The Democratic Party, already at a disadvantage after seven
years of an often unpopular Obama administration in
Washington, DC, seems on the verge of making a bad political
situation even worse as many liberals are mocking the majority
of Americans who are resisting the incursion of 10,000
potentially unsatisafactorally vetted refugees from the
Middle East.
It’s still early in the 2016 national/presidential elections, but
Mr. Obama’s evasion of widespread public opinion that this
sudden and carelessly managed influx represents a national
security danger, threat and risk could be a game changer that
not only defaults the election of a new president, but also
could bring about the hitherto unlikely result of Republicans
enlarging their majorities in the U.S. house and senate.
Many Democrats, it should be fairly noted, oppose this
incursion, but few have yet dared to oppose President Obama
publicly. Democratic solidarity, also to be fair, has worked often
in the recent past, especially while Republicans have indulged in
a visible and often nasty party civil war over various issues. But
nothing in politics lasts forever, and past solidarity to cover
internal dissension has, I think, reached its limit with this issue.
Half the nation’s governors, all of them Republicans except one
(Governor Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, who is running
against incumbent GOP Senator Kelly Ayotte next year), have
declared they will not accept these refugees. They reflect
overwhelming public opinion in their states. Before the week is
over, more state governors will join this declaration.
This is not inherently a partisan issue, but the Democrats are
unilaterally making it one, at unnecessary cost to themselves.
The three remaining Democratic candidates for president,
including frontrunner Hillary Clinton, are asserting that there is
no security threat from an uncontrolled and suddenly massive
incursion of refugees. Since the terrorists usually choose New
York City, Washington, DC, Chicago, San Francisco and Los
Angeles as their favorite targets, how will that be understood by
the large majority of Democrats who vote in those cities?
Whoever is the Democratic nominee next year, can they win
even a single state advocating unvetted, massive immigration
of refugees who would be concentrated in large urban centers?
No reasonable person should be indifferent to the plight of
legitimate refugees anywhere. But where is it indelibly proven
that the only solution to their suffering is sudden and mass
emigration from their native lands? Would it not be a better
solution to remove the cause of their becoming refugees? Or if
some immigration is a good solution, should it not at least be
carefully managed and vetted?
The frail body of the European Union, already beset by economic,
ethnic and religious tensions, has clearly overstepped its
political compact on the refugee issue. Regimes will now fall.
Borders will be sealed. Nationalism will reappear as a majority
force.
In the U.S., the consequences are yet unknown, but with a national
election imminent, this mystery will become solved soon enough.
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Copyright (c) 2015 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.
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