Democrats take note: It is "liberal" to want the laws enforced.

Democrats can be the "law enforcement" party.  It doesn't "move us to the center."  It moves us to the left.

Democrats are at a crossroad.  They need to understand that the way to victory is to be their  true selves.  But they may not understand who they really are.

I experienced an email exchange with a college classmate that opened my eyes to a problem with Democratic progressives.   Political tribalism and defense of groups "on our team", groups traditionally oppressed by white male majorities, have cause progressives to conflate "law enforcement" with prejudice.   I had written, "I posit that Democrats (and centrist parties in Europe) need to get in  front of the unease over immigration and accept that something as good as immigration needs controls, limits, and affirmative policies of assimilation."  Referring to this blog, I added "Yesterday and today I wrote about how Democrats can have an ethical, consistent, pro-immigration position that re-connects them with the American public.  It is an aggressive call for legality, control, accountability, and good citizenship."

We were political, progressive, activist, and young.

A classmate read this, quoted it verbatim, and then said "To become more emphatically anti-immigration would not win over (or back) any strongly anti-immigration voters and would undermine the Democrats' strengths across the board, among groups affiliated with immigrants and with classical liberals.  Peter, your overall approach is "move to the center" to win back white males."

This exchange reveals a problem for progressives, an imbedded assumption that enforcement was per se "anti-immigration" even when it was expressed as a pro-immigration method for legitimizing and regulating immigration.  And it imbedded an assumption that recognizing and validating the reality of points of friction in immigration was a "move to the center", a pointless exercise.

Democrats are at a complicated intersection, attempting to figure out from which direction to create a cohesive alternative to Trump.  Some people want to push to the left, others to push to the center.  Should Democrats be more like Sanders and Ralph Nader, or more pragmatic like Chuck Schumer?  If Democrats define enforcing laws as "moving to the center" and the opposite of "moving left" then they are making a grave mistake, both ideologically and politically. 

Democrats need to recognize that they should be comfortable in their true identity: the party of law enforcement.    Immigration enforcement is not inherently racist, xenophobic, or cruel.  Indeed, it was established to make immigration possible, better, safer, and more fair to everyone.  There is a huge message in the fact that Hillary lost a third of the Hispanic vote even though Trump openly insulted Hispanics as a group.  Those Hispanic voters were here legally and they were citizens.  Immigration scofflaws not only jumped in line in front of patient people playing by the rules they create a large underground economy of people working under the table, not paying taxes, people employable without the bother of paperwork on Workers Compensation, Unemployment, wages and hours laws, etc.  

Those laws of worker protection were not created by conservatives.  They were the achievements of progressive Democrats.  By turning a blind eye to immigration fraud Democrats are undermining themselves.   By extension, turning a blind eye to labor violations undermines Democratic credibility when defending environmental regulations, workplace discrimination regulations, banking regulations.

Democrats are the party of laws for the public good.  It is Republican crowds who stand and cheer the elimination of the EPA and its rules against dumping coal sludge into rivers. 

Republicans are eliminating those pesky rules

 Why has the left defined immigration enforcement as "conservative?"  Some of it is anti-Trump reflex and some of it is progressive tribalism.  Progressives want Hispanic voters "on our team" so they defend the person, not the law.  Progressives observe the institutional racism and prejudice against blacks so they reflexively support blacks against aggressive policing, especially by white policemen.  And there are, indeed, widespread examples--some on videotape--of discriminatory policing.  The solution to the problem of bad, discriminatory policing is careful attention to the laws, not lawbreaking.   Policemen who exercise prejudiced or brutal tactics are breaking the law.  Sometimes they get away with it because they, too, are scofflaws, and are sometimes abetted by their own tribe: the tribe of blue uniforms.

Bottom line: Democrats and progressives--and their historic agenda--are far more likely to be protected by careful enforcement of the law than they are by ignoring the laws.  The great oppression of the white south against blacks in the 20th century was made possible by white scofflaws.  Most of the Trump battle against "excessive regulation" is to relax the protections of the law.   Obeying the law should be a progressive virtue.  

