Bush et al v. The People

I have made the point in previous posts (here and here) that much of the political establishment--from President Bush on down--tried to ram through a bill containing provisions that seemed politically suicidal. And this is a point that I can't seem to let go of. What type of model can explain such "irrational" behavior on the part of politicians?

The reason I'm interested is because I think this is part of a larger trend that one notices by looking at the making of immigration policy over the past few decades. Although I can't prove this empirically, I've certainly gotten the impression that almost every time that Congress addressed the immigration situation in the past 20 or 30 years, the outcome was usually one that liberalized immigration even though this is not what "the people" seemed to want. How can such a situation persist for such a long time in such a competitive political system?

Here's Rasmussen's take on the seismic events of last week (emphasis added):

Scott Rasmussen’s first law of politics is that America’s politicians aren’t nearly as important as they think they are. That law was clearly demonstrated...when the United States Senate finally surrendered to the American people on immigration. Politicians may make things messy for a while, but over the long haul it is the American people who determine the nation’s fundamental policies.

The final Rasmussen Reports national telephone poll before the vote found that just 22% of Americans supported the legislation. No amount of Presidential persuasion, Senate logrolling, and procedural tricks was able to overcome that solid bi-partisan lack of public support (although it’s breathtaking to consider how close a determined leadership could come to passing such an unpopular bill).

The real mystery in all of this is why the Senators and their cheerleaders didn’t anticipate the public response. Perhaps they fell in love with their own rhetoric and forgot how it might sound to others.

So what exactly is going on? Why are politicians so enamored of deeply unpopular programs that grant amnesty and introduce a guest worker program even though their constituents mainly want action that secure the borders? Are there any other "big" issues where politicians are so out-of-sync with "We The People"?

I have heard the argument that trade liberalization policies follow this same pattern--the establishment wants them and the people don't. But are Americans as opposed to trade as they are to illegal immigration? I can't think of a debacle in the trade debate as significant as the one that happened last week on immigration.

And apart from immigration and trade, it may be hard to come up with many other important policies where the political, media, and academic establishment want one thing and the vast majority of the people want something else.

Hence a question: What is it about globalization that tends to tickle the "enlightened" elite and turn off the rest of the people?

(And, please, let's try to come up with answers that do not involve calling everyone who resists the "forces of globalization" a yahoo, or a racist, or a bigot).

Comments

[T]

My two cents:

"Hence a question: What is it about globalization that tends to tickle the "enlightened" elite and turn off the rest of the people?"

I think part of it is the sense of importance. And it’s not like they’re suffering the consequences of globalization. They can be elite in one country or they can be elite in a whole world. Globalization lets them be economically, morally (“we’re so nice to the poor of the world by letting them come here”), and socially (they get to hobnob with elites from other countries who share the same attitudes and beliefs as they do but can count as “exotic”) superior. An acquaintance of mine loves talking about her concern for the poor to tout her moral superiority, yet she thinks it unfair she can’t buy a house in a town she wants to live in for only two years and not make a profit in that short time (she thinks the house should appreciate fast enough so she can make money). She doesn’t want to rent, and when pointed out that houses appreciating at 10%+ a year hurts the poor, she doesn’t really care since she would personally have to give up something she wants to do (even if it is minor). And she loves talking about her friends from other countries: “my friend is the daughter of a diplomat from X. I have Palestinian friends who say Y”, (I think Palestinian friends get you extra bonus points in some circles), “I’ve dated guys from A, B, C”. She represents the whole economic, social, and hypocritically moral spectrum of these types.

Everyone else a) does some community service, goes to church, or morally postures mainly to friends, not the whole damn world, b) doesn’t always see the economic benefits of globalization (and often pays the costs from the importation of a slave class), and c) doesn’t care where their friends are from, particularly if the exotics aren’t the English speaking daughters of diplomats but rather the house full of male construction workers making crude comments in a foreign language as their daughters walk down the street.

Another reason for the love of globalization is the whole desire for a “grand theory”, at least among academics, and the idea that some great plan will solve everything. It’s just weird talking with some of them about the EU and watching how giddy they get over it (read Ulrich Beck). It’s the promised utopia, really, just like some were with communism, and those are both sorts of globalizations, in my view.

I think those politicians who voted for cloture (for the bill) were used to not being held accountable for what they voted for that they believed if they just told people “this bill is tough on enforcement” that would be enough and the peasants are too ignorant to know otherwise. I’m sure they do that for corporate interests all the time, so why should this be different? I think they’re delusional, in part, but I think there is a certain ruthless rationality to their votes.

