Mainstream media ignoring the real issue
The spin by the mainstream media is that Eric Cantor was done in my some malevolent “extremist” force known as the “Tea Party.”
But that ignores the reality that David Brat had a very simple message that resonated with voters:
With 50 million Americans in their working years unemployed, the last thing we should do is provide amnesty or any form of work authorization to illegal immigrants. Yet, Eric Cantor believes that we need to import more low-wage foreign workers at the expense of lower wages and fewer jobs for Virginia families. Cantor also favors the Dream Act and Enlist Act principles. A vote for Eric Cantor is a vote for open borders and corporate handouts.
Indeed, why do we need more immigrants when there are so many Americans who are unemployed or underemployed? This is a question the mainstream media just ignores, or only answers with platitudes such as “immigrants create jobs and businesses,” platitudes with no basis in common sense or evidence, but platitudes repeated so often that everyone in the mainstream media probably believes them.
If more politicians would go out there with David Brat’s basic message about immigration, they would win votes. It’s my opinion that David Brat won the election despite his other hard-core conservative positions. Besides the immigration issue, Cantor was solidly conservative on all of the other issues. The people voted against unfettered immigration.
In contrast, Lindsey Graham won his primary because there were many opponents and their criticism of his positions were all over the map. The fact that he was pro-amnesty got lost among all the other non-conservative positions he was accused of. If he had faced a single opponent who only talked about immigration, I bet the outcome would have been a lot different.
In 1992, James Carville coined the phrase “it’s the economy, stupid,” which was advice for Clinton to keep his message focused on the single most important issue, the issue that mattered with voters. In 2014, it’s immigration, stupid.
* * *
His ratings at RateMyProfessor.com are pretty interesting. The theme seems to be that he’s very smart, funny, and female students think he’s good looking, but he’s also disorganized as a teacher and has trouble sticking to a syllabus and being clear about assignments. “not a great teacher. great guy, but almost too smart to teach.”
Lion of the Blogosphere 
“…but he’s also disorganized as a teacher and has trouble sticking to a syllabus and being clear about assignments. “not a great teacher. great guy, but almost too smart to teach.”’
In that case, he’ll need a good chief of staff to keep him on point.
But yeah, this was almost all about immigration. You’re right, Bratt’s simple message would play well, but notice NO Republican, with maybe Jeff Sessions in the Senate, is actually using it. Not even the regular Tea Party types. They all expect that they will have to vote for some sort of immigration amnesty at some point in the future and don’t want to go against the basic concept. Working people don’t realize (because of the media blockade) on how immigration screws them over. If enough Republicans made that message, it could really resonate.
Mike Street Station
June 11, 2014 at 12:12 PM
“In contrast, Lindsey Graham won his primary because there were many opponents and their criticism of his positions were all over the map.”
But 40% of Republicans voted against Graham in favor of unknown, unfunded candidates. Not sure if the Dems can beat him in SC but I certainly hope so. Maybe the Libertarian will draw some votes from Graham though they are usually as bad as Graham on immigration and open borders.
Bernie
June 11, 2014 at 12:27 PM
Brat also spoke out against Wall Street bailouts and NSA snooping. I agree that immigration was a big factor, but I also think that populist Tea Party anger against special treatment for big banks also played a role in this victory.
Some Guy
June 11, 2014 at 12:55 PM
On Bloomberg radio yesterday, a research analyst they were interviewing pointed out that “hard to fill positions” are increasing and many businesses are claiming they cannot find (qualified) workers to fill their open positions. The “unemployment rate” is down to 6.3%. Many people dispute this figure as a valid measurement of unemployment due to the drop in labor force participation as of late, but perhaps it is the new normal. You have spoken many times about paying people not to work in the future, but maybe it is already here: unending unemployment benefits, disability, etc. Americans would rather sit on the couch high on oxy or adderall, we need someone to make BigMacs and pay into SS.
theoak
June 11, 2014 at 12:56 PM
The employers need to offer better compensation. No such thing as a labor shortage. If they genuinely can’t afford it, then their business is simply not viable.
