"Redneckophobia"? Why Obama Is Attacking Arizona

The news that the Obama Administration has decided to        challenge Arizona's   anti-illegal immigration SB1070 is one of those moments when you see that, inside the        Beltway and for our entire   bipartisan political class, it's an upside-down,        through-the-looking-glass, funny old world.

Quite regardless of the very debatable legal merits of        the  Administration's attack on federalism (which        admittedly will not  matter once there are enough   Commissar Kagans legislating from the bench), why would the Obama        Administration  want to challenge a law that all polls        show is overwhelmingly  popular with Americans in        general—and Arizonans in particular—right before        November's elections? Couldn't it at least have        waited until after the elections?

Even the liberals at Atlantic Magazine are        worried:

"After the initial round of polling showed majority        support for  the bill both in Arizona and in the rest of        the U.S., the latest  polling still corroborates. Today,        an   ABC/Washington Post poll found that Americans support Arizona's law 58% to 41%.   Quinnipiac found  51%-31% support for the new law among national        respondents in late May. Also in May,   CBS found that 52% of national respondents think Arizona's law is        "about  right," while 28% said it goes 'too far' and 17%        said it doesn't  go far enough. Democrats, even,        supported it on the whole: 46% answered 'about        right,' while 40% said 'too far' and 10% said 'not far        enough.' … [Emphasis in original—pb]

"While opinions on immigration are complex, it's        reasonable to  wonder if the administration's decision to        sue Arizona will turn  out to be an unpopular move.        People support SB1070 by wide  margins; it stands to        reason that, even amid political pressure  to do        something in response to the new law, the Obama         administration will end up taking heat for their attempt        to  counter it in court."

Department of Justice Will Sue Arizona: An Unpopular        Move?,        by Chris Good, June 18, 2010

It's possible, of course, that the Democrats are as   innumerate and stupid as the GOP leadership and actually believe there's a   vast slumbering Hispanic vote out there. But it's precisely because our   Joe Guzzardi doesn't think the Democrats are that stupid that he has        been   predicting since Obama's election that they will not, in the end,        try to  push through an amnesty. And so far he's been        right.

Still, I've always felt uneasy about Joe's confidence        about  amnesty. Maybe this attack on Arizona is a straw        in the wind.  Maybe Obama really is going to try to        amnesty all those illegals  a.k.a. undocumented        Democrats, perhaps in the lame duck session.

Maybe he really believes Treason Lobby propaganda. After        all, the   GOP leadership does.

It's all good, of course. The Obama Administration's        lawsuit  will make hard for even the most craven        Republican to avoid the  immigration issue this November.        And a   grassroots backlash against amnesty like those that stopped the Bush betrayals would        certainly mean a  warm and wonderful winter for patriotic        immigration reformers.  To coin a phrase,   bring it on.

Just recently, I've come across three other examples of        the fantasy world in which our political class lives.

• John Derbyshire on the "well-known  conservative politician and         commentator—one of the smarter  ones, with a shelf         full of books and countless TV appearances to  his         name".

Derbyshire has   described on Takimag.com his conversation with this creature in an         off-the-record meeting held with several other        journalists.  Derbyshire was amazed to discover that the        creature had  apparently   never even heard of any of the arguments against current legal immigration        policy—Derbyshire        specifically cited Harvard's   George Borjas,        who is after all pretty well known.

Some years ago, I spoke at a conference put on by this         creature's PAC. I could see him glad-handing donors at        the back  of the room as we spoke. I guess he just wasn't        listening. In  fact, I think he's incapable of listening.

• Jessica Weisberg, John Tanton, and me.

I   blogged earlier this year after my phone interview with   Weisberg (email her),        saying that she "seems to        be working on another version of the   John-Tanton-is-the root-of all-evil meme" and that "long  experience has taught me to have no        particular hope of accuracy  or even elementary fairness        in articles resulting from this sort  of interview".

