My Fellow Republicans, We Need to (Finally) Have This Talk

Dear Fellow Republicans,

This is not something I want to do. I’ve hinted about this for years, but my pleas have fallen on deaf ears. This is not something pleasant to discuss, but it is long overdue. I am not doing this because I feel pressure to please ‘the other side’, it is because my faith has convicted me to speak out, and when you feel the Holy Spirit leading you, this message will reach the people it needs to reach.

For too long, we have allowed a darkness to linger in our party. During the early Bush (43) years, we ignored it. In fact, most of our party leaders tacitly confronted it. Fueled by a growing evangelical movement that was less partisan and more racially diverse, there was a movement in the Republican Party to build upon the gains made in previous elections with minority communities, especially the Latino community. George W Bush rode this momentum to two terms by capturing Hispanic-heavy states like Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Florida, and Nevada. Then something changed, and it opened the door to something that spread like wildfire and has a chokehold on us at this hour. 

It started with several protests that lead to the defeat of Bush’s comprehensive immigration reform. Anxiety about border security was stoked daily by national talk radio hosts and personalities like Sean Hannity and Mark Levin. A so-called conservative uprising, fueled by resentment to millions of people who were here illegally, seized control of the party and set the table for something far, far worse. Opportunistic political candidates leaped at the chance to further stoke this anger for electoral success.

Dan Patrick was a provocative state Senator from the Houston area. He owned a talk radio station, and he had a talk show on the channel. Perhaps the most infamous event his show is remembered for is getting a vasectomy on his live show. In 2014, he challenged the sitting Lieutenant Governor, David Dewhurst, and two other statewide elected officials in the GOP primary. His candidacy, fueled by Tea Party-affiliated groups like Empower Texas, was built upon one slogan, “Stop the Invasion!” He ran ads of people with darker skin climbing over a fence to further stoke the smoldering embers, and by the time the TXGOP convention came around, he was received like a rock star, completely overshadowing every other speaker. 

One year later, another media personality with his own show used the same template and rode it to the GOP nomination and the White House. He took the foundation that Dan Patrick and others had laid and built a national campaign that convinced rural people in midwestern states that illegal immigrants were crossing the border to rape and destroy our country. Now, most Americans believe we need competent border security. In the post-9/11 world, our national security is not negotiable. This does not mean we need to scapegoat groups of people. 

Originally, the consensus argument was, “We support legal immigration, not illegal immigration.” Never mind the intermixing of the terms ‘illegal immigration’ with ‘immigration’, this was the party line used to deflect claims of xenophobia or racism. Then over time, there was a backlash against legal immigration as well. When deciding on what kinds of immigrants we should prioritize (skilled, unskilled, college-educated, etc.), the same people oppose any changes or increases because immigrants would drive down wages. Basically, we are ok with people coming here legally, but we are going to put up every roadblock to prevent you from coming here. Last October, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) released a survey that measured American attitudes towards immigration. Some of their findings are startling, though not surprising.  They found that “74 percent of Republicans think immigrants are a burden, while only 35 percent of Democrats do.” The generational divide on this point is also significant, with 62 percent of seniors believing immigrants are a burden, but only 32 percent of young Americans. As the Republican party sheds young professionals and college-educated voters to market to older White working-class voters, these attitudes are solidified in the party’s structure. 

In the last 15 years, I’ve had a front-row seat watching the progression (or regression) of the party from a suburban, middle-class party with an interest in Hispanic voters to an older rural, working-class party who openly questions if the person speaking Spanish at the booth in the coffee shop in town is here legally. The reality is the racial and xenophobic anxieties were always there. Party leaders like the Bush family, John McCain, and many others did a good job at diffusing these impulses, or at worse, muzzling them. With the rising influence of social media, these anxieties have been fed by talk show hosts like Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, and Lou Dobbs. When you combine it with daily Twitter diatribes from the President, you have a nearly unbreakable support system.

Now I realize that many of you have stopped reading out of anger, and some have created new profanities, and most believe I am a gutless RINO sellout. I also owe you an apology. When I saw these cancerous symptoms a decade ago, I did not actively confront it. I would mention it bothered me on a Facebook post, but at political events, I normally walked away instead of pushing back. I let my political ambitions trump what I knew was wrong. I would defend the party against outsider attacks because while my team has its faults, it is still MY TEAM. I knew one day this intervention would have to happen, and the tragedy that took place at the Walmart in El Paso was the final straw.

The terrorist responsible is a 21-year-old man from a middle-class Dallas-Fort Worth suburb that is best known for having the most expensive high school football stadium in the country, and it is the home of Kyler Murray, the 1st pick in the NFL Draft this year. This person drove 600 miles to a majority-Hispanic city because he wanted to ‘Stop the Invasion’. From what has been discovered from his social media activity, he was inspired by the terrorist that executed 9 people at the church in South Carolina, and he was a passionate believer in the anti-immigration rhetoric used by our president. No, I do not believe the President is liable for the shooting, but it needs to be a wakeup call. A mentally disturbed racist using identical language of one of the most powerful political figures in the state, killed fellow Americans because he was blinded by hateful rhetoric that is used interchangeably by many political activists and elected officials. 

In the youth group room at my childhood church, there are walls painted by students as an expression of what it means to be a Christian. On the wall behind where my youth pastor would preach is a school of fish pointing one direction, with one fish facing the other way. Sometimes, you must buck peer pressure because your peers want you to go along with something you know is wrong. Right now, this could be that moment, and I accept that.  

I will leave you with this. Ask yourself this one question. Is an illegal immigrant a human being? I am not asking what you think needs to be done to solve this complex issue. This is a simple yes or no question. If you asked this question on your social media account, will your friends and allies be able to answer this simple, basic question? If your answer is ‘yes, but…’ or anything other than a simple ‘yes’, you have successfully dehumanized a group of people. If you call yourself a person of faith and fail this simple test, you need to ask yourself what idol you are actually worshipping. The world and this country needs a vibrant, healthy Republican Party. We cannot treat or ignore the symptoms any longer. We must treat the disease instead. I am under no illusion that the treatment will be tough, and the immediate side effects will not be pleasant, but we can choose to take our medicine and start the recovery or let the disease kill us. The choice is yours.

Your loyal friend,

Luke