Neil Muro’s piece today about how declining white turnout probably cost Mitt Romney the election doesn’t surprise me one bit. But, unlike some observers, I don’t think it should derail immigration reform.
We should have seen this coming a mile away. As I wrote on April 20, 2012: “[T]here is a politically underrepresented ‘populist’ constituency in America. Demographically, they are noncollege-educated whites … neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney have a natural connection with them.“ (Emphasis mine.)
And on October 1, 2012, I added: “The problem for Republicans is that Barack Obama doesn’t need to convince rural and blue collar whites in states like Ohio to vote for him. He just needs to convince them that they should just stay home — and stick it to the rich guy.“ (Emphasis mine.)
This worked out pretty much the way I figured it would.
Predictably, though, some of my friends and colleagues think this proves immigration reform is a bad idea.
It’s ALMOST AS IF there were pro-amnesty MSM conspiracy 2 say Rom lost due 2 weak Latino #s when problem was whites! dailycaller.com/2013/04/29/rep…
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) April 29, 2013
Of course, the “solution” after 2004 was amnesty too!
— Jim Antle (@jimantle) April 29, 2013
This assumes the sole reason for immigration reform is to prevent a Republican electoral collapse.
Let me be clear: The only reason to push such a policy is because it is good for the nation — not because you think it might win you some votes.
But if you want to be Machiavellian, it’s still unwise to infer much from the 2004 vs. 2012 turnout. Just because the Hispanic vote didn’t cost Republicans the 2012 presidential election, doesn’t mean it won’t in 2020. If you think it’s acceptable for the GOP to lose 70+ percent of the Hispanic vote — if you don’t see that as a canary in the mine — then you’re working pretty hard to rationalize the status quo.
And let’s remember this. Mitt Romney won the Republican nomination, at least, in part, by demagoguing the immigration issue. He attacked Rick Perry for supporting in-state tuition for illegals in Texas, and hit Newt Gingrich for saying he wouldn’t deport grandmothers. My point is this: You can’t say that working-class white voters sat on their hands because Mitt Romney wasn’t sufficiently anti-immigrant. Romney pandered and played that card, and guess what? It didn’t work.
It’s also possible the lower turnout among whites isn’t an anomaly, but a trend. The assumption seems to be that this is easily fixable — that whites just need to turn out in higher numbers (as if that’s easily solved).
I’ve written about the working class epidemic of demoralization, and suspect the lower turnout might be a predictable result of loss in social status. What if this cohort, which was once taken for granted as part of the GOP’s base, has transformed? What if the a down economy, an increased dependence on welfare, and a collapse of traditional morals, has made working-class whites less likely voters — or even less likely Republican voters?
To be sure, just as Obama’s presence on the ballot led to an increased turnout among African-Americans, Mitt Romney was the worst possible messenger to working-class whites. As I said on January 10, 2012, “Never mind Gordon Gekko — they’re going to turn him into Mitt “Chainsaw” Romney.” But that doesn’t mean the next GOP nominee will perform better.
My point here is that this is a very big conversation, and while the 2012 turnout numbers are interesting, it would be wrong to infer too much from them, too quickly.