anon
June 11, 2014 at 4:01 PM
Exactly. Saying you can’t find enough of the right people is a sham. If you need more people then pay better. If you need special skills then have people trained. If you can’t do that then your business isn’t viable. But the truth is there’s no worker shortage. Employers go out of their way NOT o hire Americans because they want cheaper foreigners. Of course, importing foreign workers drives down wages. With lower wages fewer people go into the field. Which ensures there will be an artificially created shortage in the future. But we still haven’t reached that point. Because the majority of students who graduate with degrees in engineering and programming are going into other fields. They wouldn’t be doing that if there was a shortage and/or the the pay was better.
youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU
destructure
June 11, 2014 at 7:18 PM
Did David Brat case the market to fall today? Would not come as a surprise since stocks would respond favorable to amnesty and Cantor losing makes this less of a possibility. The market’s rationale for supporting amnesty is possibly because wages are still too high and immigrants would boost consumer spending.
grey enlightenment
June 11, 2014 at 1:00 PM
The timing of all those news stories on Drudge and elsewhere of Central American unaccompanied teenagers just rolling over the border at a rate of 1,000 a day, and of Obama opening up three military bases to house them, and flying other illegals to Arizona where they were just abandoned and released, also helped Brat a lot and sunk Cantor. People had some ability to connect cause and effect. Start announcing amnesty for kids, and suddenly you get a human tidal wave of kids. No big surprise.
Cantor sunk himself by ever playing with the fire, but the coincidence of the stories appearing simultaneously with the primary definitely meant he burned his fingers at exactly the wrong time.
Handle
June 11, 2014 at 1:17 PM
Well..the difference between a legal immigrant and an illegal border jumper is huge. I don’t know the political motivation to why the Libs would want to allow these people to remain here, I think it’s the bleeding heart liberals that are swaying the issue; they don’t think about the consequences or the fundalmental issue of fairness to people who are going about it the legal way. Wrt immigration, I believe conservatives have a solid position to stand on by appealing the very idea of fairness. If we give illegals citizenship, it will mean our laws mean nothing when it comes to immigration and we would have rewarded the border jumpers, cayote underground that funnel these people into America. There are Billions who suffer more than Central Americans from starvation in Syria, Asia and Political dysfunction and corruption inhabit every second and third world country, they just don’t happen to share a porous border with America to allow people to flood in.
The morally right thing to do is to help dysfunctional nation state, our money goes further and helps more of their citizen. Giving amesty to Illegals is not only short sighted, but morally incompatible with the rules of fairness as well the the law. If America did not have reserve currency status, we would have felt the economic cost of this illegal population a long time ago, If we let this group of people in, we must also allow economic migrants from Asia, Middle east, Africa and Europe here as well, why should the poor of Latin America get access while others in just as dire a state, just as hard working; but without a land border to the US not be allowed in as well.
Immigration is one of the few issues where the facts, law, and moral weight is on the Conservative side. They should put the issue front and center in their platform. But so few are able to articulate the argument in a succinct way and make the Liberals eat their own words.
For Every Mexican or Central American here, I can point to countless others in Asia, Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe going through the same sing or worst with their economy, corruption, threat to life, and just as Hardworking, and probably much more entrepreneurial in every regard. If they show a illegal child, show them malnourished in Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, Syrians, Balkan (hit by flooding) that doesn’t even make the news. Latin America is relatively well off compared to other places on Earth. It is insane that the conservatives cannot use these facts and highlight this issue front and center.
I think that the stupid fact of America is that, the more you breed, the more political power you have. The libs will always argue for more representation for those “underrepresented” groups. Where is the sanity, planning and intelligence?
L
June 11, 2014 at 1:22 PM
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2014/06/do-you-want-to-ask-how-cantor-went.html
…There’s a blog post at the Wall Street Journal by Reid J. Epstein titled “David Brat’s Writings: Hitler’s Rise ‘Could All Happen Again,'” that begins ominously:
David Brat, the Virginia Republican who shocked House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) Tuesday, wrote in 2011 that Hitler’s rise “could all happen again, quite easily.”
Mr. Brat’s remarks, in a 2011 issue of Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, came three years before he defeated the only Jewish Republican in Congress.
One might read that and feel that it means that Brat is a fan of Hilter’s and that anti-Semitism made him run against Cantor.
