What is behind Democrats’ moves to give noncitizens the vote?
It is now law in New York, which is held in a vise-grip by the Left, that 800,000 noncitizens may participate in decision-making in America’s biggest city to the same extent as Americans.
Mayor Eric Adams, with a lightning-fast bait-and-switch after less than two weeks in office, abandoned the opposition he expressed during his election campaign and let stand the City Council decision that outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio waived through in December.
New York is leading the charge, but deep-blue states such as Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, and elsewhere are also galloping in the same direction.
Why?
The argument in favor, as Sarah Westwood
reported
in the Washington Examiner on Tuesday, is that although the incentives of noncitizens may diverge from those of Americans in federal elections, from which a 1996 law excludes them, there is supposedly no reason that should be the case at the state and local level.
This is surely untrue on its face. Take school board elections. It seems likely that non-Americans from countries with a resentful relationship toward the United States would prefer board members who dictate that children be taught a bleaker and less forgiving view of this nation than its citizens would.
To this, I can already hear the retort that immigrants give proof by coming to this country that they favor America. To which the answer is that people who come predominantly for economic opportunity often do not shed their political, ideological, or cultural antipathies once they arrive. It is a cardinal tenet of the Left that they should not do so and should, rather, retain those differences and avoid assimilation in a melting pot. That is why we have such a Balkanized nation and nothing resembling a common culture.
These particulars stem from a more fundamental and dangerous article of left-wing faith. When Democrats give voting rights to noncitizens, their meta-message, not just relating to immediate circumstances, is that being American is not very important. It is not a big deal. Being an American is certainly not a matter for pride. It’s an implicit but clear repudiation of patriotism and unity.
Across a spectrum of issues, the Left and the Democratic Party consistently hold opinions and adopt policies that derogate being an American. It is at the root of their desire to divide people into groups so they don’t identify themselves simply as united Americans, but rather as Asian Americans, African Americans, Arab Americans, etc.
This belief is 180 degrees the reverse of the one expressed by the late Sen. John McCain in his farewell letter to the nation, when he wrote, “‘Fellow Americans’ — that association has meant more to me than any other.” To the Left and to many of those who wish to give noncitizens the vote, being an American at best confers no badge of honor, at worst besmirches the wearer with an ugly stain.
Far-left liberals commonly and reflexively name America only ironically or mockingly, often in a red-state accent, as “‘murica.” They won’t name the country of which they are citizens unironically. They want to avoid associating themselves with anything so unsophisticated as an expression of patriotism.
At the extremes,
they burn
the American flag and
chant
that “America never was great.” But the kernel of disbelief in America is not confined to a radical fringe. Even in the left-wing establishment in the corridors of power — Democrats control both the executive and the legislative branches of the federal government — the same antipathy prevails, expressed with less open sneering and at a lower volume.
This antipathy is responsible for the chaos at the U.S. border with Mexico, where President Joe Biden is facilitating a record-breaking flood of illegal immigrants. American citizens,
by large margins
, disapprove of the administration green-lighting illegal immigration, but to the Left and (sotto voce) to most elected Democratic officials, Americans’ opinions don’t matter except insofar as they might produce electoral defeat. “Deplorables” are to be anathematized, not listened to.
Giving votes to recent arrivals (with no more than 30 days residence, in the case of New York) declares that one need have no genuine attachment to this country to decide how it is governed. It is a move, deliberate by some and vapidly reflexive by others, to reduce the respect, admiration, and honor due to those who have the simple but great privilege of being American.
