One of the most conservative members of the House thinks that the Democrats are trying to use the current debate over border security to wage a war on white Americans.
On Monday morning, Congressman Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) dropped by Laura Ingraham’s show for a chat on border issues. The conversation soon turned to an exchange on “Fox News Sunday,” where National Journal’s Ron Fournier told host Chris Wallace that Latino voters were turning on the GOP because it was increasingly being seen as “the party of white people.” To Brooks’ mind, this was yet another example of a “war on whites” that has been part of the Democratic playbook since at least 2008.
Brooks claimed that Obama is responsible for this because “(he) divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things.” The ultimate goal, Brooks says, is to convince minorities that “whites hate everybody else.” In Brooks’ view, if ordinary people see border security as a “thoughtful issue” rather than an “emotional issue,” they will see things the Republicans’ way. Ingraham, not exactly known for being a moderate, told Brooks that she thought any suggestion of Democrats waging race war is “a little out there.” But Brooks didn’t back off, saying that he was accurately describing what the Democrats were doing. Ingraham disagreed, saying there was nothing special about Democrats playing the race card. To her mind, it was no different from the Democrats playing up the “war on women” angle.
Perhaps if Brooks read the news, he’d see why Latinos think right-wingers don’t like them. If you’ll recall, a group of extremists in Michigan actually wanted to lay mines along the border–and never mind that little kids could get blown to pieces. No less an authority than Texas Governor Rick Perry thinks the Obama administration is somehow coordinating the flow of immigrants from Central America. A KKK chapter has suggested that migrant kids ought to be gunned down at the border, and the corpses left there as a warning to anyone who might try to cross the border illegally. And just last week, several militia groups sent detachments to the border who were armed to the teeth. And on, and on. Brooks could have said something condemning this dangerously extremist talk–and didn’t. Then again, that would be a bit too much to ask, since three years ago Brooks himself said he would support any measure to send immigrants back home “short of shooting them.”
Brooks says that most polling shows that every racial and demographic group knows that they are harmed by illegal immigration. What he left out is that most people want to sit and discuss this like rational people in order to find a lasting solution, not just a quick fix that satisfies the extremists.
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Edited/Published by JA
Darrell Lucus is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.
