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President Obama's speech was clearly a blatant appeal for Latino votes and an insult to the vast majority of Americans that want the border secured.
However, I think his attempt is doomed to failure because he and his political team have made the error in equating Latino = open borders/pro-illegal. "Latinos" are not some monolithic voting bloc with identical views. It's a catch-all phrase that includes so many different groups with different social, economic, and political views as to be almost meaningless. It's like inventing a category "European-American" and then pretending they all have similar priorities and viewpoints.
For me, the issues of border security and the problem of what to do with existing illegals in this country, while related, are two different issues. If the border were truly secured, I would be more open to some sort of amnesty for long term illegal aliens who have not commited crimes and are forced to pay a fine. It would mean that future flows of illegal aliens would be cut off and we would have an opportunity to assimilate the long term illegals into our population. But to speak of any sort of amnesty while the border is wide open is insanity.
Granted, the border is slightly more secure than it used to be. But this is only because the government, both the Bush administration and the Obama administration, have instituted the most minimum measures possible and this only after massive public outcry. If the Democratic Party wanted amnesty as badly as they say they do, then when they controlled all levels of federal power, they would have started a massive effort to secure the border and cut off the flow of illegal immigration. Then they could have gone to the American people and said "see, we fixed the border, now lets grant permanent residency to all non-criminal illegal aliens" They would have found support for that position to be much higher if people were confident that more illegals would not come over. But they didn't do that, which makes me conclude they are either stupid or just cynically use the issue of amnesty to get "latino" votes knowing full well it will never happen. I think both explanations are equally plausible.
There's obviously some truth to this, many believe in "The Playbook". If you look at what's happened with the Obama administration in two years time, there haven't really been any major foreign policy changes, nor have there been programs cancelled willy nilly. In fact, true Liberals have been amazed at how much better Obama has been being Bush, than Bush himself was.
Yet the partisan rancor has been at least as loud against Obama than it was against Bush. Groupthink lives on. Politics is more a professions now, handled and managed by throng of political consultants and staffers. They know for sure that at least 75% of their respective parties will fall in line when needed. Each party will have their opponents attack ideas and policies, even if the opponents were the ones that originally created them.
This is why most, but certainly not all, Presidents move towards a pragmatic approach, meaning the center, on many major issues. But when they campaign, they have to move towards the fringe. Since Obama has done the same, his opponents have to continue to pound home the perception that he's still a fringe player. The real test of every President is during the second term, when they can really put into place their legacy, and do the right thing for the country, not just a party. Bush was a total disappointment to me in that regard, but the Dems were unfocused and unprincipled, and could not deliver a candidate good enough to articulate a reason for change.
Parties are there for the voters, much like a footballs game.
This is put in such sensical terms. Void of sensationalism. Void of blatant character defamation. Void of over-generalization. It makes sense to me...yikes!
Just what is the right thing for the country. As long as we live within the "partisan rancor", as you so aptly put it, it seems there isn't a real consensus on what that is. Well, maybe we come closer to consensus of the "what" but the "how to" is all over the place.
So as long as we have this current system of politics, it appears we will end up with candidates that can only be marketed within it. Forget the libertarian representative. Forget the non-career, celebrity names (Donald Trump). Forget the "refreshingly new" such as what Oprah might represent or the "old fashioned" such as what Palin might have purported to represent. Typically speaking, eventually, his or her ideas, often alternatives to the mainstream, all but cement them from getting partisan support and thus doom them in terms of electibility.
President Obama's speech was clearly a blatant appeal for Latino votes and an insult to the vast majority of Americans that want the border secured.
However, I think his attempt is doomed to failure because he and his political team have made the error in equating Latino = open borders/pro-illegal. "Latinos" are not some monolithic voting bloc with identical views. It's a catch-all phrase that includes so many different groups with different social, economic, and political views as to be almost meaningless. It's like inventing a category "European-American" and then pretending they all have similar priorities and viewpoints.
For me, the issues of border security and the problem of what to do with existing illegals in this country, while related, are two different issues. If the border were truly secured, I would be more open to some sort of amnesty for long term illegal aliens who have not commited crimes and are forced to pay a fine. It would mean that future flows of illegal aliens would be cut off and we would have an opportunity to assimilate the long term illegals into our population. But to speak of any sort of amnesty while the border is wide open is insanity.
Granted, the border is slightly more secure than it used to be. But this is only because the government, both the Bush administration and the Obama administration, have instituted the most minimum measures possible and this only after massive public outcry. If the Democratic Party wanted amnesty as badly as they say they do, then when they controlled all levels of federal power, they would have started a massive effort to secure the border and cut off the flow of illegal immigration. Then they could have gone to the American people and said "see, we fixed the border, now lets grant permanent residency to all non-criminal illegal aliens" They would have found support for that position to be much higher if people were confident that more illegals would not come over. But they didn't do that, which makes me conclude they are either stupid or just cynically use the issue of amnesty to get "latino" votes knowing full well it will never happen. I think both explanations are equally plausible.
Well said.
We live in a complex world, where simplification of issues is necessary to have any kind of discussion of them. For all the talk of diversity and new census mentality, it seems to come back to the basics of Anthropology. Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid and Aborigine. Racially, we have Black (African American), White (Caucasion / Indo-European), Asian and Indigent ("true native"). Yes. There have been attempts to further subdivide (Pacific Rim, Hispanic etc.) but we are really left with the above basic continental-centric groups. In this broad stoke, my Irish / Italian background gets lumped with Dutch, Nordic, French etc. When someone says, "you white people" then I guess I am to assume I have so much in common with many groups I know little of. The same goes for the other categories. What can you do?
Politically, we are framed in to a large degree by right / conservation vs. left / liberal even though the majority of us are likely moderate and toward the middle of that spectrum.
The ability to get to the meat of the matter and specifics is really tough, if possible at all. This goes for life and politics in general and for the issue(s) of immigration as well.
Rest assured, Obama is lobbying for votes. That's what politicians do as their goal is to get elected and hopefully re-elected. Just like the restaurant whose goal is to make food taste good to keep people coming back to eat it...health be damned. Let's hope that if elected to a second term, he is able to move beyond the self serving jargon of campaigning / getting elected. And that he has the wisdom to identify and improve some of the "real" issues at hand.
It's about time some of us start calling out Goldman Sachs...
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The psychology of Marketing?
