Along with more than 18 million of my fellow citizens I watched last month’s Democratic Party question-and-answer sessions during which debates occasionally erupted among the candidates.
The purpose — besides the TV network selling pricey advertising — was to present all the candidates for public scrutiny and begin the process of separating the many cats and dogs from the few thoroughbreds among them.
I suspect that the sizable number of Democratic candidates running results from the poisonously peculiar presidency of the incumbent — Donald Trump.
The expectation is that the broad public is so disgusted with and alarmed by Trump that it would elect anyone to replace him. So, any Democrat who can capture their party’s nomination will be the next president.
That includes demographic first-timers, like women, gays and self-help gurus, along with a bunch of candidates almost no one ever heard of. But as Trump’s 2016 election confirms, in America, anyone — no matter how improbable or incompetent — can become president.
But more cautious Americans —or maybe the more anxiously concerned—understand that Trump could be re-elected.
There is a significant segment of the population lobotomized by ideology who see Trump as blessed by afflatus, and as the mainstay of Christianity, conservatism and capitalism. For these folks, no amount of Trump’s misdeeds, mendacities, moral deficiencies or moronic behavior will dissuade them from continuing to support him.
Because they are not persuaded by any facts, logic, cogent arguments or their own senses if those contradict their beliefs, Trump supporters can only be overcome at the polls. To do that Democrats will need much help from political independents.
And, that is why I was troubled by several of the Democratic candidates who, during the debates, addressed the audience in Spanish and or advocated decriminalizing illegal immigration. I could almost see Trump and his Republican Party enablers break out in broad grins.
Pandering to Spanish speakers and advocating for what is essentially open borders clearly exposes the Achilles heel of the Democratic Party to arrows from the right.
Polls repeatedly reveal that the vast majority of Americans oppose illegal immigration. They want immigration laws enforced and the border secured. It is not just xenophobic, right-wing nationalists who want national sovereignty maintained, but also political independents and those Democrats for whom common sense is more important than partisan ideology.
And, there are common-sense reasons to oppose illegal immigration and open borders.
With billions of people on earth living in abject poverty, oppressive tyranny or in lethally lawless societies, America could be overwhelmed by massive influxes of desperate emigres. Look at the current mess at our southern border with tens of thousands of foreigners streaming in — and thousands more beating on the doors. Imagine millions of them flooding in over open borders.
Consider what became of Rome when it did not secure its borders against a relentless deluge of desperate immigrants. Too many, too quickly overwhelms a nation and its culture.
Common-sense Americans understand that laws passed to secure the integrity of national borders, vet immigrants for health and criminality concerns, and limit the numbers coming in are not racist, selfish or xenophobic, they are sensible.
Misguided policies such as “sanctuary cities” and providing welfare benefits to illegal immigrants essentially flout those laws, are patently unfair to those seeking to immigrate legally, and encourage more illegal immigration.
Condoning and encouraging the unregulated influx of people worsens vexing issues like housing shortages, declining wages, public health and environmental degradation. It is especially hard on America’s most economically pressed populations who compete for jobs and housing with impoverished immigrants willing to work for less and crowd into overfilled housing.
A glaring example of such political irrationality is Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has vowed that California will provide “sanctuary to all who seek it” and declared that the state needs to make greater efforts to support illegal immigrants. Concurrently, the first-term Democrat declared a statewide housing “crisis” and imposed draconian housing mandates on all municipalities.
Newsom’s stated rationale is that anti-immigrant views are “fundamentally at odds with California values.” His views, however, are fundamentally at odds with common sense.
If California has a housing shortage so severe that people are living on the streets and residents must be forced to sacrifice their quality of life to house more people, how does increasing demand by making the state even more attractive to illegal immigration — California’s largest source of population increase — improve the situation?
The first priority for anyone seeking high office in the United States, especially the presidency, has to be America and its citizens, not foreign populations. Those Democratic candidates showboating in Spanish and decrying the plight of desperate immigrants need to keep in mind that Trump won the presidency by promising to put America first.
Collisions with common sense could wreck Democrats’ chance of tossing the Trumpster into the dumpster. Before Democrats veer too far into left field expecting that independents will come along for the ride, or that enough of them will consider Trump the greater evil and elect any Democrat, they need to consider that even in deep blue California one third of the voters, nearly 4.5 million, voted for Trump. That is more votes than he received from his base in red bastions Kentucky, Montana, South Carolina and West Virginia — combined! They are out there, and they vote.
The vast common-sense middle of the electorate needs to be won to avoid a second term of Trump — something from which our democratic republic might never recover. Those Democratic candidates up on the debate stage spouting Spanish and advocating open border policies should be the first cats and dogs eliminated from contention.
— Randy Alcorn is a Santa Barbara political observer. Contact him at randyaalcorn@gmail.com, or click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.