Rifleman
June 11, 2014 at 2:21 PM
It’s interesting to see that Brat seems like he supports abortion and gay marriage. Good for him. If the GOP shifts in this direction while opposing immigration, I just might start voting again.
Robert
June 11, 2014 at 5:33 PM
If he restricts his support of abortion to blacks and mexicans, then that’s good, but there’s nothing good about sodomite gayrriage.
sciences with lisps
June 12, 2014 at 9:06 AM
According to Politico (http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/eric-cantor-poll-immigration-lose-107704.html#ixzz34KbQQFVu) Cantor did not lose because of immigration. The article says that 70% of registered Republican voters support immigration reform and 27% opposed it. Now registered Republicans are a very different group of people than those who bother to vote in a primary election. It is quite possible that more than 50% of the Republicans that actually voted in this primary election are opposed to immigration reform.
Cantor has said some things like “immigration reform would be possible this year if Democrats would work with us on a bill.” Translation of that statement into normal English: “no way immigration reform is happening this year, but we are going to blame that on lack of Democratic cooperation.”
The fact remains Republicans depend on big money from big business and wealthy big business owners. Big business is in favor of immigration reform. The Tea Party, which is largely indistinguishable from the Republican grass roots base, is opposed to immigration reform.
Republican party leaders are caught in the middle.
mikeca
June 11, 2014 at 2:50 PM
Sailer recently had a blog about these polls, generally. One issue is that meaning of “immigration reform” is ambiguous to many people: is it amnesty or is it actual border enforcement and mass deportations?
Pollsters can achieve their desired results by framing the questions a certain way.
This poll appears to have used one of the proposed hybrids, stating (approximately) that immigration reform consisted of policy to secure the borders, block employers from hiring those here illegally, and allow undocumented residents without criminal backgrounds to gain legal status.
That last clause probably flew under a lot of people’s radar, particularly if the poll was performed over the telephone. That’s a lot to parse and it is probably read aloud in monotone and very quickly.
Also ‘legal status’ is ambiguous– is it citizenship or what? Would something like DWI or misdemeanor theft constitute a ‘criminal background’?
anon
June 11, 2014 at 4:24 PM
The poll could have been misleading, but the hardcore opposition to immigration reform is a minority position even in the Republican party. It is the activist base that shows up for primary elections that are opposed to it. Pols like Cantor who have national ambitions know the opposition is hurting the Republican party image with minorities and making it harder to win national elections.
Cantor may have lost more because of general dissatisfaction with the Republican house leadership among the grass roots base than with his position on any issue.
mikeca
June 11, 2014 at 5:41 PM
How can Republican Party leaders not realize that immigration benefits Democrats? That whatever short-term benefit business gets is short-lived anyway?
No, Republicans are comprised, either through bribes or some other tool. Time to clean house.
map
June 11, 2014 at 5:01 PM
I wish you’d get my name right. And I’m also famous for saying that I love stupid people. I said that in an interview with 60 Minutes. Can’t remember if it was Ed Bradley or the other gay guy.
James Carville
June 11, 2014 at 3:57 PM
I am no Republican, and certainly not a Tea Partier, but watching a sleazy powerful DC pol lose a sure thing election to a guy whose top campaign contributor was an autobody shop gives you a little bit of hope that things can change.
My favorite Brat quote: “All the investment banks in the New York and D.C.—those guys should have gone to jail. Instead of going to jail, they went on Eric’s rolodex, and they are sending him big checks.”
If Republicans want to actually start winning again, they need to start outflanking the Dems like this on economic populism. It doesn’t even require tax hikes, just point out that the system is rigged at various points, and direct the outrage accordingly.
Some Guy
June 11, 2014 at 5:47 PM
they need to start outflanking the Dems like this on economic populism. It doesn’t even require tax hikes, just point out that the system is rigged at various points
So basically a defanged and completely impotent brand of economic populism?
RBG
June 12, 2014 at 2:59 AM
Pretty much, until you elect enough such representatives (probably never happen), but it is a sure-fire winner with the people.
CamelCaseRob
June 12, 2014 at 1:40 PM
Regarding the recent school shooting in an Oregonian school:
The perpetrator is too good looking to be a beta male.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/oregon-police-say-school-shooter-was-15-year-old-freshman-n128671
He probably had other motivations, a personal vendetta is most likely (non-women issues).
