Rudderless, leaderless, aimless, the American Right has never seemed so utterly impotent—and yet has never had such a glorious opportunity to act on immigration since President Donald Trump missed his chance in 2017. President Joe Biden has made perhaps his greatest mistake by dumping the immigration issue at the Republicans’ feet, at a time when border security has utterly collapsed, a cartel war is underway, and a recession is about to hit while politicians send our money overseas. The GOP can generate momentum by focusing on border security first, before even debating what is to be done with illegals who are occupying the country. My suggestion: By aiming small, by focusing on border security and the incompetence or treason of DHS Alejandro Mayorkas, the GOP can break the immigration issue out of the ideological ghetto. We can finally discuss what really matters—who owns this country, what it means to be an American, and what we can do about a state that is hostile to the nation.
The Main Stream Media is running with the Narrative that Republicans are in “disarray” [McCarthy clinches speaker’s gavel at 15th attempt as Republicans in disarray, by David Smith, The Guardian, January 7, 2023]. For all the maudlin rhetoric about our supposedly sacred democracy, the “free press” and its lackeys lash out in baffled fury when we actually see a debate. The squabble over who would be Speaker may have seemed absurd to snarky reporters and their pet Democrats, but it fired up conservatives who want to know why it’s suddenly beyond the pale to have a debate in what’s supposed to be the People’s House.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) put it best when he said debate is what Congressmen are supposed to do. “You’re calling for unity?” he asked. “How about we unify around something meaningful? Like actually having a House of Representatives and a bunch of Republicans in a conference that are united to actually stand up for the people and do what we said we would do when we came here?” [U.S. Rep. Chip Roy emerges as key GOP agitator in U.S. House speaker fight, by Matthew Choi, Texas Tribune, January 3, 2023]
Washington Watcher II made an excellent point when he said that now-Speaker McCarthy has given immigration patriots all they can reasonably want, including a promise of No Amnesty. Speaker McCarthy is no profile in courage but that is good, because he will respond to pressure. He isn’t ideologically committed to replacing the American people in the name of the GDP (like Paul Ryan) and he lacks the late and unlamented John McCain’s bizarre racial fantasies. Speaker McCarthy also has identified the Biden Administration’s Achilles heel in the DHS Secretary, and has is forcibly demanding his resignation, threatening impeachment otherwise.
Meanwhile, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has proven himself an effective tactician and one of the few rising stars in the congressional GOP who seems to have a plan [Big Wheel of Karma Keeps On Rolling, by Matt Labash, SubStack, January 8, 2023]. Perhaps this is his moment.
Naturally, the collaborationist wing of the GOP is terrified that some Republicans might act in the interests of those who voted for them [Opinion: The deal McCarthy struck was an inexplicable act of self-destruction, by Charlie Dent, CNN, January 7, 2023].
However, the GOP must be wary of overreaching. Speaker McCarthy’s first act as Speaker was to scrap the Biden Administration’s IRS expansion. It reminded me about the revolutionaries accusing King George III of sending “hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance” (to quote the Declaration of Independence). Cutting funding for 87,000 new IRS agents is a good symbolic first step [House passes bill nixing $72 billion in funding for 87,000 new IRS Agents, by Victor Nava, New York Post, January 10, 2023]. Yet as many noted on social media, perhaps what is truly needed are 87,000 new Border Patrol agents and a wall.
The U.S. House just voted 221-210 to rescind the over $70 billion in new funding for 87,000 IRS agents.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 10, 2023
They should take that money and build a border wall instead.
Stop the 87000 new IRS agents and take that $80 billion back away from them, and put it to use on our border problems. Hire more border patrol, and a bunch of new ICE agents to go around the country, collect all the illegals, and send them back where they came from.
— Littlered054 (@DHMyers4) January 3, 2023
He could replace the pending 87000 IRS agents nobody wants with 87000 Border Patrol and ICE agents and spend a fraction of the billions he gave to his pet in Ukraine and build a proper wall, then deport all illegals. Seems pretty simple.
— Rebekah (@NHRebekah92) January 6, 2023
Incredibly, President Biden has accused the Republicans of causing the current border rush, with our rulers’ immigrant Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claiming that Biden “inherited a mess” [Biden spokeswoman blames Trump ahead of border visit: ‘The president inherited a mess,‘ by Chris Pandolfo, Fox News, January 6, 2023]. But in fact, President Biden inherited a stable situation and then very deliberately sabotaged immigration enforcement and dumped the costs on American communities [Team Biden’s sabotage of border and interior enforcement must be stopped, by R.J. Hauman, Washington Times, August 3, 2022].
Recently, President Biden visited the border for the first time in his Administration, but only deigned to look at El Paso after the gangs, the vagrants, and the filth were cleaned up so he could walk through a Potemkin Village briefly and then leave. Of course, even this simple display shows the government could stop illegals from destroying American cities—it just doesn’t want to. Yet Biden running from the problem doesn’t change the reality that even CNN notes there is a “record-breaking surge of migrant crossings at the southern US border under his watch” [Biden confronts a major political liability as he seeks assistance on immigration, by MJ Lee, Priscilla Alvarez, and Kevin Liptak, CNN, January 9, 2023].
Here is the opportunity. President Biden, out of desperation, is making some vague gestures towards immigration enforcement, though he also wants some collaborationist Republicans in the Senate to give him Amnesty in exchange for throwing some of our money at the border, which probably won’t do anything [The contours of the immigration debate take shape, by Leigh Ann Caldwell and Therodoric Meyer, Washington Post, January 10, 2023]. It’s the same old bait-and-switch of amnesty.
