GOP's anti-immigrant stance could turn Texas into a blue state

[sonias]

Washington Post 3/2/11
GOP's anti-immigrant stance could turn Texas into a blue state

Don't look now, but Texas is turning blue.

Not today, to be sure, nor tomorrow. But to read the newly released census data on the Lone Star State is to understand that Texas, the linchpin of any Republican electoral college majority, is turning Latino and, unless the Republicans change their spots, Democratic.

(snip)
What these numbers mean is simply that the Republicans have an existential problem. As America becomes increasingly multiracial, the Republicans have elected to become increasingly white.

The GOP's response to this epochal demographic change has been to do everything in its power to keep America (particularly its electorate) as white as can be. Republicans have obstructed minorities from voting; required Latinos to present papers if the police ask for them; opposed the Dream Act, which would have conferred citizenship on young immigrants who served in our armed forces or went to college; and called for denying the constitutional right to citizenship to American-born children of undocumented immigrants.

(snip)
The latest wrinkle in limiting minority representation has popped up in Texas, which is going to gain four new congressional seats as a result of the largely Latino population growth the state experienced over the past decade. (Latinos account for 65 percent of the state's growth during that time.) Last month, three anti-immigrant activists asked a court to rule that undocumented immigrants must not be counted for purposes of the impending decennial redistricting, though the census has tallied residents, not citizens, since it was first conducted in 1790. They are not asking that Texas forfeit one or two of its new House seats, mind you. They are merely asking, in effect, that districts with substantial Latino populations, in which it is assumed a disproportionate number of the undocumented reside, be made larger than other districts to account for the non-citizens. This would result, of course, in fewer Latino-majority - and fewer Democratic-majority - districts.

Not today, not tomorrow - I just hope I live to see it one day! I still have hope that it will happen!

:kick:

[sonias]

1. Are Texas Hispanics Up for Grabs to the GOP?

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-counties-and-demographics/census/are-texas-hispanics-up-for-grabs-to-the-gop/">Texas Tribune 2/28/11
Are Texas Hispanics Up for Grabs to the GOP?

Republican analysts say that as Texas' Hispanic population continues to surge, its traditionally Democratic electorate is more and more up for grabs.

(snip)
James Aldrete, director of Message Audience & Presentation, a political communications agency, said the Republican Party’s desire to conflate immigration and border security shows the party is sending mixed messages to Hispanics.

“There is nothing about checking the immigration status of children at school that has to do with border security,” he said.

(snip)
“One of the reasons they don’t vote is that most of them aren’t old enough to,” she said. She added that strategists must come together to define exactly how the well of untapped voters will be reached. Democrats could lose ground if they fail to do that, she said.

“It’s our duty to figure this out,” she said. “There needs to be more resources allocated to study what motivates Hispanics in Texas.”

I would love to see more money spent on getting Hispanics/Latinos motivated to vote - engaged in the political process, especially while they are young. That is the key to our future.

:kick:

[white cloud]

2. The party of

HATE and GREED

[Vogon_Glory]

3. Race And Ethnic Baiting Worked Very Well For The Right for Many Years

Race- and ethnic-baiting worked very well for many years for the reactionaries and conservatives here in Texas. Unlike most of the former Confederacy, neither Afro-Americans nor Mexican-Americans posed a serious demographic threat to the state's political power structure. Even after Dixiecrats started leaving the Democratic Party en mass in the 1980's, those places where the white Hard Right was politically entrenched, nothing much changed.

Nobody but the naive and the clueless (Mostly caucasian, although I'd also include some Asian immigrants and a very few Afro-Americans) could believe that "illegal alien" is right-wing code-speak for people of Mexican-American heritage, notwithstanding that some of them had families here in Texas decades longer than the white right-wingers baiting them.

Race-baiting can be a losing strategy if the ethnic minority becomes a plurality. Witness what happened to Bob Dornan when Loretta Sanchez beat him in her district. But it's going to require political waking-up, organization, and the willingness to engage in a long-term political struggle.

I suspect that race-baiting is going to make more Anglos uncomfortable, especially after more intermarriage makes them think of people in their lives being harassed for their looks and the color of their skin.

:dem:

[efhmc]

4. They will find ways to intimidate and keep them from voting

There are examples of this in every county in Texas.

[sonias]

5. Yes oppressors always have tools in their box

But the people have to bear some responsibility too. Just like in Egypt - they can rise up and say "enough is enough". Certainly if an oppressed populace like those in the middle east can bring about change - then so can we. We just have to want it enough.

I'm not cutting my people, Latinos, any slack. It's time to show strength and not just sit it out election after election.

:kick: