The truth begins to dawn on Ramesh Ponnuru - who, as I recall, played a prominent role in banishing immigration restrictionists from National Review, way back in the days when it might have made a difference:
"To grasp how powerfully demographic change is reshaping the political landscape try this thought experiment about the 2008 election.
"Start by considering the electorate's six broadest demographic groups - white voters with at least a four-year college degree; white voters without a college degree; African-Americans; Hispanics; Asians; and other minorities.
"Now posit that each of those groups voted for Barack Obama or John McCain in exactly the same porportions as it actually did. Then imagine that each group represented the share of the electorate that it did in 1992. If each of these groups voted as it did in 2008 but constituted the same share of the electorate as in 1992, McCain would have won. Comfortably."
Well, indeed. So I suppose that we can expect Peter Brimelow and Steve Sailer to reappear in the pages of National Review any day now?
Not.
One can be forgiven for being wrong. But not for being right too soon.
Comments (20)
I don't think the electoral prospects of the Republican Party represent a prudent reason to support or oppose such a fundamental policy.
Wouldn't most aborted fetuses probably grown up to be Democratic voters? That doesn't mean we should favor unrestricted abortion.
Posted by JohnMcG | January 13, 2009 8:45 PM
Agreed on both points, JohnMcG - the Republican party, and "movement conservatism," being what they are, today.
Posted by steve burton | January 13, 2009 8:58 PM
Prescience is crimethink.
The point is not that the national fortunes of the GOP constitute a sufficient reason to oppose mass immigration; rather, the point is that the GOP is so world-historically daft, so supine in its thralldom to the narrow corporate interests that attempted to force the base of the party to choke down their dispossession, that it cannot even act in its own narrow self-interest. Well, that, and that the conservative movement was purged so as to facilitate the realization of this folly: conservative thought was to run in the narrow, dry streambeds dictated, not even by the crass electoral interests of the GOP, but by the sort of people who have no allegiances save to their own balance sheets.
Posted by Maximos | January 13, 2009 9:00 PM
THis post is very rich. NR and NRO have had the blindness of Immigration immigration restrictionists in the person of the very head of CIS on there for years.
THe fliritation with Catholic Conservatives with the Tanton groups who have bizaree Green policies (besides wild Catholic Conspiracies) that would make Al Gore Blush is beyond me.
Further the flirtation of with the paleo conservative wing that with such racist groups as the COuncil of COnservative Citizens has been horrible.
NRO in the debate over imigration reform has always been on one extreme side when it mattered. Lets not re write history
Posted by JH | January 13, 2009 9:22 PM
Ramesh Ponnuru - who, as I recall, played a prominent role in banishing immigration restrictionists from National Review, way back in the days when it might have made a difference
As far as I know, Ponnuru's views on immigration haven't changed. He's pretty much always been an immigration restrictionist.
Posted by Blackadder | January 13, 2009 11:24 PM
Posted by Cyrus | January 14, 2009 11:10 AM
I don't think the electoral prospects of the Republican Party represent a prudent reason to support or oppose such a fundamental policy. Wouldn't most aborted fetuses probably grown up to be Democratic voters? That doesn't mean we should favor unrestricted abortion.
A minor quibble, but the presence of a prudent reason does not necessarily override other more important reasons. I don't favor unrestricted abortion because homicide isn't justified by potential destructive political views; but that's not to say that potential destructive political views ought not to be considered at all since there's a limit to how quickly populations can be persuaded or assimilated into a culture that can sustain a healthy society. It's a small reason that doesn't overrule more significant reasons, but a reason nonetheless.
Likewise, "electoral prospects of the Republican Party" understood merely as "my side's points" are not particularly significant. But "electoral prospects of the Republican Party" understood as "the strength of a moderately less unjust/destructive political philosophy's popular support" is important.
Posted by Albert | January 14, 2009 11:15 AM
JH: I am very glad that NRO has kept the (very moderate) restrictionist Mark Krikorian onboard.
Your second, third & fourth paragraphs make little or no sense to me.
Posted by steve burton | January 14, 2009 3:42 PM
Blackadder: Ramesh Ponnuru's views on immigration have slowly drifted in the right direction, but his version of restrictionism is still so wet that it just couldn't get any wetter:
http://www.vdare.com/epstein/071001_ponnuru.htm
And his contempt for those who were there before him seems unabated.
Posted by steve burton | January 14, 2009 3:54 PM
Steve,
I started to read the VDARE article to which you linked, then, upon coming to the second paragraph, I read this:
"Typical of the Establishment Right, Ponnuru’s belated awakening to what Peter Brimelow back in 1995 called 'America’s immigration disaster' does not yet extend to legal immigration."
Given that Mr. Epstein clearly couldn't be bothered to figure out the position of the person he was attacking, I decided it probably wasn't worth reading any further.
Posted by Blackadder | January 14, 2009 4:02 PM
Blackadder: unfortunately, I am so dirt-poor that I cannot possibly afford to sign up for National Review Digital.
Perhaps you could quote Ponnuru's piece for me.
Posted by steve burton | January 14, 2009 4:44 PM
Given that the GOP is generally inept in opposing or rolling back radicalism, when it isn't advancing radicalism itself, oughtn't concerned people try to fight where all the consequential battles have been waged? I mean of course, within the Democratic Party.
Is it better to be a rump faction within a ruling party or a rump party simply?
"If demographic trends continue" is a hypothetical, but if there is accuracy to the projections of Democratic dominance, when should bandwagon-jumping-on be considered?
Posted by Kevin Jones | January 14, 2009 6:20 PM
Steven Sailer, while opposing immigration, is no conservative but a Darwinist. If he was purged from NR, I would not wonder.
Posted by Gian | January 14, 2009 11:36 PM
Gian, NR is much more friendly to than critical of Darwinism so that wouldn't be a reason to exclude Sailer.
Posted by James Drake | January 15, 2009 12:43 AM
Gian: Steve Sailer is, like me, and like John Derbyshire, and like Razib Khan, a Darwinian (or, if you prefer, "Darwinist") conservative - AKA "evol-con."
On the matter of NR "purges," I think Prof. Paul Gottfried is probably the go-to authority; I very much doubt whether "Darwinism," as such, ever signified.
Posted by steve burton | January 15, 2009 4:35 PM
Steve,
Here is a para where Mr Ponnuru gives his policy preferences:
But the piece is not about making the case for those preferences. What he is arguing in the bulk of the article is that one ought not separate illegal from legal immigration --- that they are inextricably linked.
Posted by Bill | January 15, 2009 5:13 PM
Bill: thanks.
The phrase "weak as water" comes to mind. I think that Marcus Epstein pegged him about right.
Posted by steve burton | January 15, 2009 5:37 PM
I remember at a conference someone once jokingly referred to Ponnuru as Ramesh "Last Chance Armada" Ponnuru (referencing Camp of the Saints).
Posted by M.A. Roberts | January 16, 2009 7:56 PM
I'd venture to say that Ponnuru has largely a globalist vision of the world -- as Steve Sailer says: "invade the world - invite the world." Not only has he supported the litany of globalist causes (immigration, free trade, and hyper-interventionism) but he also champions a very universalist rights-laden version of Christianity -- one that did not exist prior to the French Revolution.
If he is coming around on immigration, so much the better, but as Epstein documents above , it seems unlikely.
Posted by M.A. Roberts | January 16, 2009 8:04 PM
M.A.R. - and don't forget: "in hoc to the world."
Posted by steve burton | January 18, 2009 3:46 PM