Well, Weisberg's American Prospect article        is now out. (Guilt         by Association The most influential anti-immigration         network in America tries to convert liberals to its        cause, June 1, 2010) and of course I was right. It is all too obvious that she has simply        never heard of the   link between   environmental degradation and immigrant-driven        population growth,         although it is elementary and axiomatic, and much of her         article is devoted to silly Talmudic logic-chopping in        an effort  to evade this   unthinkable idea.

Needless to say, I think Weisberg's treatment of        VDARE.COM is  particularly telling. Her emphasis on        Tanton is the usual  smear-by-association aimed at        discrediting Leah V. Durant, the  black attorney who        heads the DC-based   Progressive For Immigration Reform group. And, similarly, when I told Weisberg that I have        asked Leah to write for VDARE.COM (as I   keep saying,         we are a forum open to all critics of America's         immigration disaster regardless of their politics), it        emerged  from her ideological processor like this:

"When I asked Brimelow if he was surprised that Durant        would be  willing to write for him, he responded, 'You        mean why she's  comfortable writing for a group        associated with the KKK?'"

Weisberg suppressed the rest of my reply: it's because Leah Durant knows perfectly well that VDARE.COM        is NOT  associated with what has long been (if it exists        at all) a welfare project for FBI undercover agents.

Of course, Weisberg knows this perfectly well too—if she        had  evidence of any association, she would have been        trumpeting it.  And she must also know that, thanks to        the internet, I can easily  rebut her coy,        quote-doctoring effort to insinuate the contrary.

But she goes ahead and insinuates it anyway. She can't        help  herself. She comes from a political culture that        largely consists  of   paranoid fantasy and creating counter-fantasies is its reflexive        response.

Not coincidentally, we've detected her namesake   Jacob Weisberg, now editor of Slate, in   several similar spasms,        beginning with his   1995 attack on Alien Nation.

It mattered, in the days before the internet.

• John Derbyshire (again), me (again) and Kejda         Gjermani

Gjermani (contact her), who   describes herself as "an Albanian        expatriate of Jewish descent living in Manhattan",        recently posted a very conventional blog in Commentary Magazine, full of the usual   paranoid nonsense about Arizona's SB1070, incidentally revealing that she        too (see  Derbyshire, above) is completely ignorant of        the   now very extensive technical critique of the economics of current immigration policy. (Re:        What Would Reagan Have Thought,        June 15, 2010).

What was unusual about Gjermani's blog was this        ludicrous passage:

"Ironically, the nativists who complain thus about        immigrants  are often the very same ones (think John        Derbyshire, think Peter  Brimelow) who, in so many words,        lament the impending collapse of  Western Civilization        due to the white man's failure to breed as  diligently as        they think he should."

This is a total fabrication. Neither Derbyshire nor I        have ever complained, "in so many       words" or otherwise, about "the white man's failure        to breed".  Indeed, Derbyshire's        most recent book,   We Are Doomed,        explicitly advocates national power through   robotics,        not reproduction, and his own children, as even a   casual glance at the internet will show, are half-Chinese.

Why would Gjermani make such a stupid, easily-exposed        mistake?  Again, I believe it goes back to the fantasy        world inhabited by  our political class (of which        Gjermani,   as an editor of Commentary,   neocon Central, is a candidate member).  They believe there are       "nativists",        dybbuks and golems out there, and that they know,        probably by   projection,        what nativists etc. think. They don't need evidence.

Gjermani objects to John McCain's recent   hilarious conscience-rupturing campaign ad featuring an Arizona sheriff who says McCain is "one        of us"—"whatever that means", she bristles.

It means "patriotic American", of course. But        this is a problem for Gjermani. Her website   reveals that she hated her time as an exchange student in   Nebraska because of what she herself admits is her "rampant        redneckophobia". She is much happier in Manhattan, and naturally wants to        remake the U.S. in its image.

Our political class may live in a fantasy world, but the        motive  for its immigration enthusiasm is all too real: a        relentless  hatred of the   historic American nation.

Peter Brimelow (email him) is editor of   VDARE.COM and author of the much-denounced Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster, (Random House -                          1995) and The Worm in the Apple (HarperCollins - 2003)