Karl Rove’s vision of America

Karl Rove made a highly objectionable statement revealing where the Bushites are really coming from on the immigration issue. To them America should be a land of Third-World peasants (the immigrants) and Third-World grandees (us). Mark Krikorian, normally a mild mannered fellow, uses some strong language about it.

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Stephen T. writes:

“I don’t want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas.”

Perhaps the most odious, elitist statement to come recently from a political hack. If this isn’t the definition of a “Country Club Republican,” I don’t know what is. As a 17-year old I did many jobs on the level of picking tomatoes or making beds. And who knows but I may have to someday do those jobs again. If so, so be it. The amazing news to Karl Rove (who obviously knows nothing about this kind of work himself) would surely be this: It didn’t kill me.

It might kill the flabby, pampered, silver-spoon spawn of the likes of Rove and the Bush family to do the kind of labor that keeps this country running (and did so long before the Mestizos arrived.) But for many Americans, its all in a day’s work. I’m guessing Karl Rove doesn’t know many of those Americans.

Mark A. writes:

Great comment by Stephen T. Rove’s statement, “I don’t want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas,” is horribly condescending to large portions of American society. Is this all that defines us now? How much money we make? Does this character of our country and its citizens matter any more? And this is from so-called “conservatives.”

Ingemar P. writes:

So America is replacing its traditional work ethic with one that imports various peoples while the native elites sit back, sound important and make stupid laws.

(off the record: Though a Liberal may say that America’s work ethic has always been one that involved Krool and Hartless treatment of Blacks, Chinese, Mexicans, etc.) Somehow I think America is slowly becoming Saudi Arabia, to say nothing of our President’s and liberals’ uncritical embrace of Islam.

Stephen T. continues:

One more comment about Rove’s statement. It may be hard for me to put—I’m not a psychologist—but I believe very strongly that it is this total estrangement from (and, thus, horror of) the common labor of the common man which ultimately leads rich Republicans like Bush and Rove to swoon over the imagined superiority of Mestizo Mexicans, whom they see doing so much of that work. If either Bush or Rove had ever actually done the kind of labor that I and millions of other Americans have, they would have less horror of it—and also would not rhapsodize over it, either. They would know that such jobs do not endow the workers with the sort of heroic status that Bush attaches to Mexicans, but are mainly just tiring and tedious, requiring a strong back and a mind either easily occupied or capable of reverie and contemplation of deeper matters. Of course, since Bush, Rove, et al have never done that kind of labor themselves, they would have no way of knowing this. Thus, the overblown (and guilt-relieving) romanticizations that Bush spouts about the labor of Mexicans—and the fate-worse-than-death horror that Rove has about any of his kids ever doing those jobs. There’s nothing inherently morally superior—nor wrenchingly abominable—about digging ditches or picking crops all day. Illegal aliens from Mexico are not in some way ennobled, superior beings because they are doing it, nor would it kill young Master Rove if he ever had to.

LA replies:

Excellent observations. I think Stephen has uncovered a previously unseen dimension of the strange compulsions that drive the open-borderites to betray and destroy America.

Joseph C. writes:

Karl Rove’s comment reminded me of something I wrote to you last May, concerning what I believe is the real division in the Republican party.

The big division in the GOP is between economic conservatives and social conservatives. Simply put, the economic viceroys like Bush and Rove, who run the GOP, view the social conservatives the way they view Third World immigrants—to wit, as a bunch of low class, ignorant slobs that are an embarrassment to the party and best not discussed in polite company. Still, they need the base and are happy to let the base do “the jobs they don’t want to do”—meaning, grass roots activism, fighting Democrats on their own terms, dragging people to the polls, and providing the work that keeps them safe and smug in power. But they never want them to be a part of the party, and are happy if they remain a docile bunch of voters willing to be exploited every election when they trot out the Democratic demon doll.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 10, 2007 08:56 AM | Send