Rove's Depseration Move on Immigration

There is nothing Democrats should be more encouraged about than this Monday night speech where President Bush will likely announce the sending of troops to the Mexican border. Personally, I'm sick about it, as I see no way that it could end with anything less than a full-blown shooting war between the National Guard and brazen drug smugglers like those in Nuevo Laredo who killed the police chief moments after he was sworn in.

But what this really signals is a white flag from the Rove administration that the notion of a permanent Republican majority is over. Dead and buried. In the tank.

In the heady days of early 2002, the days of 90% approval ratings, the White House could safely ignore the border situation, be pleased by the fact that his corporatist mates were getting the cheap labor they needed, and push the rest of his agenda through. Key to that agenda was the sham idea of the compassionate conservative, the idea that was going to make Republicans the governing class of the country for the next several decades. President Rove has always been lauded for seeing three moves ahead on the chess board. All you have to do is look at Census Bureau statistics to realize that the Hispanic population growth was outpacing its counterparts, and that if Republicans could combine a winning share of the white vote with just a decent portion of that Hispanic vote, the coalition would be very hard to beat. That's why Candidate Bush was out singing the National Anthem in Spanish during campaign stops. That's why he waved the Mexican flag in Spanish-language campaign ads in 2004. That's why, despite a current disavowal of it from the White House press office, Bush often makes the attempt to speak Spanish. That may be why gay marriage issues were a key wedge in 2004, an attempt to play to the traditional family values that characterize the devoutly Catholic Mexican community.

That's why, until now, President Rove always spoke about guest-worker programs and respecting immigrants who want to come out of the shadows and work hard to feed their families. But as the anti-immigrant rhetoric gre outside of Washington, it became harder and harder to play it both ways: how to appease the corporatists that need the fresh crops of illegals they can pay $8 a day, while still appeasing the anti-immigrant "seal the border" crowd, and continue to come off to Latinos as acting in their interests?

When this issue wasn't a primary focus, it didn't matter. The best course of action was to ignore it. But as 90% fell to 29% (which is really amazing if you think about it) President Rove found himself with nowhere to run. The choice was simple: suffer a humiliating tidal wave of defeat in the 2006 midterms or find a wedge issue large enough to stop the bleeding.

This proposal to put guns and troops on the border is the outcome of that choice. It trades a short-term gain for a major long-term defeat. In a way it's an acceptance of that defeat, that the fractured coalition is not going to hold together in the long-term. The anti-immigrants are men easily led by this kind of symbolic "tough move," and the corporatists will still be able to get their cheap labor if the guest worker program with no earned legalization (in other words, indentured servitude) gets passed. But President Rove had to give something up. In the end he gave up the Latino vote, because it wouldn't help him in 2006. Of course, for the next 40 years, the nation may follow the lead of California and become almost permanently Democratic. But hell, Karl will be in jail by then, so what does he care?

He had to scale back his intentions, mainly because of the rank incompetence and failed policies this Administration has been running for the last 5 1/2 years. The game plan could not be about a permanent majority anymore. It had to be about self-preservation. It had to be about saving the Boy King's ass and the collective asses of those around him. It was time to wave the white flag, throw in with the hardcore base, and hope for the best.

Maybe if the war was going better, or the "booming economy" actually reached anybody in the working class (and you can always tell how the economy is doing among the grassroots by how much people are bitching about "them illegal aliens"), or if there weren't hookers at the Watergate and Target thieves in the policy shop or scandals all around, maybe then things would be different. They could play the same game of dividing on social issues while courting the Hispanic population and eke out a victory. But it couldn't happen.

At least it's out in the open now for the American people to understand. Do you want to live in a country where there are men with guns keeping people out (and keeping people in, too, for the undocumented already here the US becomes a giant prison where they toil in low-wage jobs while in many cases being separated from their families)? Or are we an inclusive society, which welcomes those who want to work hard and contribute to the American experiment? We'll let people choose up sides. In the meantime, we can sit back and understand that there will be no permanent Republican majority in this country, not now, not ever.