James Edwards:

How has the immigration landscape changed since you wrote Alien Nation?

Peter Brimelow:

Well, basically, it hasn't changed at all! I am a great admirer of Ann Coulter's new book, Adios America!, and she’s definitely advanced the argument in several ways, but her conclusions and recommendations are exactly the same as mine in 1995: immigration moratorium, abolish birthright citizenship, etc.

Now, there were various points in the last 20 years when it actually looked like things were going to happen, particularly with the Smith-Simpson bill in the middle 90s. But the nogoodniks just got in there and did a lot of lying, a lot of lobbying, and they were able to stall it. They’ve basically kept what we call at VDARE.com “immigration patriots” on the defensive for 20 years. We have not been on the offensive since the Smith-Simpson bill went down in '96.

Edwards:

This is, of course, your signature issue. It's what VDARE.com is designed for.

Brimelow:

Well, James, it wasn't what I expected! I was 40 years in financial journalism, wrote a lot of highly technical stuff on issues like the gold standard, etc. But immigration, it seems, is what I got the most attention for.

Edwards:

For years, certainly ever since you wrote the book, with perhaps the exception of Pat Buchanan in '96 and 2000, we had no voice on immigration on a national political level—until this summer, when Donald Trump just bursts onto the scene. Peter, what do you make of it?

Brimelow:

I gave a speech a couple years ago in which I said that miracles actually happen quite often in politics. Nobody expected the Soviet Union to collapse. They happen both ways—no one expected the Afrikaners to give up South Africa. So I was confidently expecting a miracle to happen, and then it happened.

We ran an article this spring on VDare.com by Matthew Richer predicting that Trump would run and he would take up the immigration issue. And I have to say, I ran it, but I didn't think that...well, I'm surprised!

But on the other hand, you know, Trump is a real operator. He's got a very good sense of issues and he can see there is a huge vacuum here.

What is particularly amazing about Trump was for a while it looked like he was playing the usual "Illegal Immigration Bad, Legal Immigration Good" game, which Ted Cruz is still playing. But it turns out he wasn't. It was wonderful. He called for a moratorium and an end to birthright citizenship, in the interest of the American worker. And that's a tremendous move forward.

Edwards:

It was also very shrewd, it’s an issue that certainly resonates with not only the base of the Republican Party, but Middle America in general.

Brimelow:

It does indeed. Pollsters very rarely take direct polls on things like Amnesty because they don't want to hear the answer, but recently someone did take a poll on “Would you be in favor of rounding up and deporting all illegal aliens?” It was overwhelmingly popular with all races and all income groups. So, they're not going to take that poll again anytime soon! [Shock Poll: 59% Back Trump On Deportation of Illegals, Investor's Business Daily, August 31, 2015, also earlier Most Voters Want More Aggressive Deportation Policies, Rasmussen Reports, April 6, 2015]

This was already shaping up to be a fairly good year because both Santorum and Scott Walker have said things about limiting immigration in the interests of American workers, which didn't happen in the previous election cycle. But the thing here is that Trump has really put the boot in. He's prepared to fight over it.

Now, he’s actually had to say very little. People talk about his incendiary rhetoric and so on. But, if you read what he’s actually said, that's not so at all. The other side projects.

Edwards:

It's hugely encouraging when you take into account how many years people have been browbeaten by the Main Stream Media not to think this way. What's your response to that?

Brimelow:

Well, I spoke to Jared Taylor’s American Renaissance conference in the spring, when it was obvious that the Republican leadership, which was elected a very largely as a result of backlash against the collapse of the borders last summer, was going to nothing whatsoever about Obama's Administrative Amnesty. So the situation was very, very bad. But I said then, based on my incredibly long years of watching these problems, that all it would take is one speech. There are certain situations where this can happen.

Edwards:

You read his policy. How close is it to what Peter Brimelow, himself would have written?

Brimelow:

It's actually surprisingly close. I’d like more direct statements about the need to reduce legal immigration and the need to simply abolish the refugee statute, which was passed in 1981 and provides an expedited, subsidized immigration program for favored groups. America should not be taking refugees at all. I'd have liked Official English. But the next thing I know, Trump is criticizing Bush for campaigning in Spanish! And of course, this was met with huge hysteria. So, it's quite surprising how far he is moving in these directions.