And I think this is too hopeful from Rasmussen, though I hope he is right:

"Politicians may make things messy for a while, but over the long haul it is the American people who determine the nation’s fundamental policies."

[Dennis Mangan]

The elite correctly want liberalization of trade and globalization because they know that free trade is the cornerstone of modern prosperity. "The rest of the people" are not all that economically literate. On the other hand, while the elite scheme for mass immigration because they're delusional about its consequences for the U.S., the average native-born American can see that citizenship confers an advantage on him not unlike belonging to a trade union, i.e. if you live in this country, high wages are yours practically by birthright. No one in his right mind would want to dilute his shares, to use another metaphor, in the most productive and powerful corporation in the world, viz., the U.S. The elite are like corporate executives who want to make power-expanding but value-destroying acquisitions, which the shareholders rightly resist.

[Robert Hume]

Perhaps Robert Putnam's recent study showing that diversity breeds anomie is relevant.

www.blackwell-synergy.com
/doi/full/10.1111
/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x?cookieSet=1

I've noticed that in museums and classical concerts and Smithsonian lectures, book stores, libraries, whites overwhelmingly predominate.

So the elite whites suffer little diversity and hence don't feel the anomie which afflicts those who must come in contact with diversity; especially through the impact on their children on public schools.

Hence they see little problem in immigration which increases diversity,and feel good about helping foreigners become immigrants. (It helps foreigners, not citizens.)

[jimbino]

I'm an American about to retire. Why can't I just trade my over-valued Amerikan Citizenship with someone from a country cheaper to retire in and a hell of a lot more fun, like Brazil?

[jimbino]

I'm an American about to retire. Why can't I just trade my over-valued Amerikan Citizenship with someone from a country cheaper to retire in and a hell of a lot more fun, like Brazil?

[jimbino]

I'm an American about to retire. Why can't I just trade my over-valued Amerikan Citizenship with someone from a country cheaper to retire in and a hell of a lot more fun, like Brazil?

[BRM]

A very obvious point that other commenters perhaps found too obvious to mention - lots of unskilled immigration pushes up returns to capital and post graduate level education skills, and these are the primary assets of the elites who try to set the agenda in the two political parties. In other words it's also a 'pocket book' issue for elites.

Among the democrats there is the added incentive of creating a whole new set of clients for the welfare state, whose bureaucracy is another prime democrat constituency. The new immigrant welfare clientele is also likely to be a much more reliably pro-democrat voting block than the unreliable old white-ethnic working class, which has some unpleasant 'reagan democrat' tendencies and which occasionally wanders off the reservation to vote for the other side. "The working class has lost the confidence of the elites; it is time to select another working class".

More puzzling is Bush's obsession with open borders, which makes little electoral sense for the republicans, at least over the next 25-30 years (after which hispanics might also start going reagan-democrat). Maybe it's just the combined pressure of big-business (who probably don't employ too many illegals themselves, but who want to offer open borders as a quid pro quo for gaining more market access for themselves abroad), and from small business, who provide the bulk of illegal jobs and who would now face serious dislocation and adjustment costs if they have to do without cheap illegal labor. (Never mind that after the adjustment the country might get onto a more beneficial long-run capital and skill intensive growth path). Maybe elite class interest (narrowly conceived) just overrides winning elections. Bush also wants to forge some minimal success for his 'legacy', and seems willing to toss the republicans in congress to the wolf if that's what it takes. Evidently the congressional republicans don't agree.

[dissent]

I think elites have the contacts and resources to leapfrog from the local to the global. They are in some sense citizens of the world. They see expanding opportunities overseas, and want to make a buck. The altruistic among them (a minority, of course) want the poor overseas to make a [buck]. But there sense of the common good in their own country has atrophied and the less-elite rightly sense that as a threat to their own welfare.

[D Flinchum]

It has been my experience that the elites have enough money, power, or connections that they can insulate themselves from the down side of massive immigration, especially the illegal kind, but can also partake of the angles that enhance their life styles, such as cheaper pool boys, land-scapers, house-cleaners and nannies. Diane Feinstein and Ted Kennedy don't have to worry about single-family houses with 25+ third-world construction workers popping up across the street from where they live. The (grand)kids don't have to attend schools that have been rendered largely ineffective because of ESL and special ed. They live in isolated or gated communities and the kids go to private school. They don't show up at an emergecy room with a real emergency and wait hours while dozens of illegal aliens with rountine health problems get ushered through.

