Here's an important point to keep in mind from Ryan Lizza's New Yorker article on the return of nativist thought to the Grand Old Party:
In several election contests in the past two years, Republicans tried and failed to deploy immigration as a campaign weapon. This November, Republicans in Virginia and New York who ran on the issue were defeated. Not even Eliot Spitzer's misbegotten plan to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, which was thought to be ruinous for Democrats, has damaged the Democratic party; rather, the party increased its numbers in local races around the state.
I'm relieved by this because I thought I might have to go all postmodern (who wants that) and talk about how "fear of the other" can lead to extremist politics and yada, yada, yada, Nazis rule the earth.