Edwards:

You had a very provocative podcast with Jared Taylor a couple of weeks ago. You said something interesting that I'd like to have you repeat to my audience. So many people think that perhaps the time has already gone when we would find a candidate that would champion our issues. You say, though, that not only is Trump not necessarily our last chance, but you have run the numbers and that a candidate of his ilk could win for a long time to come.

Brimelow:

That’s an important point.

I don't care about the GOP, it’s obviously terminally corrupt. We use the term GAP, Generic American Party. That is what the Republican Party actually is. It’s the patriotic party in America. It doesn't deserve to be, but it is, because the other party is less patriotic.

But, if you look GAP, even if there is no immigration cut off at all, it could continue to win national elections in the US for long time to come—right to the middle of this century, as long as it increases its share of the white vote.

The great point about the Republican Party is that it doesn't get a particularly good white share, recently 55-60%. It got about 60%, I believe, in 2014 and 2010, but Romney didn't get 60%.

And of course, white turnout is down. There are two issues: white share and white turnout. White turnout fell in the last two presidential elections, not surprising given the candidates that the Republicans put up.

So the Republicans’ job is to turn the entire U.S. into the South, where the Republicans do get very high white shares and a relatively high white turnout. Again, without deserving it! They just get it because the alternative is so obvious to everybody and instinctively everyone knows that.

The great tier of states right across the northern part of the country, Greater New England from Portland up in Maine to Portland, Oregon—that's where the Republicans should be building their white support.

It's ludicrous that the Republicans actually lost—narrowly—the white vote in Iowa. They haven't carried the white vote in California—well, I think Romney just carried it, but the previous presidential candidate and Carly Fiorina and Neel Kashkari didn't carry the white vote in California.

That's what really needs to be done. As long as they can get a grip on the white vote, they can win for a long time. But, of course, that means they actually have to do something. [Laughter].

Edwards:

Yeah, there's the rub, right Peter? They would actually have to do something and seek out the white vote, rather than taking it for granted and treating their white voters like trash.

Brimelow:

When you look back at this Confederate flag fiasco, and you see Mitt Romney leading the charge against the Battle Flag, you see that the Left succeeded in tricking the Republicans into dumping on the core of their support, white Southerners. They're insulting white Southerners. The Left persuaded the Republicans to declare war on their own base. It's just unbelievable.

Edwards:

I think they truly do hate their base, yet they rely on them. It would have been so easy for Romney to have won if he’d done anything.

Brimelow:

About your question about the past twenty years: to go back to my stock market days, this is a market that is not clearing. It’s obvious that the Republicans, or the Generic American Party, need to move on this immigration issue. When it does move, or appears to move, it does well. But it refuses to move on it, and even if it hints at it and gets elected, it then turns around and betrays the base.

What has become more apparent these past 20 years is the extraordinary role of big donors. The professional politicians are now far more interested in donors than they are in votes. I saw an amazing number the other day: Governor Perry has dropped out of the race, but he's raised $17 million and it's still in his Super PAC. Now what's going to happen to that PAC? Who's running it? A lot of that money is going to stay in the hands of the consultants. The donors and the consultants together are really bad actors in the system.

Edwards:

The Republican Party is just absolutely shaking in its boots with the thought that Trump just might pull this thing off. I think we're going to see a lot more dirty tricks from the Republican Party. Do you think he can carry this momentum into February? Do you think he could actually win?

Brimelow:

The short answer is yes. Who knows in this crazy system? Anything can happen. Trump’s demise has been predicted so many times now that it's surprising to me that the MSM is trying to predict it again.

One of the things this all has shown, of course: the MSM and the political elite really don't understand the country. They were all convinced that Trump was finished because he was mildly critical of [Senator John] McCain. But the Republican base just doesn't care about John McCain.

Then there’s this issue of whether Obama is a Muslim or not. A good amount of Americans do think that Obama is a Muslim and they got reason to think that, given his background and his extraordinarily odd behaviors towards Islam. I think they systematically misjudge what's actually going on. They are living in a bubble.

So, I think he could do it. On the other hand though, it's grueling what he's doing, and he's 69 years old—heck, he's even older than I am! But, I'm told, he's in good shape. And he's enjoying himself.

Edwards:

They say it's a fantasy to suggest that Trump would ever be able to send home the illegal aliens. Your answer to that?

Brimelow:

Well, Eisenhower did it. There was a very similar illegal immigration crisis in the 1950s, and Eisenhower ended it in less than six months with what they then frankly called Operation Wetback. They sent well over a million people home. Now, they didn't actually deport more than 100,000 or so, but the others got the message. And that's what would happen.