Most elites don't have to worry about somebody flooding the market with third-world heads of the editorial page of WaPo, executive directors of think tanks, and, for that matter, US senators the way that slaughterhouse workers and janitors in the 70' & 80's, and construction workers from the 90's on saw their job prospects go from bad to worse as a result of massive immigration, largely illegal. They can rely more upon contacts and networks to avoid serious conpetition, both for them and their offspring. For example, does anyone really believe that Chelsea Clinton would have gotten a 6-figure salary straight out of college if her parents hadn't been Bill & Hillery? Are you surprised that the top universities are full of the elites' children? Affirmative action doesn't slow THEM down.

Check out the CIS article below. It is an excellent essay on the degree to which our "betters" hold us in complete contempt and will continue to do so as long as we let them.

Immigration and Usurpation: Elites, Power, and the People’s Will
by Fredo Arias-King
July 2006
http://www.cis.org/articles/2006/back706.html

[PAL]

Prof Borjas could visit with any of his peers in the political science department. The notion that the "majority" isn't all that important in American politics has been understood there for at least 100 years.

"Elites" with money, personal connections, or specialized knowledge (yes, that includes professors) have more clout than the average person.

Any small group that is organized and focused has more power than a larger, but less intense, group. Trade is the poster child for this principle. Eliminating sugar tariffs would benefit most Americans a little and hurt a very few a lot. So tariffs move the votes and contributions of the few, but not of the many.

Maybe Proj Borjas is really asking "Which elites support amnesty and why?" and "Which non-elites are particulary focused on this issue, and why?"

[Another Commenter]

Other policies where the elite want one thing and the people are generally opposed are affirmative action and gerrymandering.

[Another Commenter]

And pay raises for politicians!

[citycrimes]

I don't think there's anything very surprising about the fact that senators like to think they're fighting a moral crusade. The illegal alien represents the genuine American dream, which, as Bush says, makes all of us better and regenerates the American spirit. When Kennedy says "I thank you for your soul," I think he's falling into the "numinous negro" fallacy, and the same goes for Bush when he talks about illegal immigrants regenerating the American spirit.

[Matt Parrott (Wikitopian)]

Our political, intellectual, and media elites are becoming more international and more acclimated to living in gated communities where immigrants nurse them, raise them, and clean up after them. Their greater loyalty to those above and below the White American middle class is a direct result of their complete alienation from said class.

Issues like Affirmative Action, public school desegregation, and immigration are all matters where America's elites have a sincere emotional investment in betraying the White American middle class that they're grudgingly accountable to.

The only way that we will be able to exercise our will, despite being the majority, will be through direct ballot referendums, angry grassroots campaigns against obviously seditious legislation, and eventually a revolution of some sort.

[citycrimes]

Maybe the process goes like this:

1. First, posit the moral goodness of the oppressed class. In this case, the Mexican with his "soul" and "heart." Actual experience with Magical Mexicans not necessary.

2. Appoint yourself the Rogin Hood or hero of this oppressed class. Congratulate yourself for your far-sightedness. Sons of the political elite like Kennedy and Bush are particularly susceptible to this pose.

3. Attack opponents as bigots. The self-congratulation consequent on stage 2 makes you peculiarly immune to arguments based on mere self-interest. "They just don't get it."

4. Cash check from industrial pig farm lobby.

[Tom Shuford]

Superb comments!

I would add a few details about how the media elite --- which after all create the informational/ideological environment for the social/political transformations they seek --- operate:

Opening the Door to Better Immigration Stories [excerpts]
A Pulitzer winning team talks about how to go beyond political correctness.
Poynteronline
Posted, Oct. 12, 2004
By Mary Sanchez
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_print.asp?id=72344&custom=

TWO-TIME PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING JOURNALIST DONALD L. BARLETT (TIME magazine): "I began (reporting) in 1956 and never have I seen a more badly covered subject, and there is no question it is a political correctness issue. I find that offensive as a reporter."

PARTNER JAMES B. STEELE: "This is not just a victimless crime as people like to portray illegal immigration . . . But to tell that story would run headlong into community groups in that arena and a general reluctance to take on a controversial story."

IMMIGRANTS-AS-VICTIMS STORIES PREDOMINATE: “They found many stories that show the immigrant as the victim: the dangers they face in crossing the desert, exploitive workplaces where they toil, and articles about anti-immigrant efforts. Both Barlett and Steele said those were all legitimate stories. But they argue the other side of the story should be told as well.

