Craziest Republican of the Day: Tom Tancredo

By Michael J.W. Stickings

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Most of the GOP presidential hopefuls participated in a debate on Spanish-language Univision on Sunday. They were tough on immigration even in front of a largely Hispanic audience, but, at the Times reported, some of them "took a softer tone," all part of "a difficult balancing act," a walk along a treacherous tightrope, "as they tried to offend neither the Hispanic audience nor the Republican base many of them have tried to appeal to by taking a hard line on illegal immigration."

In other words -- the generally immigration-friendly John McCain and the sometimes decent Mike Huckabee excepted -- they had the smarts explicitly to lie about their positions on immigration and implicitly to renounce the strong nativist impulse that dominates their party. (And also dominates this Republican field. As Frank Rich reminded us in his Sunday column, at the recent GOP YouTube debate, Romney and Giuliani "vied to spray the most spittle at illegal immigrants. Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado, the fringe candidate whose most recent ads accuse the invading hordes of 'pushing drugs, raping kids, destroying lives,' accurately accused his opponents of trying to 'out-Tancredo Tancredo.'")

This is the strong nativist impulse that resides with a vengeance in the person of Rep. Tom Tancredo, the long-shot GOP hopeful who refused to attend the debate. Why? Well, he himself explained why in The Miami Herald -- in an op-ed entitled "Why I won't do Spanish debate": "I declined the invitation to participate in the Spanish-language Republican presidential debate on Sunday because I do not want to endorse the further Balkanization of American political life."

Balkanization? It's hard to see how people speaking different languages -- and, clearly, English remains the dominant language; the U.S. is not officially a bilingual country, not even close -- causes a liberal democracy like the U.S. to resemble the ethnically and religiously volatile Balkans.

Toronto, where I live, is one of the most diverse cities in the world. English is by far the major language, but many languages are spoken throughout the city. And yet we are hardly Balkanized, each linguistic group hiding behind its linguistic ramparts and refusing to commune with any other. I would argue that English ought to be the language of government, as well as the main language of commerce and the arts, but the reality is that as a relatively open society we have many "new" Canadians from around the world for whom English is not their first language. They may be learning English, but they converse in their native tongue(s).

The reality of the U.S. is that millions and millions of Americans are similarly "new" to the country. It would be for their benefit to learn English, and to learn it well, but why should they not speak, say, Spanish or Chinese at home or in their communities? Newcomers to America are required, more or less, to adopt certain core American values as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, but they are not required to renounced their native values or their native language(s).

And is that not what this debate was about? Putting aside the content of the debate, Republican views with which I strongly disagree, was it not an attempt to reach out to the Spanish-language/Hispanic community, to speak to them in their language (through translation), to include more Americans in the political process than would otherwise be included?

These are the realities of today's America. English is still the main language. It is not under assault. There is no threat -- and there is certainly no Balkanization. But there are many other languages being spoken. And Spanish is the major alternative to English.

Nativists like Tancredo, who represent a significant chunk of the Republican Party, cannot and will not accept this. They are, however, more honest than the politically savvy candidates who moderate their views on immigration to appeal to a Spanish-speaking audience even as they continue to appeal to nativist sentiment in the party's base.

Tancredo is crazy, and dangerous, and a bigot, but perhaps, just perhaps, he is more Republican than the shifty glad-handers who smiled it up on Univision this past Sunday.