It will feel strange to Democrats to think that way.  Yes, there are incidents of bad policing.  But when it is observed people look to the law to call it out, investigate, and punish the illegal policing.  Scofflaw behavior is the tactic of traditional, customary majority oppression.   The bright light of attention to the law for more often protects the vulnerable.  

Meanwhile, Thad Guyer once again looks at events in the US from his vantage point in Vietnam.  He defines "moving to the left" not as I do above--celebrating law enforcement--but as a move to economic and cultural liberalism--McGovern and Mondale--as a response to electoral defeat.  He observes that it is what Democrats do and that it is a political disaster for them.  

Guest Comment by Thad Guyer:

“Democrats Likely to Rage to the Left in 2020”

Here’s what history shows us is likely to happen in 2020 with Democrats challenging Trump’s second term. We get angry after presidential election losses, then usually rage to the left and get smashed. Upset that Hubert Humphrey was defeated by Nixon in 1968, Democrats went way left and ran George McGovern against Nixon’s second term. McGovern was annihilated “in one of the largest electoral landslides in U.S. history”. (See, Wik, https://goo.gl/NdNCXX). When Reagan unseated Jimmy Carter in 1980, Democrats went ballistic and again moved further left with Walter Mondale, who won only his home state. (See Wiki, https://goo.gl/kyiLjr). Outraged that George Bush stole the 2000 election from Al Gore, Democrats put up a perceived New England elitist John Kerry, ending in a defeat of 31 to 19 states. (See, Wiki https://goo.gl/tZq9ZR).

The one time in the last 50 years when Democrats succeeded in knocking out a Republican president seeking a second term was when we settled on “pragmatist” contender who alienated much of our angry left base. That was Bill Clinton unseating the first President Bush after we rejected ultra-left Jerry Brown, aka “Governor Moonbeam”. (See, Wiki, https://goo.gl/aA9SQw).

I can’t remember a time when Democrats have been so angry and enraged as they are now. Yet, we labor under an empirically unsupported belief that angry Democrats get “energized”, that mean-spirited protests and campus riots demonstrate grass roots resolve, that if we just “get back to the basics” of our most liberal ideologies the American electorate will embrace it. Thus, last week our new DNC Chair Tom Perez announced in stern tones a new “purity” test that henceforth every Democratic candidate from small town mayors up must be pro-choice or they’re out. Pro-choice, of course, is central to our party platform. But because we accept that pro-life people can also be “good Democrat voters”, like many Catholics and Hispanics, we’ve not made it a litmus test. Yet suddenly our DNC chair has called into question the eligibility of “anti-abortion Democrats in the party, including Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards and Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Manchin of West Virginia”. (See Huffington Post, “Democratic Party Draws A Line In The Sand On Abortion Rights”, https://goo.gl/y5EjMT). Perez ironically flip-flopped to this purity test after being skewered by pro-choice advocates for supporting a pro-life Democratic mayoral candidate-- the day before.

Perez has found he likes anger, and went on a profanity-laced rampage. Trump’s “a goddam liar” our DNC chair thundered to a big audience. The Republican leadership “doesn’t give a shit about people”, he shouted, followed by their “shitty budget” is hurting health care. (See Youtube, https://youtu.be/MaL3NVc6SMI).

Rick Millward’s recent blog describes the anger process from “shock” to “acceptance”, and why rage is counterproductive: “Accepting responsibility for our own complacency is empowering, as it opens the possibility of making a change that will endure.” (See, Millward, “Good Grief”, https://goo.gl/wJ7GNW). If there ever was “complacency” in an election it was 2016 and Clinton’s sure thing win. Hopefully, Democrats will work through the anger, but many in our base may prefer the DNC’s Chair’s profanity, served up with flailing arms madman style. Many might think its high time for all kinds of purity tests, if not leftist ninjas smashing windows, burning things, and forming human shields to keep conservatives from speaking. But electoral history tells us the likely outcome unless we get pragmatic.