RUSH: The first story in my little Stack on immigration today comes from Salon.com.
Now, listen to this headline: “Hey, GOP: Mexican Immigrants are Not Necessarily Democrats.” Here is the subheadline: “New research suggests that Mexican immigrants are all over the political spectrum and that right-winger Mexican immigrants are more likely to vote.” Now, hold on here. The conventional wisdom holds that the vast majority of illegal immigrants — Hispanic, Mexican, wherever they’re from — 70% vote Democrat.
The Hispanic population of the country today, the legally voting Hispanic population, votes 70% Democrat. Actually, 73% Democrat. I think Romney got 27%. Okay, so the automatic conclusion is: “What are the Republicans doing here? They’re gonna be legalizing 11, 12 million people, 70% of which are gonna be automatic Democrat voters.” Now, here comes Salon.com saying, “Hold on! Everything you think you know, you don’t know,” except I actually do. I’ll explain after the break.
“Once you get past all of the posturing, opposition to immigration reform among congressional Republicans is at least partially based on self-preservation. There is a widespread belief that Mexican immigrants who become citizens are overwhelmingly disposed to vote Democratic. Newly published research suggests that’s a complete misreading of the facts.
“According to this analysis, politically engaged Mexicans who move to the US fall all over the ideological spectrum, very much like native-born Americans. What’s more, according to University of Nebraska-Lincoln political scientist Sergio Wals, those on the right are more inclined to participate in the American electoral process than those on the left. The notion that offering citizenship to undocumented immigrants will help Democrats has been widely discussed in recent months.
“In April, Politico asserted that immigrant reform could ‘produce an electoral bonanza for Democrats.’ That analysis was quickly refuted by Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics, but fear among Republicans hasn’t abated. Just last week, longtime conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly insisted that Mexican immigrants ‘don’t have any Republican inclinations at all.’ … Wals uses data from two surveys of Mexican immigrants living in the US: One conducted in 2003, and another in 2008.
“Both groups (1,023 people in one survey, 399 in the other) were asked about their interest in politics, political leanings, and” from there it has been concluded that Mexican immigrants aren’t necessarily Democrats. Now, what do we make of this? My friends, in the Daily Caller: “Poll Shows Latinos Strongly Favor Democrats for 2016.” That’s a new poll reported here at the Daily Caller. Then we got the Salon thing that said (summarized), “Wait a minute, you Republicans! You know what? They’re not all Democrats. There are a lot of Republicans in this Mexican group.”
What is happening here, folks?
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RUSH: Nice try, Salon.com. Here’s this story: “Mexican Immigrants Aren’t Necessarily Democrats — Newly published research suggests that?’s a complete misreading of the facts. According to this analysis, politically engaged Mexicans who move to the US fall all over the ideological spectrum, very much like native-born Americans.” Now, we’re not talking right now about Mexicans in Mexico. We’re talking about 11 million people who are already here, not future Mexican immigrants.
Now, the second thing is: What do we want to believe? A poll from Salon.com or the state of California? The state of California tells us everything we need to know about how illegal immigrants vote. I don’t care about the Salon.com. This Salon.com poll is designed… I can imagine in Republican staff offices on Capitol Hill, they’re running around waiving this thing today, saying, “See? See? This is right! This is right!
“They’re not all Democrats. There are a lot of people who are Republicans in this group. In fact, the most conservatives ones are more likely to vote. Yeah, yeah, yeah!” But, again, another story: “Poll Shows Latinos Strongly Favor Democrats for 2016.” Neil Munro, The Daily Caller: “The two leading Democratic 2016 candidates for the White House trounce GOP candidates among Latino voters, including the two GOP politicians now prominently working to build Latino support, according to a new poll.
“The nation’s second-most prominent Democrat, Hillary Clinton, scored a 73% ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ favorable response from the 1,200 voters,” and Biden got 58%. The Republicans, Jeb Bush is 27% a ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ favorable support. Marco Rubio, 31% favorable, 29% unfavorable. Okay, so that’s the Daily Caller. Now TheHill.com: “Clinton Tops Bush, Rubio Among Hispanic Voters for 2016.” Now, I told the people at Fox I wanted to talk about this today, three or four times, and they wouldn’t do it.
They were not interested in bringing this subject up.
I wanted to talk about this in relationship to the current state of the Republican Party, and they wouldn’t do it. H.R. told ’em. They asked me, “What do you want to talk about?” I didn’t tell them I wanted to talk about Egypt. I didn’t want to talk about Egypt. First thing out of my mouth, I wanted to talk about immigration and the state of the Republican Party. They wouldn’t go there. I had to bring it up myself to whatever extent that I did — and that, by the way, is quite telling to me.
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RUSH: I think the Republicans ought to take it a step further. I mentioned this the other day. If we’re trying to make the Hispanics like us by going for immigration, then let’s change our attitude on abortion, and let’s end this War on Women and let’s make the women vote for us, too! I mean, where does this stop? I mean, this kind of thinking, where does it stop?
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RUSH: Look, the only thing I’m gonna grant that Salon story is something that you know and I know and we’ve talked about on this program constantly. The idea that the Hispanic vote is monolithic. The left looks at every group as monolithic in their thinking: women, Hispanics, gays, you name it, that’s how they look at them. We don’t look at people — well, the Republican Party does, but I’m talking about you and me, American citizens, citizens of the founding if I can putt that way, we don’t look at people as members of groups and then determine what they think. We conditioned to do that, but within the political realm, we believe that human beings are human beings. If you can reach ’em, the right message, persuasive, infectious way that you can get them to join us.
