will remain a problem.
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Make that:
Miami
Or paste: http://tinyurl.com/5yz9xo
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As a charter subscriber as well,it’s good to see that others are giving up on TAC. Unz and McConnell’s entropic “leadership” has made the magazine a mere shadow of itself. Like others have said,McConnell’s 2004 endorsement of Kerry and the 2006 support of Dems taking over Congress were things that I found rather annoying,but it was the Lukacs hatchet job on Buchanan which made me bolt. And “Frederico” Reed and Jim “Huckabee” Pinkerton are no replacement for Taki.
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McConnell: “those from the new immigrant groups have played a very secondary role in the Bush/McCain foreign policy”
This is true, because ethnic minorities are more likely to maintain their tribal identities and loyalties, and less likely to plunge into ideological abstracts like wars for “democracy” in the Mideast. (Of course, we all now know that our current wars were never for democracy, but are being fought on behalf of Israel and imperialism).
Perhaps that’s McConnell’s real point: tribal ethnic minorities aren’t sophisticated enough (read: socially engineered enough) to completely abandon their tribalism on behalf of abstract “ideals” serving as cover for what in reality is just another elitist and wealthy tribalist agenda.
In other words, their base survival instincts are still intact, and unlike many contemporary “educated” whites, they can still sense when another insular tribe (in this case, Jewish Zionists and wealthy WASP elites) is trying to game them. And because they are not white, the are less likely to believe the words emanating from the forked tongues of all those white faces lying to them on television screens.
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Scott McConnell thinks like a liberal. He conflates jingoism (i.e. aggressive foreign policy) with the notion that the country should be preserved for its citizens and their descendants:
“By becoming part and parcel of the Republican Right, the immigration-reform movement risks becoming absorbed by the Right’s jingoism, turning into another means of expressing American superiority over foreigners, people to be kept out at home and bombed abroad.”
He seems to be oblivious to the existence of the “invade the world, invite the world” (term coined by Steve Sailer) mentality that prevails among the Republican elite, including Bush and McCain.
I tend to think that jingoism actually goes hand-in-hand with the open borders mindset. People are tricked into thinking they are crusaders for freedom and democracy, which means not just fighting wars abroad but also letting more people into our own country (so they can share in our freedom and democracy, of course).
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On one hand, the neoconned GOP IS supremacist in its contemptuous treatment of brown skinned foreigners and Muslims, and lying America into a war in the Mideast is proof of that. So the GOP has to APPEAR benevolent and magnanimous, and so it supports mass immigration so that the left can’t accuse it of being racist and fascist (which has the added benefit of appeasing the cheap-labor, wage suppressing open borders hyper-capitalists).
But this also proves that the GOP is willing to sell out average whites, who aren’t necessarily racist but don’t want to be swamped with third world immigrants, on behalf of the elitist foreign policy agenda of Zionism and imperialism.
The immigration-reform movement will never be allowed to ascend in the neoconned GOP because in addition to brown skinned foreigners, the Neocons and hyper-capitalists have contempt for white-skinned “nativists,” or at least can’t allow them to get in the way of their REAL agenda.
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As an original subscriber to AC I am increasingly disgusted with the magazine.Believe it or not I am expecting AC to endorse Obama-because they like his Iraq position better than McCain’s.They view every issue,including the all important National Question through the prism of American “interventionism’.The magazine was purchased by Ron Unz ,who basically supports higher levels of third world immigration,as long as they learn English.AC is NOT a journal which really cares a whit about preserving Euro-American culture.Cancel your subs to this pale imitation of the magazine Buchanan and Taki founded.
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I have written for TAC and was on the masthead as a contributing editor until Taki left. I have been forced to conclude, knowing Scott McConnell as I do, that he is somewhat confused and is suffering from an identity crisis. Scott’s problems are not political; they are psychological. He is a deeply divided person, unable to reconcile his inner liberal with his outer conservative. What galls him still is how the New York Post sacked him. Scott has long been insulated from reality and has a difficult time dealing with people as humans. He is intelligent, but what he lacks is a core. It is also true that his behavior with regard to Taki, who was incredibly generous to him and was really the founder of TAC, was unconscionable. Taki, who is seldom wrong, was wrong about Scott. He thought he was a gentleman.
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Low IQ mestizos are not biologically endowed with the tools necessary to function in a technological society! The average mexican mestizo has an IQ of 87 per the bell curve!
The only solution is building a triple layered border fence, with moats separating each layer! The military must be tasked to patrol the border WALL with snipers and land mines!
Birthright citizenship for ALL children born to ILLEGAL ALIENS on US soil must be revoked--retroactively--to 1970!.
Then, allow Americans to carry out CITIZENS ARREST of illegal aliens! Minutemen would quickly round up ALL the illegals and throw them back over the border where they belong!
These measures are the only way Americans will be able to TAKE BACK our country from the invading mestizo parasites!
Loony ivory tower “intellectuals” need to spend some time out here on the front lines of the ILLEGAL ALIEN invasion! If they did, they would realize that failure to stem the invasion will result in CIVIL WAR 2, as outlined by Thomas Chittum!
The coming economic collapse could provide the spark for exactly such a conflagration! (smile)
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And here I thought the main reason for Hispanic enlistment in the military was that it provides jobs for minorities who haven’t any other opportunities, not patriotism. Asian immigrants, on the other hand, are disproportionately represented in colleges and universities and consequently the professions.
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