He did killed a beta male!
JS
June 11, 2014 at 5:49 PM
Cantor’s loss had nothing to do with his support for amnesty — everyone says so:
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-06-11.html
CamelCaseRob
June 11, 2014 at 7:31 PM
…but platitudes repeated so often that everyone in the mainstream media probably believes them.
main stream media people has internalized the values which were required for them to have their positions. they aren’t faking it.
no conspiracy theories are required. most people will change themselves for status/preferment whether or not they should, because for most people right and wrong are whatever their group or betters say is right and wrong.
jorge videla
June 11, 2014 at 7:36 PM
Dr Borjas, a labor economist from Harvard, released a report titled Immigration and the American Worker. His report showed no economic benefit to America from immigration. Rather, the economic growth resulting from immigration is consumed by the immigrants themselves.
Moreover, the increase in labor supply reduces wages. So immigration is basically a wealth transfer of $400 BILLION per year from employees to corporations. This isn’t just about illegals, either. Even middle class professionals are harmed by immigration. They just don’t realize it because the HR department doesn’t stamp “you didn’t get a raise because of H!B workers” on their paychecks. The reason Google. Microsoft and Facebook are pushing immigration so hard is because the immigration reform bill DOUBLES the number of guest workers. Unless you’re a CEO or a billionaire then part of that $400 Billion comes from your paycheck whether you realize it or not. That’s why Big Business has spent ~1.5 Trillion lobbying for immigration over the last 5 years.
More recently, a report from the Heritage Foundation titled The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer shows that amnesty will cost taxpayers $6.3 TRILLION in new entitlements and social programs. Now, bear in mind that the national debt is already over $16 Trillion and increasing by more than a Trillion per year. Amnesty will increase the national debt by more than a third. That, my friends, is the definition of unsustainable.
Immigration reform is a huge value transference scheme from workers and taxpayers to CEO’s and investors.
destructure
June 11, 2014 at 7:39 PM
chomsky:
“And he said there’s also a process of socialization by which — particularly in the elite educational system — you sort of internalize values, as he put it: you learn that there are certain things that it just wouldn’t do to say. That’s part of a good education. And he said the effect of this is… To lead [Orwell] to the conclusion that ideas are silenced. The outcome is often not very different from a brutal totalitarian state of the kind that he was describing.”
“They can’t come to you, the words can’t come to you. So, I don’t think Elaine Sciolino is lying, it’s just that the conception of the state working to increase profits for wealthy Americans is inconceivable. You can’t think that thought. If it’s ever expressed, you have to designate it “unthinkable,” with scare words like “conspiracy theory.” And that’s the process of “good education.” People who don’t internalize those values are weeded out along the way. By the time you get to the top, you’ve internalized them.”
jorge videla
June 11, 2014 at 7:39 PM
Jorge, that’s a very astute point and a great passage from Chomsky. One has to believe the phenomenon you and Chomsky describe is a symptom of acute decadence and decline in the life of a nation.
Ryan_Clark
June 12, 2014 at 12:01 AM
Ryan, Do you really like proles? Picture yourself as an elitist and look at all the overweight and stupid people around you. That’s how wealthy and powerful individuals view the world with their lenses. That’s how the overly educated folks see the world as well.
If people on this blog dislike the Jersey Shore crowd, most certainly the elite and powerful wouldn’t like them either.
JS
June 12, 2014 at 11:28 AM
JS, don’t see what Jersey Shore has to do with it? That’s a completely separate issue, no?
The point is that our policy-making classes have become unable to effectively govern and even to live in reality as a result of the culture of smug stagnation that exists at the elite institutions of which they are products(namely, the Ivies). You should check out Bloomberg’s Harvard commencement speech. It’s outstanding – surprisingly real-talk – and he does a better job of explaining this phenomenon than I’m able to here.
Ryan_Clark
June 12, 2014 at 12:21 PM
Ryan, The elites live in their own world and more often than not, they scorn the lower classes because they come off as crude and beyond irreparable. No doubt becoming an elitist means you’re condescending, intolerant and secluded from the common folk because that’s how they feel about us – or better yet, that’s how many commentators here feel about NAMs and/or Proles.
