New York Times Editorial Takes Down 'Restless Nativists'
As Hatewatch , the prevailing post-election wisdom in academic racist and white nationalist circles is that John McCain lost because he was soft on immigration, and that future Republican victories hinge not upon courting non-white and moderate-on-immigration swing voters, as mainstream GOP strategists like Karl Rove argue, but upon vilifying Latino immigrants and fanning the flames of racial tensions in America with renewed gusto.
The New York Times Editorial Board eloquently condemned such regressive thinking in , 鈥淭he Nativists Are Restless.鈥�
鈥淭he relentlessly harsh Republican campaign against immigration has always hidden a streak of racial extremism,鈥� it began. 鈥淣ow after several high-water years, the Republican tide has gone out, leaving exposed the nativism of fringe right-wingers clinging to what they hope will be a wedge issue.鈥�
The editorial was published three days after , a pro-immigration reform advocacy group, put on a press conference for top-tier media outlets, including the New York Times. The press conference [MP3 ] relayed information from Hatewatch鈥檚 of the racist and anti-immigrant extremist views and backgrounds of several panelists who participated in a symposium at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. sponsored by the American Cause, a far-right think tank. The event promoted a new American Cause report making the case that, as the New York Times editorial put it, 鈥溾�nti-immigration absolutism was still the solution for the [Republican] party鈥檚 deep electoral woes, actual voting results notwithstanding.鈥�
Those panelists included American Cause executive director , and ,聽owner of the anti-immigration hate site Vdare.com.
鈥淭he site is worth a visit,鈥� declared the NYT editorial. 鈥淭here you can read鈥usings about racial dilution and the perils facing white people, and gems like this from Mr. Epstein:
鈥楧iversity can be good in moderation 鈥� if what is being brought in is desirable. Most Americans don鈥檛 mind a little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes, or a few Mariachi dancers 鈥� as long a these trends do not overwhelm the dominant culture.鈥�
鈥淚t is easy to mock white-supremacist views as pathetic and to assume that nativism in the age of Obama is on the way out,鈥� the NYT editorial concluded. 鈥淭he country has, of course, made considerable progress since the days of Know-Nothings and the Klan. But racism has a nasty habit of never going away, no matter how much we may want it to, and thus the perpetual need for vigilance.鈥�
We couldn鈥檛 have put it better ourselves.
