A Way Out For the GOP?

I've thought for a while that the Republican party was looking for a long-term crack-up on the issue of immigration, but now I'm reconsidering. The business wing wants guest workers so they can exploit them, and the nativists hate Latinos. On thes surface it would appear that nothing could resolve this conundrum. But I think perhaps I was wrong.

The trick is to look at the core desires of each group. Business wants a captive labor force it can isolate and exploit at will. White nationalists fear a large ethnic group entering the country that they perceive as profoundly alien. In the short term the nativists just want to boot all the (Mexican) illegals out of the country. But I think perhaps in the long term a strictly enforced guest-worker program with no opportunity for citizenship or amnesty is precisely what the conservative doctor would order - if he were clever.

At heart the nativists want to preserve their domination of American cultural life. They have defined an "in-group" of which Latinos are excluded. If Bush and the corporate conservatives are successful, a permanent class of slave labor will be created. While on the surface this might seem incompatible with nativist desires, upon closer examination it turns out that nativists might be very happy with the presence of a culturally isolated, legally inferior class of workers. Done correctly, it would preserve and in fact underline nativists' desire for exclusivity. A guest worker program could be a blatant symbol of their high status.

There are historical parallels to this system. They're called slavery and segregation. While the captive African-American population might compete with the white southern working class in objective material terms, that never seemed to matter. What was more important was having a group below you to oppress. And this system was remarkably stable - there was little evidence that slavery or segregation were going to disappear on their own. So much so that it took a civil war and tumultuous social movements in 2 different centuries against fanatic and monolithic southern resistance to break up the system of oppression.

I think that if the Bushies can get a strict guest worker system with draconian border enforcement and no amnesty or citizenship, they can then effectively deploy anti-Latino bigotry to their advantage and consolidate their white nationalist base. Yes this would alienate Latino voters, but if the Republicans can end their citizenship route, then they will be powerless anyway.

And hey, why should only corporations have access to guest workers? What about contracts for individual families. They could even feed and clothe them. And over time I suspect that the inconvenience of recycling new workers would result in the elimination of the "temporary" part of "temporary worker." They could remain permanently as a socially inferior, tightly controlled domestic labor force without political or legal rights. Hmm. What would we call this system?

Is this an utterly repugnant policy? Of course. Which is why conservatives will pursue it. And it is why Democrats should be so critical of a guest-worker program. Liberalism's greatest accomplishment in the last 40 years was the end of segregation. Do we really want to end up facilitating the creation of a whole new system of slavery?

In other news...

The world is ending: Robert Samuelson and Harold Meyerson pretty much agree on something.

Conservatives clearly don't understand democracy:

"So far, I've allowed the guest bloggers here to write pretty much what they pleased about all issues, including illegal immigration. But on the illegal immigration issue, I now find myself having to contend with at least three out of four guest bloggers who will reflexively try to poke holes in any argument I make."

This is an interesting idea.