Aside from Bush being ineffective, why has it been so hard to sell people on the recent immigration policy, when the one in 1986 passed? What I don’t understand is why nobody blames Reagan for that, but everyone is jumping on Bush for this immigration bill. I was pretty young at the time the '86 bill happened so I don’t remember what it was like back then. Was the climate different? Are people more anti-immigrant than they were then? Is it the result of the '86 policy having failed in their eyes? Seems odd that an issue so important to conservatives has been shaped by a policy implemented by Reagan. His reputation has not been tarnished by his decisions on this issue, whereas critics of Bush says his decisions may damage the party for the next few elections. What am I missing?
In 1986, moderate Republicans were far from extinct. Nowadays, they’re kinda like the Florida panther: there’s still a few around, but not exactly in self-perpetuating numbers.
And 1986 was, IIRC, the last year of the Fairness Doctrine, i.e. the last year before one-sided talk radio. Talk radio has changed the political landscape considerably, and an awful lot of the talkers are xenophobes of the first order.
Also, in 1986, Reagan was pretty popular. Bush’s job approval ratings have been running in the low to mid 30s all year, with occasional numbers in the upper 20s.
So Reagan had more clout, a Congress that was better disposed towards such measures, and a base that hadn’t yet been worked up quite so intensely against it. Each of those is a pretty big difference. All three put together is huge.
Reagan had personality strength and determination…
Bush has no political capital. No one is going to go with a Bush proposal they don’t really care for in exchange for Bush’s backing on another proposal they care for a lot, because they don’t think Bush’s backing is worth diddly squat.
More to the point, Reagan’s failed immigration plan is why no one wants Bush’s now. I don’t need to fin out that 2+2 !=5 twice.
Anti-immigration propaganda that is almost universally false and generated by bigoted crackpots has been reported as fact so much that many believe it as fact. Lou Dobbs does it routinely.
Anti-immigrant sentiment is way higher, I think. Even the Democratic wing of my extended family sends out e-mails talking about how our politicians are “giving America away” by even suggesting amnesty for illegals, or predicting the fall of the American economy if we let Mexicans cross the border to work here in large numbers.
Anti-immigrant feelings just seem way higher on both sides of the aisle, and I think a lot of it is indeed fueled by very bigoted, stupid people with a message that “makes sense” to the common man but is actually extremely off-base.
President Reagan had the advantage of not seeming, from the most part, to be a genocidal moron, all of whose ideas were the result of bad acid.
While Reagan was around, the Commies were still the enemy. Now that the ‘war’ is losing popularity, there has to be some target for home-grown wrath. Immigrants ar a handy scapegoat when a government has bankrupted a nation.
Two reasons. One, at the time Americans didn’t feel as threatened as they do now about having thier culture changed so drastically, so quickly. Two, Raegan’s idea was supposed to be a one-time fix. The thought being, look we took our eye off the ball and now we have all these illegals here. The easiest thing to do is to grant those that are here amnesty and make sure we then secure the borders.
People feel the the same lies are being told right now. And they are. If they weren’t, congress would have moved on the securing the borders part—like the fence that was approved—a long time ago.
As I have also noted in a related thread, the topic under discussion is not whether one must be a racist authoritarian to oppose open borders or whether one must be an advocate of chaos and the dissolution of law to oppose tight border controls. A discussion of the sort of personalities who take sides on this discussion is legitimate–but not in this thread.
Please leave any such pop-psychology observations outside this thread.
[ /Moderating ]
The USA population is less friendly to immigration now than in the Reagan years. There’s nothing too deep about it.
So, you recognize there has been a change in attitude. I was offering an explanation as to why. If that’s thinking too deeply we probably have differetn ideas of what a debate board is.
And that’s probably the most correct explanation.
Remember Santayana: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. We remember the immigration debacle of 1986 and don’t want another one. We’re still paying for the last.
How exactly?
Because the family members of amnesty applicants continue to pile in and claim legal status, and because the last amnesty (which affected IIRC only about 3 million) provided precedent and incentive for the current 13 million illegals to expect (rightly, as it turns out) that the amnesty would be a movable feast that would be re-enacted periodically. It’s pretty well documented that when Bush started talking about the amnesty plan, illegal crossing increased significantly. What you reward, you get more of. What you penalize, you get less of.
Are you talking about legal immigration of family members in your first sentence?
How do you know that the current 12 million came because of amnesty instead of the same reason that they’ve always came?
What are the documents linking increased crossing due to “amnesty” as opposed to increased partols catching more illegal crossers?
It is legal under the rules allowing chain migration, yes. Which doesn’t mean it can’t have an ill effect.
And – I guess we can ask the illegal immigrants themselves – the following article notes that in the weeks following Bush’s launching of the amnesty proposal, more than half of illegals apprehended at one border station asked about the plan (and that’s just the ones who admitted it): http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20040323-1500-cnsillegal.html
See also:
So no proof. Two dubious cites from extremely xenophobic and bigoted organizations. And a news article stating no “amnesty” link.
No, a news article stating that an Administration lackey tasked with selling the amnesty claimed there was no link, but that border patrol agents (who actually, like, you know work on the border) thought there was a link, and so did the illegals themselves. But sure, let’s take the word of a GWB flunky over that.
Your adjectives are just adjectives and not worth addressing.