You’ll read today about how House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his Republican primary election. The Christian Science Monitor is calling it one of the most shocking upsets in American Congressional election history.
The media will pore through the rubble and blame turnout, Cantor’s prickly personality, or any number of issues. But the one thing they won’t talk about is his apparent lack of accountability to the people that initially elected him on THE hot-button issue of our time: immigration control.
As reflected by Cantor’s defeat and the recent uprising by minor parties in European elections on anti-immigration platforms, the people are reminding our elected leaders that they need to reflect their constituents’ desires. And Cantor, like so many other politicians here and in Europe, was not listening to the outrage that is slowly building.
It’s Cantor’s misfortune that he didn’t heed the calls that the people he represented largely do not want immigration “reform,” to encourage the dreams of non-US citizens, and particularly to feed, clothe and house them at a time where our own economy and its citizens struggle.
Instead, they want existing immigration laws enforced, and a clear show by officials that they understand how ignoring the ongoing problems caused by unchecked borders is the equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns.
Military Babysitting
Not helping Cantor’s case for re-election was the recent wave of “children” that are piling up at US military bases, throwing gasoline on a simmering fire of voter outrage.
No one is sure why people from Central America suddenly and recently decided en masse to send children on a perilous walk across Mexico at rates that far exceed previous numbers. It’s an odd situation, one that smacks of manipulation by Central American media, by the pro-immigration lobby, or even by our own government. Something is driving this wave, and malarkey about increased violence in their homelands is a band-aid excuse that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
What that mass migration does do is attempt to play on the old trick of manipulating emotions as a means to an end. After all, no one wants to be perceived as anti-children, even if a lot of those “children” arriving look more like they’re in their late teens or even higher. They come from countries where birth records are as foggy as the Obama certificate whereabouts, making it unclear whether these “children” are who they claim to be, or are merely young adults taking an easier path to entry.
The government’s response to this latest development? More “reforms” are proposed, and efforts are made to reunite recent arrivals with their US relatives of dubious provenance. It’s the equivalent of sticking an umbrella in the lion’s cage of voter outrage.
Cantor himself was a supporter of the “Dream Act,” where non-citizen children brought to this country by migrating parents are granted a path to citizenship. Such support is salt in the wound at the worst time of year for many hard-working Americans — college acceptances are pouring in, and US citizen parents are fretting about how they’re going to pay tuition or get accepted at an institution of choice. It’s not a time where your own cares and concerns are put aside in favor of newcomers.
Cantor won’t be the only politician who’s overthrown in the coming months on the immigration issue. Everything runs in cycles, and the anger displayed in this “shocking” unseating of a major figure is a clear message that it’s time for politicians to stop acting on their own whims and start acting on behalf of constituents. You can bet this shot across the bow will wake up more than a few campaigners.