The Angry Left and the Angry Right

Could there be a better scenario for intentional self-destruction of a dominant political movement? Immigration is a delicate issue for Republicans. Proposition 187 convinced a generation of Hispanic voters in California that our party dislikes them and wants them to go away. Unfair as that perception is, it exists, and no sensible Republican leader wants to exacerbate it on a national scale. Nonetheless, there is now a hue and cry on the Right for thrusting this question into the political foreground, coupled with the threat that, if President Bush doesn’t advocate the restrictionist line with sincerity and vigor, conservatives will punish him by staying away from the polls in November.

Just a month or two ago, the danger of a GOP crackup over immigration seemed remote. Now, thanks largely to steady inflammation by shrill voices among the conservative intelligentsia, it appears to be upon us. My perception, which I hope is unduly pessimistic, is that the President’s speech tonight failed to work the necessary miracle: It hasn’t appeased his right-wing critics; at the same time, it provides an occasion for the Left to trumpet “Republicans hate Hispanics” demagogy. Making due allowance for the unpredictability of politics, I think that we can now anticipate that enough conservatives will sit out the election to hand control of the Senate and the House to what is unquestionably the most irrational, irresponsible and destructive opposition party since the Democrats of 1864.

For the past two years, the motive force within the Democratic Party has been the Angry Left. With weird symmetry, an Angry Right has now risen up among the Republicans. The differences between the two movements are manifold, but there are key similarities. Both put blind emotions at the center of their politics, each is more interested in punishing false friends than in winning elections, and neither cares very much about the War on Terror.

That is not to say that Angry Right shares the Left’s hostility toward the United States. It doesn’t object to victory; it simply doesn’t mind destroying the effectiveness of the only commander-in-chief we have. The outcome of the war has a lower priority than its pet issue.

A Republican debacle in 2006 won’t be limited to the next two years. The worst long-term consequences will follow from the lessons that will be drawn from it. To the Daily Kossacks and their ilk, a Democratic win will vindicate their strategy of ad hominem smears and far left-wing rhetoric. We can expect them to follow up by becoming louder and nastier. Meanwhile, the media will quote RINO after RINO proclaiming that the GOP must divorce itself from “extremism”, i. e., embrace tax hikes, expanded social programs, the Kyoto treaty, abortion rights, respect for the civil liberties of al-Qa’eda members, the “living Constitution”, and every other idea that delights Arlen Specter.

Most significantly of all, the election will be interpreted around the world as the American public’s repudiation of the War on Terror. The first sequel will be the collapse of American influence in the Middle East and the abandonment of the region to variants of Islamofascism; the second, a dhimmified Europe where Moslem mobs will dictate policy; the third, a United States isolated from the world, living behind closed borders that can never be guarded strictly enough to cut off all terrorist infiltration. That poor, shriveled, frightened, illiberal America will be the final monument to the Angry Left and the Angry Right.

Now is a good time to recall what Abraham Lincoln said about setting priorities in time of war. The principle is just as valid now as it was in 1862.

I would save the Union. . . . If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I don’t believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.

Immigration is, of course, a matter of far less moral weight than slavery. I hope that it is not too late for the Angry Rightists to calm down: Securing our borders against illegal Mexican entrants will be a hollow triumph if we meanwhile lose the rest of the world to the enemies of civilization.