Yet patriots can see through this game. The GOP also has the public on their side, but only if they play it smart.
However, the GOP must be careful not to overreach. Substantial portions of the public (especially Trump voters) want to abolish Birthright Citizenship and deport illegals already here. They also think immigration makes the country worse. Unfortunately, a majority of Americans still support DACA and welcoming “refugees” [Americans still support asylum for immigrants fleeing persecution, poll finds, by Hamed Aleaziz, Los Angeles Times, December 16, 2022]. Still, that same poll shows widespread dissatisfaction with President Biden’s immigration policies, with just 8% strongly favoring them, and 25% somewhat favoring them.
Unfortunately, the “rope sellers,” the corporate oligarchs who refuse to pay Americans good wages and want to import a helot class, are flapping their wrists about a “labor shortage” [Biden to visit Mexico border in push on migrants, but Republicans are his biggest wall, by Jarrett Renshaw and Andrea Shalal, Reuters, January 8, 2022]. Such post-national materialists who can’t see past the next quarterly earnings report unfortunately have the ear of many GOP leaders.
Yet there is a path forward. Republicans can focus on the simple fact that the United States is experiencing record levels of illegal immigration, including huge caravans storming the border [Migrant border crossings in fiscal year 2022 topped 2.76 million, breaking previous record, by Julia Ainsley, NBC News, October 22, 2022]. As Saul Alinsky said, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” The political target is DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who seems to see his job as facilitating the invasion of the country that he’s occupying. (We may not be able to call it treason; it’s questionable that he considers himself an American in any real sense.)
Focusing on the Secretary and border security may seem too modest—but we can count on the Democrats, the Party of Hysterical Screeching, to make the case for us. They can’t go along even with the basic goal of border security. The reasonable Republican demands that we should defend our land and expect the DHS Secretary to protect the homeland will be too much for them and we will hear the cries of fascism. Indeed, they’ve already begun complaining Biden is a hardliner on immigration.
Push them a bit farther and the reaction will be even more frenzied.
Latin American leaders are also complaining that America isn’t doing enough for them. Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador accused America of “disdain,” “abandonment,” and insufficient foreign aid for his collapsing country and the rest of the region [Biden, López Obrador open Mexico meetings with brusque talk, by Colleen Long and Maria Verza, Associated Press, January 10, 2023]. He said American had “forgotten” them.
It’s pretty rich for the Mexican president to be lecturing America about laws as cartels merrily wage their wars against the government and Central America’s chief cultural exports seems to be gangs [Violence hits Mexican cartel stronghold after arrest of El Chapo’s son, Associated Press, January 6, 2023]. It also shows that stealing billions from the American people and sending them to these black holes doesn’t win you any gratitude, but just more whining. Perhaps Americans should start asking why they need to keep sending these blank checks as we head into a recession.
We shouldn’t be “forgetting” these countries. Indeed, they are far more important to our security than Ukraine. We should be focusing on building a wall, deporting their diaspora populations, and keeping their eternally dysfunctional, crime-ridden, and disintegrating societies away from the civilized world. As the dying Simon Bolivar said about the continent he (stupidly) separated from Spain:
[Latin] America is ungovernable: Those who have served the revolution have ploughed the sea. These countries will inevitably fall into the hands of the disenfranchised multitude to then fragment into small tyrannies of all colors and races, devoured by their crimes and extinguished by their own ferocity.
[The Color of Corruption, by Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, April 12, 2018]
A heroic exception: El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele, who, of course, the MSM and the Biden Administration hate [El Salvador President Re-Election Bid Draw Strong Reaction, by Associated Press, US News, September 16, 2022]. After all, he punishes crime, and our rulers gave up on that long ago.
Focusing purely on border security and holding Secretary Mayorkas accountable via impeachment may seem like small steps given the severity of the crisis. Yet every political action must be done with an eye on what comes next. Nothing is an end in itself. The Left has moved to an openly anti-American and post-American position. It cannot go along with even the slightest measures to ensure border security, uphold the rule of law, or stop the flow of drugs that are killing the Middle Americans that they hate so passionately. Even modest steps for America to protect its sovereignty will lead to a crazed reaction.
That will allow patriots to set the stage for 2024. It will give the Right a sense of direction and start the conversation that is so desperately needed.
The American Right has been chasing tangents and conspiracies for three years now and it has led nowhere except to defeat and embarrassment. We need a common goal and a sense of purpose. That goal is to protect American sovereignty and remove power permanently from those who openly speak about their hatred of our people and desire to replace us. The American Right must focus on the only question that matters—what is America and who does this country belong to? Those questions can only be addressed when people get serious about immigration.
President Biden has actually given the GOP this issue, and they would be foolish not to use it. In fact, if they don’t, there’s no reason to expect the GOP to do any better than they did in 2018, 2020, or 2022. At that point, nationalists should turn away from the GOP altogether and start looking for other solutions in a post-American age.
It may not come to that. It would only take one speech, as Peter Brimelow said in 2015, and one man with the courage to do what needs to be done. Best of all, what needs to be done right now is simply modest steps. The neuroses of journalists and politicians will take care of the rest and we can fight on an ideological battleground of our choosing. That’s the true way to unite the Right and stop this embarrassing nostalgia for 2016 or the contemporary pursuit of tangential issues.
We must look to the future. We have a people, a country, and a civilization to save. It starts with winning on immigration.
James Kirkpatrick [Email him | Tweet him @VDAREJamesK] is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from Conservatism Inc. His latest book is Conservatism Inc.: The Battle for the American Right. Read VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow's Preface here.