The Bloomberg commencement speech is a family squabble between the elites, as Bloomberg himself is a liberal elitist who was criticizing his fellow elitists, for being out of line. At the end of the day, it’s a family gathering of good spirits, and any disagreement – we’ll try to be nice to each other next time.
JS
June 12, 2014 at 1:40 PM
that’s right.
if the wrong sort have such and such opinions, those opinions are wrong. the elite in america are very class conscious. morality for them is class.
and i don’t blame them. racism does seem like very bad taste considering how disgusting most whites are.
there’s no feeling worse than finding out you have bad taste.
but america is a new world country. it was doomed from the start.
jorge videla
June 12, 2014 at 6:48 PM
then income inequality at a certain point in a heterogeneous society is self-reinforcing.
us —> brazil.
jorge videla
June 12, 2014 at 7:18 PM
and i don’t blame them. racism does seem like very bad taste considering how disgusting most whites are.
America is a prole state for a 1st world nation. Full of pushy and rude – prolish brutes of all stripes and walks of life.
Yes, it’s probably the most racist as well. Spain is just slightly more racist than America, but it’s short ascendancy to a modern state with very little multiculturalism, should put the Estados Unidos (USA) to shame, given its long legacy of importing immigrants from all over the world.
JS
June 13, 2014 at 3:26 PM
I agree. Good point. Good citation.
Curle
June 12, 2014 at 9:40 AM
“The spin by the mainstream media is that Eric Cantor was done in my some malevolent “extremist” force known as the “Tea Party.””
I don’t know if you read the Ann Coulter piece on this. But she mentions two points that caught my eye. First, that the two biggest Tea Party groups (freedom works and tea party express) are running around taking credit for beating Cantor and using this to raise their profile. And, second, that those two Tea Party groups are also backing “immigration reform” aka amnesty. So it looks like the two biggest tea party groups have been bought off and co-oped by the same special interest who own the GOP establishment. The money always wins.
destructure
June 12, 2014 at 6:29 AM
BUT WE’RE A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS!!!!!!
sciences with lisps
June 12, 2014 at 9:03 AM
from europe.
jorge videla
June 12, 2014 at 7:21 PM
And so is Mexico?
L
June 12, 2014 at 9:18 PM
of latin american countries only argentina, costa rica, and uruguay are “nations of immigrants”.
in the rest, indigenes or former slaves (involuntary immigrants?) are the majority of ancestry.
jorge videla
June 13, 2014 at 7:06 PM
But the MSM has caught up with Lotb wrt the labor market. Bloomberg says it’s getting too expensive for low skilled people to work: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-10/not-just-discouraged-dot-also-needs-a-cheaper-babysitter
aki (@DSGNTD_PLYR)
June 12, 2014 at 11:48 AM
“This is a question the mainstream media just ignores, or only answers with platitudes such as “immigrants create jobs and businesses,” platitudes with no basis in common sense or evidence, but platitudes repeated so often that everyone in the mainstream media probably believes them.” – LION
Lawrence Kudlow for example:
“And as an economist, in fact a free-market economist, Mr. Brat surely knows that immigration reform will not lower wages and eliminate jobs for native Americans. Other immigration opponents routinely use this argument. But it is false. It is unproven.” – Kudlow (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/380158/david-brat-right-free-market-economics-larry-kudlow)
I note how he say’s it’s both false and unproven. As if it’s the responsibility of people who aren’t for open borders to *prove* there’s a good reason to be against it. Which, even if they could, he just said it was false. What more do you need? Impeccable logic.
I think earlier in the article he referred to the Dream act or whatever as helping *some* illegal immigrant children. No numbers. As in millions. No consideration of incentives, which as a wannabe economist he should presumably understand….
He also did some hand wringing over the Republicans alienating legal immigrants with their law and order bs.
If Kudlow is mainstream Republican, what is one to do? I’d never vote for his candidate.
If Brat is as controversial as the MSM claims, it sounds good to me. Let him be the rock the party crashes and sinks on.
ModernReader
June 12, 2014 at 9:59 PM
Spot on LotB! Again, clear, concise, accurate, and to the point.
E. Rekshun
June 13, 2014 at 1:24 PM