Not Enough Credit

I watched about five minutes of President Bush's State of the Union speech this past Thursday...

And during the bit that I watched, I noticed something that I've noticed many times before: George W. Bush does not get any credit for being "progressive" on race and immigrant issues.

There's been such a backlash, such an uproar in the United States over illegal immigration that it would be so easy for any President or any political leader to spout xenophobic rhetoric, and many have, Democrats and Republicans alike.

Just watch any episode of Lou Dobbs on CNN and you'll hear arguments against illegal AND legal immigration. Immigrants are always the easiest scapegoats. Dozens of Republicans and Democrats (from the House of Representatives usually) make tonnes of arguments against both kinds of immigrants (usually to appeal to disaffected poor white workers in their districts).

It's obviously completely proper and even appropriate to enforce immigration laws, to toughen up border security and so on (and Bush did talk about that), but when you're a political leader, who commands the attention (and even the admiration) of millions of people, it is completely irresponsible to appeal to xenophobic fears. Even if a candidate was more conservative on most issues, I could never vote for someone who appealed to subtle racism or anti-immigrant fears. (My reason (in addition to Iraq) for hoping for a Tony Blair victory in the UK last year.)

Bush never does that, and for him, it doesn't even appear to be a political calculation. He seems to have a genuine admiration for Latin American immigrants, even commenting in some secret tapes released last year on how much strength it takes for Mexicans to cross the Rio Grande.

When Bush leaves office in 3 years, I'm not confident about his successor being mature when it comes to immigration policy. A mature policy includes border security and enforcement, but just as much, it includes not creating an atmosphere of distrusting immigrants. When the next President's approval ratings take a hit, don't be surprised to see him (or her) appeal to a mistrust of immigrants, even if they're legal, in order to deflect attention from failed policies.

Fortunately, for the time being, President Bush appears to be principled and mature enough to not go there.

Here's the bit I heard in the speech:

The American economy is pre-eminent — but we cannot afford to be complacent. In a dynamic world economy, we are seeing new competitors like China and India. This creates uncertainty, which makes it easier to feed people's fears. And so we are seeing some old temptations return. Protectionists want to escape competition, pretending that we can keep our high standard of living while walling off our economy. Others say that the government needs to take a larger role in directing the economy, centralizing more power in Washington and increasing taxes. We hear claims that immigrants are somehow bad for the economy — even though this economy could not function without them. All these are forms of economic retreat, and they lead in the same direction — toward a stagnant and second-rate economy.