Michael Sean Winters should go into PR:
Democrats should start by running a series of ads with prominent immigrants from popular culture. Swing voters are probably not impressed by Bill Richardson, the Hispanic governor of New Mexico. They are impressed by Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals. Pujols is from the Dominican Republic, he is a perennial all-star, and he is a born-again Christian. The spot would begin with him reading from the Book of Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 34: "The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." Pujols could then put down the Bible, look into the camera, and say, "I believe Americans are a God-fearing people, but these Minutemen seem to have forgotten their Bibles."
The Hebrew and Christian scriptures are filled with such texts. I picture Yankees star Alex Rodriguez, who is Dominican American, reading the story of the Good Samaritan. Or Colombian-born singer Shakira reciting the twenty-fifth chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew: "For I was hungry and you gave me to eat, thirsty and you gave me to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. ... Whatever you have done for these the least of my brethren, you have done for me."
Another ad could feature famous immigrants in front of the statue of the real Minuteman at Lexington, reciting the Declaration of Independence; the spot would draw an implicit, but powerful, contrast with the vigilante Minutemen. Yet another could take place in front of the Statue of Liberty. While it is true that there has always been a regressive anti-immigrant gene in the American DNA, the dominant theme of our history is about immigrants becoming patriots. Liberals should not be afraid to insist that it is their position on immigration that is the truly patriotic one.
It may be cruel, but the way to resoundingly win the immigration debate is to make it a referendum on immigrants. Not to reenter last year's trite debates on framing, but this will either be framed as a question of laws or a question of people. For xenophobes conservatives, the imperative is to draw a bright line between industrious, legal immigrants and industrious, criminal interlopers. For liberals, the trick is demonstrating, in a clear and visceral fashion, that there is nothing intrinsically different about Shakira, or A-Rod, or Carlos Santana, and that polite guy Jorge who makes your breakfast burrito and lives in an overcrowded hovel in order to ensure his kids a better life.
When progressivism is at its best, it creates a politics of individual uplift, centered around people and their stories. When conservatism is at its worst, it acts exactly in reverse, overriding the humanity of individuals to demonize and define them by one, single attribute, be it sexuality, race, or otherwise. But I believe, particularly in the context of immigration, that the progressive appeal is far stronger, far more powerful, and unless Republicans can blur it out of existence by making this a bloodless debate about laws and a terrorizing question of borders, progressives will win, because this truly is a question of people. And happily for me, there are signs that Democrats will be rock-ribbed in their refusal to let the right reframe.
