Way back in the 0's, when George W Bush was president, there was serious talk of working out some kind of immigration reform deal in congress, until congressional Republicans, faced with anger from their voters, backed down. After Barack Obama won reelection in 2012, for a brief time the Republican party started once again to consider passing some kind of immigration reform, with Sean Hannity of all people, saying it needed to be done. Sadly, it was once again shot down by anger from conservative voters. who saw any kind of reform as amnesty for "illegals", forgetting, of course, that conservative icon Ronald Reagan did that exact thing for over a million undocumented immigrants when he was president. The general consensus from the party at the time was that if they had nothing to offer the growing Hispanic population of the country, they would never win the White House again. Sadly, we all know how this turned out, with Donald Trump openly courting the anti-immigrant vote in 2016 and, with a combination of luck and Russian interference, somehow winning the presidency. Not only did he win, he single handedly changed the Republican party from a party that appealed to mostly white voters through dog whistled racial statements (supporting states rights and opposing Welfare queens), to one that openly defended the brazenly racist statements of their party leader. The change in members of the party has been depressing: during the campaign, House Speaker Paul Ryan called Donald Trump's vile comments about a Mexican American judge not being able to fairly rule on a case involving Trump as "the textbook definition of racism." Once Trump was president, Ryan would describe his leadership as "elegant"(!). Meanwhile, Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted in 2016 that “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it”, even going so far as to say in one interview that Trump is "... a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot." He is now one of the president's biggest defenders in congress.
Which leads us to the president's recent tweets in which he specifically called out four new Democratic members of the House of Representatives, all women of color, saying, among other things, "Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came?" . Not only is this factually wrong (of the four women, three were born in the US), it's also openly bigoted and offensive. The terrible trope of telling non white people to go back where they came from is one that racists have wielded for years; the fact that it is now coming from the president makes it so much more offensive. In the face of these horrible tweets, the Democrats in the House voted to officially (if only symbolically) condemn his tweets, the Republican party reacted with....silence. While four Republicans in the house voted with the Democrats, one hundred and eighty seven did not. And, somewhat inevitably, Senator Graham defended the president on Fox News by attacking the four congresswomen again, calling them Communists (yes, Communists!).
As for the president, he is predictably refusing to back down while somehow stating that he doesn't have a racist bone in his body. Trump has now so completely taken over his party (according to Vice magazine, his approval ratings in the Republican party went up after the tweets!) that he could host a cross burning on the White House lawn without losing their support. But, even if he somehow manages to win reelection in 2020, Trump won't be president forever, and the stench of hateful bigotry that he has attached to his chosen party may not wear off quickly. Remember that back in the 90's Republican Governor of California Pete Wilson ran a reelection campaign that demonized undocumented immigrants much like Trump's, and while he won that election, the Republican party was so linked to him that they now have almost completely faded as a political force in that state. While national elections are obviously different, the demographic changes the country is going through can't be avoided or gerrymandered by the Republican party forever. Someday they will have to pay for having attached themselves to Trump's hateful ways. I just hope it happens soon.
