By Professor Kevin MacDonald. VDARE.com’s Patrick Cleburne has a nice article on Sheldon Adelson (“Has Romney Sold Immigration Policy To Sheldon Adelson?“), the billionaire who has emerged as the largest single donor in the current presidential campaign, promising up to $100 million for the Republicans. After supporting Gingrich in the primaries, Adelson has thrown his considerable weight behind Romney. We all know what that money buys: fealty to Israel. Throughout the campaign, Romney and Gingrich competed on who would be more slavish to Israel; Gingrich must have seemed slightly more reliable to Adelson, but Adelson must have been impressed with Romney as well.
There is no question about Adelson’s support for the most racialist and nationalist elements in Israel. Adelson owns an Israeli newspaper that supports PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard right Likud government. And there can be little question of where his loyalties lie. He has stated that he wishes he would have served in the Israeli military rather than in the US Army, and that he wants his son to grow up to “be a sniper for the IDF.”
All we care about is being good Zionists, being good citizens of Israel, because even though I am not Israeli born, Israel is in my heart. … All we care about is being good Zionists, being good citizens of Israel, because even though I am not Israeli born, Israel is in my heart,” he said toward the end of his talk.
I was surprised to read that Senator John McCain, referring explicitly to Adelson, complained that foreign money is entering the US presidential election race. This seemed too good to be true, and it was. It turns out that he was only making the point that a lot of Adelson’s money comes from his casino operations in Macau. What McCain should have been saying loud and clear is that Adelson is for all practical purposes a citizen of Israel with no demonstrated loyalty to the US and that he should not be allowed to influence the US political process.
But he won’t.
Cleburne’s suggestion that Adelson’s money also buys immigration policy is interesting as well. I am not sure he needs to buy it, except on the issue of illegal immigration—a big issue, but certainly not the heart of the matter. During the primary campaigns, Romney had to fend off charges by Gingrich that he was anti-immigrant.
Romney says that the charge that he is anti-immigrant is “repulsive,” and points out that his father was born in Mexico. He then expresses his support for expanded legal immigration. Romney loves immigrants as long as they’re legal. … Despite the fact that immigrants of all stripes will vote Democrat and, along with the rest of the non-White coalition, make the Republicans irrelevant in the very near future. …
So the two Republicans supposedly trying to appeal to the angry White base of the Party by showing how conservative they are (just what are they conserving?) end up competing over who is more pro-immigration—not to mention their equally insane competition on who is more pro-Israel. (Newt is Sheldon Adelson’s boy, but Romney has actually gotten far more money from Jews than Gingrich; both have surrounded themselves with neocon foreign policy hawks eager to attack Iran). (See here.)
Nevertheless, it’s frustratingly difficult to find what Adelson thinks about immigration policy although, as Cleburne points out, Adelson as a casino-hotel operator in Nevada is a beneficiary of low-wage labor. Further information provided by commenters would be much appreciated.
But it’s not difficult to make an educated guess. The fact that Romney had already gotten a great deal of support from wealthy Jews is a sure sign that they see him as safe on immigration. Jews have a long record of supporting liberal social issues within the Republican Party, and in at least one area, gay marriage, Jewish Republicans seem at least as interested in social issues as they are in Israel. As John Graham pointed out (“New York Gay Marriage: Follow the Jewish Money”), wealthy Republican Jews have pushed gay marriage (here’s a recent example involving New York Hedge fund operator, Paul Singer (“SuperDonor backs Romney—and Gay Marriage“).
So don’t expect much from Romney on immigration. He wouldn’t be where he is if his liberal Jewish donors believed that he would be seriously anti-immigration.
