Election 2008: What’s At Stake?

At a 2006 campaign event in Columbia, South Carolina, then-GOP presidential contender Rep. Tom Tancredo joined the members of the League of the South or a chorus of “Dixie.” These members of the neo-confederate organization considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center had come decked out in full confederate regalia to hear one of America’s leading anti-immigrant crusaders. They elided the South’s history of black oppression with the current battle over illegal immigration.

Another organization born out of Southern white supremacy also adopted the anti-immigration cause in California earlier that year. James Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, ran as the American Independent Party nominee for congress in a special election for a San Diego, California congressional seat. The American Independent Party was founded in 1967 to allow Alabama Governor George Wallace—a leading segregationist—to compete for California’s electoral college votes in his independent bid for the White House. The Party’s website proudly drew a direct line between Wallace’s and Gilchrist’s causes.

This evolution of white supremacist groups into anti-immigration groups continues in 2008. Indeed, a recent story in The New Republic even suggests it may be surpassing the historic hatred of African Americans. Michael Crowley reports that anxiety about the possibility that America could elect its first black president, Barack Obama, has been muted compared to the vitriol directed at John McCain for his support of immigration reform. (This story was published before the blow-up over Obama’s relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, which may have reinvigorated anti-black vituperation.)

This may just be an interesting quirk of history—hate groups don’t have a tremendous political reach these days. They could, however, have a marginal impact in states like Louisiana and Mississippi, both of which have competitive congressional elections in which immigration play a role. But it’s worth keeping an eye on the “Obama-is-a-muslim” rumor, which transmogrifies racial anxieties into xenophobia. This may be the mainstream incarnation of the fears upon which hate groups prey.