The point of illegal immigrants is they came here—and they can go. They can turn around and go back. We didn't have miles and miles of buses bringing them in and we don't need miles and miles of buses to take them out. We just cut off the work and cut off the benefits—and that includes, by the way, free education. I think that one of the disastrous decisions that the Supreme Court made in the last half century, and that's a very hot competition, is the 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision, which forced taxpayers to educate illegal aliens' children. That could be overthrown by statute, and it should be.

Why don't we let the Catholic Church educate them? They say they're a charitable organization. Let them get on with it.

Edwards:

[Laughter] The churches are just so disgusting. You have the head of the Southern Baptist Convention saying "any Christian who supports Trump is repudiating his beliefs." [Have Evangelicals Who Support Trump Lost Their Values? by Russell Moore,  September 17, 2015]

Brimelow:

Sure, it's every single church. But the role of the Catholic Church is extremely unfortunate. And there are a lot of extremely angry Catholics about this. We’ve published articles from them for years.

Edwards:

This guy, Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention, certainly doesn't speak for me and I've gone to a Southern Baptist church my whole life.

Brimelow:

It's quite obvious that the Treason Lobby just decided that they were just going to buy themselves some Southern Baptists. They set up a whole series of front groups and they reached out to some corruptible Baptists and they bought them. But, if you actually look at the polls of what Southern Baptists think, or Catholics, you will find that the laity don't agree.

Edwards:

They say the same thing about the wall. Is it impossible to build a wall to secure the border?

Brimelow:

Of course it is possible to build a wall. Look at Israel, they are experts on building walls, and their wall is a very long wall, it's a very complex border, 630 miles. The US-Mexico border is only about 2,000. We should just have them do it.

Edwards:

[Laughter] That could open a whole other can of worms! I do wish though, that we had Israel's domestic policy.

Brimelow:

You know, they had an illegal immigration crisis quite as serious as what the Americans had after the fall of Mubarak. And they turned it all around. They did things that we've been calling for years, like not allowing people to send remittances overseas. Why don't we demand that people show they’re legally present before that can send money back to their home countries? That would break the back of the economics of illegal immigration right there.

Edwards:

Right now I'm in play for the Republican Party for the first time in my life. I became of voting age in 1998 and I voted Third Party every time—Buchanan, Chuck Baldwin, Michael Peroutka. But should Trump not win, is there even a number two that our folks should be looking at?

Brimelow:

Both Santorum and Walker have made good noises about legal immigration. Ted Cruz is very good on illegal immigration, but he's bad on legal immigration. So who knows what will happen? The point is that they're all much better than Romney. They're the best crop we've had for a long time.

I also think, personally, that eventually the Republican Party will break up. I don't see how it can continue like this. Maybe Trump will do it if he feels in the mood, or maybe it will happen the next time around.

I'm with you, by the way, I've never voted Republican in a general election!

Edwards:

We have had more than a few emails come in for you since the interview started. I'm just going to open one at random: Have you ever run an article that suggests that illegal immigration may be a replacement for slavery? Instead of bringing in slaves, we now allow the new slaves to come in on their own. [VDARE.com note: In fact, in 2004 Kevin Phillips wrote an article for us titled For Texas' Elite, Is Open Immigration The New Slave-Holding? and more recently, we’ve been referring to employers of illegals as the reincarnation of the “Slave Power”, after the cheap-labor enthusiasts of the pre-Civil War South.]

Brimelow:

I think there is a close parallel between slavery and, not just illegal immigration, but also legal immigration. I think that the owners of capital have decided to dump the American working class and get themselves a bunch of helots. I think they like immigrants because they're more docile.

Edwards:

A parting shot?

Brimelow:

Well, I’ve said this on VDARE.com a few times: in 1975, I interviewed Bill Rusher, then the Publisher of National Review, about his attempt to get a Third Party going. At the end of the interview, we went off the record and he said to me: "It's all over. The Red Flag will one day wave over the world.” It's impossible to exaggerate the pessimism in the Conservative Movement at that point, after the fall of Vietnam.

But then he said: "We keep on going. Because you never know what might turn up. And there are theological injunctions against despair!"

I've never forgotten that, because, of course, five years later, Reagan was elected. And the world was absolutely turned upside down.

So, I guess my point is, don't give up.