Remember the newcomers ...

Jay Caspian Kang, a very thoughtful New York Times opinion writer, included the following paragraphs in an announcement that he is ending his subscriber-only newsletter. It brought me up short; he catches something I knew, but seldom see articulated in political commentary.

Almost all of today’s politics, whether the actual policies enacted by local, state and federal government or the intensely polarized culture wars, come out of four events. The first three — the 2008 financial crash, the 2016 election of Donald Trump and the near-decade-long Black Lives Matter movement, which culminated in the mass George Floyd protests in 2020 — shouldn’t be particularly controversial or novel. 

But the fourth — the 1965 Immigration Act — being a bit older and obscure, does not get discussed all that much outside of xenophobic right-wing media figures like Tucker Carlson, who called it “the worst attack on our democracy in 160 years.” Carlson’s fixation on this moment is not unwarranted: The multiethnic country we live in today would not be possible without the 1965 Immigration Act, which opened up the country to millions of people from all over the world, including my parents, who moved to the United States in the late 1970s.

My emphasis. Being a Californian whose life in politics has been deeply enmeshed in the stresses and strains of demographic transition, I know this is true in my bones. But Kang is right -- for comfortable-class white people, especially on the East Coast which still sets the media narrative, the breadth and implications of our multiethnic evolution seems something of a sideshow. I'm with Kang. How we shape the exciting but difficult community we have made is the central arena of struggle.

Which brings me to Joe Biden's pro-democracy barn burner of a speech yesterday at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The President came out swinging and I'm delighted with nuggets such as these, cribbed from Heather Cox Richardson's summary.

"Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic."


"There’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. And that is a threat to this country."
 

"MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election, and they’re working right now as I speak in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself."
 

"MAGA forces...promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country."

You go, Joe! This country needs a brave leader speaking harsh truths. We may very well need a Lincoln whose political savvy and vision combined to hold a divided country together in another moment of crisis. At terrible cost.

Yet I also understand why, in some parts of this country, a speech like Biden's doesn't break through. I fear he's not speaking some of the aspirational vision that is most important to the new citizens whose lives are a consequence of the 1965 Immigration Act.

Here's how I attempted to explain this at Dan Pfeiffer's Message Box this morning:

Watching this from Nevada -- I thought this a terrific speech. He said what needed to be said. 

And, working in a massive voter turnout out operation in Nevada, I'm aware he's largely inaudible here. It's not just the media; it's cultural. (Addendum: the Republican challenger to Nevada's Democratic governor thinks the way to win is to put up pictures of Gov. Sisolak with Biden.)  

Biden simply doesn't read as a leader in this western, heavily Latino, state. He doesn't resonate culturally in the West -- and he probably doesn't understand the West. The tropes he appeals to are foreign to this state. Not that folks don't want democracy and honest government, but the messages need to be a little different. On the coast -- CA, OR, WA -- this doesn't matter as Democratic-led government has, at present, established itself as a "good thing." But the Southwest is different territory, needing to build new visions of freedom. 

We're a sprawling country. But at least Joe believes in us.

Independence Hall and the promise of the rule of law aren't enough. People desperately want to be told that their government respects them and that it honors the sacrifices they are willing to live for their children. They want to believe in the fairness of the system -- and too often they can't. Yes, they want to believe no one is going to take away their votes, but they want to hear other themes even more.

And they don't want anyone interfering with their bodies or their families. A polling insight that I keep returning to:

About 81% of Latino voters in Nevada believe abortion should remain legal, no matter what their own personal beliefs on abortion are.