- Posted by Christopher Estep on March 6, 2008
I'm not referring to the whole Clinton-Obama war. I'm talking about something that is more fundamental to the Democratic party and how they operate.
Conservatives tend to coalesce around ideas, issues, and policies. It is from there that we form our agenda. Liberals coalesce around "groups" with little regard to specific policies. It is the policy desires within those groups that drive their agenda.
For example, Democrats court and are supported by unions. They aren't policy-driven but are a constituency. Also, Democrats are heavily courting Hispanics, another constituency.
What happens when the policy desires of the two groups oppose each other? More importantly, when will they realize that they do?
Unions, are...well...pro-union. They believe that there is strength in numbers and unify around that belief. Unions very strongly object to companies hiring non-union workers, even where the employees have rejected unions.
Hispanics tend to be pro-illegal-immigration. I'm not trying to paint with too broad a brush but rather that it is my observation that the supporters of illegal-immigration tend to be disproportionately Hispanic. In other words, there aren't too many Hispanics that I've seen that oppose amnesty or are in favor of deporting illegals.
My question (for which I don't have an answer) is what happens when the unions realize that the party they support exclusively also supports cheap, unverifiable, non-union labor?
Illegals already work for less than is legally allowed in order to have work. Do the unions really think that these same people would join unions if they were legal? Heck no! They'll continue to take work wherever they can find it and that means even more non-union shops.
There's going to be a conflict in the next few years with unions and pro-illegal alien supporters on opposite sides and it's going to get ugly.