STEELE: NO ONE WANTS TO REPORT THE NEGATIVES: "Almost nobody has written a story like we have written. What people write about are the hardships."

WHY DO REPORTERS DODGE THE MINUSES? WEAK EDITORS: Barlett: the hesitancy can be laid at the feet of editors unwilling to take on a controversial subject: "Editors are pandering, absolutely pandering."

==

Economist Robert J. Samuelson:

“...group-think is a powerful force in journalism. Immigration is considered noble. People who critically examine its value or worry about its social effects are considered small-minded, stupid or bigoted. The result is selective journalism that reflects poorly on our craft and detracts from democratic dialogue.” ("Immigration Bill's Hidden Impact," Washington Post Writers' Group, May 31)

Op-ed and reporting leads on immigration you will NOT see in the mainstream media [from an Escondido, CA, grandmother]:

[1] ...the shy little very blond very anglo mono-English-speaking little boy who is the minority in his first grade classroom. His needs fell through a crack, as the needs of mono-Spanish-speaking students took the teacher’s attention and time. He didn’t learn to read that year or the next. Not ’till his parents moved away from Paramount to Norco and his classmates were all mono-English-speakers… and of course several years with a reading tutor. But he never quite recovered academically from that rocky start.

[2] the three-day delay in getting “emergency” dialysis for my comotose daughter and learning later that several people had died while waiting for that same type of “emergency” care.

[3] What about the family disruption when some must move out of state to find employment or to get their kids away from the chaos in many of our schools? How do you draw a picture of the loss that my Mother and I have — as well as our grandchildren — when we can no longer have easy contact with our family members? Nothing like being fussed-over by Grandma when a child is recovering from an illness — these are the kinds of memories that my children have and often talk about, but that my grandchildren can’t have because they are in another state, and I am here. Well, heck …. there are dozens of other stories that I can tell …. and so can others … but they will not make their way into the standard heart-tugging style book used by most in the media.

The fact is that for every sweet-faced child of illegal parents who must suffer the consequences of their illegal entry, there are many more sweet-faced children who must also suffer because our nation has not enforced our immigration laws.

[AgingITGuy]

"Group think" is often powerful among the elite, and it was even more pronounced in this case because they believed they were on higher moral ground.

I saw a stunning quote from Senator Feinstein the other day -- she said she had been monitoring the polls "closely" and that most Americans supported the bill. Huh? I suspect her staff fed her the information that supported the 'group' position rather than the whole picture.

This 'out of touch' leadership problem is also increasing at the state and local level. Most often it is due to special interests, particularly public employee unions.

[T]

I suspect Feinstein knew damn good and well the majority did not support the bill. Whether she intentionally deluded herself or not, she knew she couldn't very well say publicly that she knew the public didn't support it but she didn't care.

[d.a. king]

It is not possible to be a nationalist and a globalist...Bush and the elite have chosen a side. It isn't Ben Franklin's republic...and it is not nationalism.

We have delayed and can stop the open borders that they strive for as Americans...WE are America.

[D Flinchum]

Those "polls" that Feinstein followed so "closely" were push polls that were designed to produce the answer that the open-borders crowd who commissioned them wanted. They mainly asked whether you preferred (1) a path to citizenship or (2) massive dragnets followed by deportation. If you preferred to have the law enforced, the jobs magnet closed down, and the illegal aliens leave largely on their own over time, there was no column for that. When a third option - attrition through enforcement - was offered, it usually won a plurality and combined with the deportation total, a majority.

Those polls were not commissioned to persuade Feinstein to support amnesty. She needed no encouragement. They were commissioned to show people like me how out of step with our fellow citizens we were. We weren't xenophobic racists so why were we associating ourselves with "those people"? (I have actually had people ask me that.)

As it happens, we were right in step with our fellow citizens, who also aren't xenophobic racists. The level of dishonesty in the open-borders crowd was spectacular.

[Anton Nilsen]

It is a very interesting question that prof. Borjas poses here. Here in Europe we have the same situation: The politicians are pushing multiculturalism down peoples throats, even though all the polls shows that most people are against it. So far they have been able to do it without being punished by the voters, because all the leading political parties have been for immigration.

There are a number of conspiracy theories that tries to explain this peculiar behaviour of the politicians. My favoured theory is the Eurabia theory: After the oil shock in 1971 the European politicians accepted immigration from Arabic countries in exchange of oil.

This does not explain the situation in the U.S., however.