Last Fall, Merkel famously proclaimed: “Germany is a strong country, we will manage” [Defiant Merkel vows to stand by refugee policy despite security fears, Reuters, November 25, 2015]. This was significant because of the implicit acknowledgement that the “refugees” were a burden. Even accepting that Germany is strong enough to “manage” refugees, a nation does not need to “manage” peace, prosperity, and freedom. It manages, or at least attempts to manage, recessions, famine, and war.
As Ann Coulter put it in Adios America:
America does a better job than most at accommodating a diverse population. We also do a better job at setting compound fractures. But no one goes around mindlessly exclaiming: “Compound fractures are a strength!”Apparently, Merkel felt it was necessary to atone Germany’s historic guilt, get praise from the Leftist U.S. Main Stream Media and even become Time’s Person of the Year, all while having hordes of brown “refugees” call her “Mother Merkel.”
Moral superiority and palliating Holocaust guilt was more important than promoting the interests of your citizens.
American immigration enthusiasts certainly appeal to moral superiority, status signalling, and historical guilt. But until now they have at least pretended their policies benefit America. The 2016 Democratic Platform shows that Clinton and her Party are following Merkel in dropping this pretense.
Thus the 2012 Democratic Platform fully embraced mass immigration, but Its brief 524 word plank made several claims that immigration would help America.
On the economy, the plank proclaimed that immigration policy should meet “our economic goals,” that Immigration has “strengthened our country and contributed to our economy.” Proposed Democratic immigration reform “meets our economic needs.” [it used that phrase twice] and DREAMers are “poised to make a real contribution to our country.
On the rule of law, the plank maintained that proposed Democratic reform “enforces the law” and reflected American values as “a nation of laws.” “Undocumented immigrants” [sic] would have to “get right with the law” and “pay taxes” to get citizenship. The Obama administration was allegedly holding “employers accountable for whom they hire.”
On national security, the plank insisted that Democratic policy "prioritizes our country's security," that DHS was "prioritizing the deportation of criminals who endanger our communities," that the "Southwest border is more secure than at any time in the past 20 years" and that the” Border Patrol is better staffed than at any time in its history.”
Needless to say, the Democrats were not serious about “promoting the national interest”—but they felt compelled to pretend to be. All that pretense has now been dropped.
Unnoticed by the MSM, the 2016 Democratic Platform has gone through a remarkable rhetorical transformation. Notably, the Democrats now see immigration explicitly as a racial policy, putting it under the larger Orwellian headline of “Bring Americans Together and Remove Barriers to Opportunities,” alongside other issues like “Ending Systemic Racism” and “Closing the Racial Wealth Gap.”
There is no mention of the national interest, border security, punishing employers, any responsibilities immigrants owe the country, or the rule of law.
The closest the Platform comes to mentioning the benefits to Americans is noting the economy as one of four considerations in setting legal immigration numbers—the other three are for the benefit of the immigrants.
The word “undocumented” is also conspicuously missing. Until 2004, when it began using the euphemism, the Democratic Platform dared used the word “illegal.” [See the 2000 Democratic Platform, The American Presidency Project]. Yet in 2016, it appears any prefix to distinguish them from legal immigrants is apparently Hate Speech.
While the Platform used to call for deporting criminals, it now won’t even bring up this triggering word. Instead it says Democrats will “prioritize those who pose a threat to the safety of our communities”—without saying what they are being prioritized for.
In 2009, the Democrats/ MSM attacked Rep. Joe Wilson and called him a racist for shouting “You Lie” when Obama lied about Obamacare, saying “There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false – the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally."
Yet now the Democratic Platform has dispensed with even this lie, instead promising to “ensure that all Americans—regardless of immigration status [i.e. illegal aliens]—have access to quality health care” by “allowing all families to buy into the Affordable Care Act exchanges.”
While the 2016 Democratic Platform doesn’t talk about the benefits of mass immigration, it asserts that immigration is mandated by "our values," while Trump's policies are "Un-American" and run "counter to the founding principles of this country.”
On the first day of the Convention, Luis (“I have only one loyalty and that's to the immigrant community”) Gutierrez claimed only Hillary Clinton will ensure that "America remains a welcoming nation," unlike Trump who is a “bigot” and a "bully" who "calls hardworking immigrants criminals."
Paradoxically, within minutes he complained that his Puerto Rican parents were "greeted with scorn and discrimination" and that "every generation of newcomers" have been "met with skepticism and suspicion." [Transcript: Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez's speech at the DNC, What the Folly, July 26, 2016]
Gutierrez’s contradiction epitomizes the Democratic take on the election and America: “America was never great” [NYT, May 20, 2016 in one breath, and “America is already great” [Ezra Klein, Vox, July 26, 2016] in the next.
Or perhaps there is no contradiction. What all the talk about needing to promote Amnesty to support “our values” while complaining about “systematic racism” inherent in the U.S. means is that the Democratic elite is now openly committed to reinventing “America” according to its own tastes by Electing A New People.
They hate the Historic American Nation, but they love the Current Year.
Washington Watcher [email him] is an anonymous source Inside The Beltway.