It doesn’t matter if they’re gay, straight, male, female, bi-, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. I don’t look at anybody as impossible. A lot of people have been propagandized. A lot of people do identify as members of groups, and the one characteristic of those who do that is they all look at themselves as victims. And we’re not about victims. We’re about people reaching their potential. We’re about people being the best they can be. That’s what we want for the country. It’s what we want for our neighborhoods and cities, communities, and so forth. Speaking for myself, I blanch at this grouping of people by virtue of skin color and sexual orientation and gender and all this. But I guess it’s the name of the game in politics.
The fact remains that there are Hispanics that vote Republican. There are conservative Hispanics. It’s also true — and we don’t need a poll to see it. Just look at the election returns in California, the election returns in Massachusetts. The one state that is an exception is Texas. The majority of Hispanics vote Republican in Texas. I wonder why that is, by the way? There’s no income tax there. It’s a rugged individualist state, as you well know by reputation. I mean there are all kinds of reasons to figure it out and understand it. But welfare states are gonna attract welfare staters.
So that’s the one thing we’ve gotta give the Salon story, that there are Hispanics that are conservative and Republican and vote that way. But we know by virtue of election returns, not polling data, that of the legalized Hispanics in the country now, not talking about the 11 million, the Democrats are getting 70% of their vote. That’s why the Democrats assume they’re gonna get 70% of the 11 million. That’s why they want to do it. So I think the Republicans ought to take a step further. I mean, look, the story at the Daily Caller is: “Poll Shows Latinos Strongly Favor Democrats for 2016.” And this story,
Hillary and Biden trounce Jeb Bush and Rubio, in a poll right now. I think the Republicans ought to learn from this.
I think the Republicans ought to say, to show their spirit of cooperation, to show their compassion, to illustrate that they don’t hate Hispanics, the Republicans ought to establish a condition for amnesty, and that is, only illegal aliens who promise to register to vote Democrat will be granted amnesty. The Republicans should put that idea forward, and that will really, really show how compassionate Republicans are. Are you shouting at the radio saying it’s absurd? Of course it’s absurd. But if you take all of this in a logical progression, it’s what they’re doing anyway.
I mean, the whole reason for Republicans supporting amnesty, as stated by Senator Graham, is to make sure that we get back in the ball game with ’em, ’cause they don’t like us. We gotta show that they don’t have us as an enemy. We gotta show that we love ’em, that we like ’em. We have to show ’em we’re not bigots. We’re not racists, sexists, and all that stuff. Well, we can really demonstrate that if we propose that only illegal aliens who promise to register to vote Democrat will get amnesty.
Snerdley’s looking at me like he can’t believe I’m saying this, and his fear is that there may be a Republican or two who actually like the idea. (laughing) You ought to see the way he’s looking at me. I can’t believe you’re mentioning — it’s to illustrate a point. It would be no different than saying I think the Republicans are obviously having trouble with the female vote, particularly the single mother, divorced, whatever, female vote. The Republicans ought to announce that they’re now pro-abortion, pro-choice, to show the women that they don’t hate ’em. To show women that Republicans have compassion for them, too.
What’s the difference? Seriously, what’s the difference in that? There won’t be a Republican Party? Why won’t there be a Republican Party? Because it’s all about getting back in the game with these groups. The Hispanics hate us, so we want ’em to know we love ’em by agreeing with Democrats. Amnesty. The women hate us so we, taking what we’re learning from amnesty, gonna go back on immigration, we’re gonna get in good graces with the women. That means basically agree with the Democrats on everything. And that way, the women of America will know that we’re not a bunch of sexists and what have you.
(interruption)
What do you mean there won’t be a party if they do this? Well, okay, if you’re saying that about abortion, why don’t people say that about amnesty?
All right, let me move on. Let me see if I have one more on this or if I covered my bases. I may have two stories on the same poll.
There’s another Daily Caller story. “A former Mexican cabinet member says the US should accept more low-skill migrants from Central America, because otherwise the migrants would stay in Mexico.” A former Mexican cabinet member is demanding that the United States take in more low-skill illegal aliens from Central America because otherwise they might stay in Mexico and become a burden. So this former cabinet member is saying, “Look, you guys in America, you gotta open the doors to these low-skill guys because they’re gonna be a burden to us if you don’t.” Never mind that we are told low skilled illegal aliens are a boon for the economy. That’s what we’re being told by domestic American politicians.
I think the Democrats have even actually said that granting amnesty or pathway to citizenship for low-skill workers will grow the economy. I think I heard that just last week. Some Democrat was actually making that point, that low-skill workers will not be a burden. They’re gonna grow the economy. They’re gonna expand employment, because so many of ’em, low skilled means cheap, they’re gonna get hired left and right, and the unemployment rate’s gonna go down and all kinds of new jobs are gonna be created. A former Mexican cabinet member is demanding that we take in more low-skilled illegal aliens ’cause otherwise they might stay in Mexico and become a burden.
Now, every year — and I think we mentioned this last week, too. Every year the US allows more legal immigrants to become permanent residents than the rest of the world combined. And despite that we still aren’t doing enough to please some people, and we never will do enough. For instance, this ex-Mexican official insists that we increase our temporary work visas from 20,000 a year to at least 200,000. In other words, 10 times as many we need to expand. I mean, the news in this is just unbelievable. And all the while sitting out there is massively unpopular Obamacare just waiting to be tapped into by the Republicans as an issue on which they already agree with a majority of the American people.
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