Since our country's founding, race has been a convenient and effective shibboleth for conservative politicians of both parties to exploit the prejudices of the white Anglo-Protestant majority and dupe them into supportive regressive, self-defeating economic systems. Slave owners and later sharecroppers turned poor whites against blacks to disguise the fact that the plantation system consolidated wealth in the hands of a few elites, and left most white farmers destitute and unable to compete. Republicans in the 1980s and 1990s used the stereotype of black welfare queens to attack and reduce social entitlement programs, despite the fact that largest group of beneficiaries of said programs has always been whites.
Yesterday, Julian Sarkar '13 described ("Press One for Bigot," April 29) Arizona lawmakers who continue this sad tradition by passing a draconian anti-immigrant bill the latest incarnation of a time-honored American tradition of unjustly scapegoating immigrants for the nation's problems during times of economic hardship. But with this bill, Republican lawmakers have completely bungled the racial politics and probably lost Arizona for the foreseeable future as a result. If the Republican Party doesn't learn from this mistake and recognize the folly of their immigration stance, they will doom their national political fortunes for years to come.
Hispanics are the largest and fastest growing minority in the United States, and their share of the voting-eligible population could increase rapidly in the coming years, especially if federal immigration reform ever yields a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants currently living and working here. They are not, as of yet, a cohesive voting block like African-Americans, but their continued demonization at the hands of the Republican Party is almost certainly pushing them toward that point, as evidenced by the surprisingly large share of Hispanics that President Barack Obama carried in the 2008 presidential election. Their influence in elections is only going to increase in the future, as the United States is projected to be a majority-minority nation as soon as 2050, with Hispanics making up 30 percent of the population .
Long-term, badgering of Hispanic voters is obviously a losing strategy, but laws like the one passed by the Arizona legislature, which allows police officers to single out people of color and force them to prove their immigration status at any time for any reason, might bring these consequences home much sooner. In 1994, California Republicans passed a ballot measure that aggressively barred all illegal immigrants from receiving state services. That measure was eventually struck down as grossly unconstitutional by a federal court, but since the measure passed, Republicans have lost every statewide election but one (when actor Arnold Schwarzenegger defeated corrupt and unpopular governor Grey Davis in a recall election ), and haven't been particularly competitive in any of those races.
As Hispanics make up an increasing share of Arizona's electorate, Republicans will likely find it difficult to hold power in the aftermath of this latest law. In essence, Arizona Republicans may have thrown away an entire generation of potential voters to play to the racist nativism of their base. Nationally, losing Arizona might not be such a big deal, but if Republicans heed the clamor for similar measures in other states, they could be facing an electoral nightmare.
The crown jewel of Richard Nixon's now-infamous "Southern Strategy" was holding Texas, the state with the second most electoral votes in the union. However, Texas is subject to many of the same demographic trends as Arizona, and there are already large swaths of the Texas Golf Coast region with heavy Hispanic populations that have become impossible for Republicans to win. If Republicans can't reach out to Texan Hispanics, they face their entire electoral house of cards crumbling around them, as losing Texas as a solid Republican state would make it nearly impossible for them to win federal elections.
Thus, hard as it may be, the Republican Party needs a major gut-check. Their core constituency aging upper-middle-class white conservative males is growing more marginalized by the second, which is in fact the true cause of the Tea Party backlash. Short term, they may well be able to harness what's left of their political strength and score some victories, but long-term, relying on that base is a dominated strategy. If Republicans can't find a way to have a bigger tent, their future electoral prospects are dubious, at best.
