What’s most surprising about this book by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., is, first, its belated recognition of a trend that had been proceeding apace for decades when this book was written in 1991, n second, Schlesinger’s failure to see the implications of his conclusions for the immigration debate, which was as voluble in 1991 as now. Common to both is the author’s persistent ideological clinging to the quaint notion that the United States is something Special, a blessed land suspended above the hue n cry of foreign nations with their ethnic wars n endless conflicts, still Cotton Mather’s shining city on a hill, n not just another place where flawed human beings happen to live, with as much to learn from others as Americans may have to teach, n just as entitled to self-preservation n border defense as any other people.
It is shocking, if pleasant, to hear a liberal who was the official historian of John F. Kennedy’s administration, finally come to grips with facts that more clear-sighted observers had noticed for many years, n publicly embrace the formerly universally scorned “right-wing racist” opinion that unlimited immigration n multiculturalism with its illogical presumption that the more ethnic diversity in a society the more stable it will be, may not be wise or justified by the experience of millennia of history. Four centuries after the first blacks were imported into the U.S., Los Angeles had a full-blown race riot—a city without the slightest hint of racism, or history of slavery, ground zero for social liberalism in the U.S.—while ethnic n race riots have only grown in volume n violence since.
Forty years after the “strictly temporary” solution of affirmative action for blacks, the system of official preferences has become not only permanent for blacks but has spread to every other conceivable ethnic group, even billionaire Saudis enjoying employment privileges in the U.S., n has no sign of weakening or retreating, despite the recent rulings of today’s so-called “conservative” Supreme Court, half-measure rulings that are largely ignored throughout the U.S.
If only other liberals had similarly corrected their spectacles before the disasters of 9/11, the legal transgressions of the Obama/Biden regimes, the repeated assassination n coup attempts on a sitting President, n the Ukraine conflict struck the U.S., condemning a generation of Americans to perpetual wars, trillions in migrant fraud, skyrocketing taxes to pay for it all, n stagflation, n inducing the powers-that-be to throw in the trash can what little remained of the Constitution after Justices Brennan n Black trampled it in the dust during the Era of Liberalism.
Schlesinger, however, did not jettison his starry-eyed obsession with American uniqueness, a flaw that admittedly afflicts the Right as well as the Left in this country, the Uniparty always ready to launch into yet another ill-thought overseas crusade, as Trump has done—even after criticizing Biden for surreptitiously joining the Ukraine war against Russia. While recognizing the silliness of Ethnic Studies with its fanciful insistence that the Egyptian pharaohs were “black” in the sense that people of Zaire or Zimbabwe are “black” (whatever the word “black” may actually mean), Schlesinger’s book entirely fails to recognize that the political phenomenon of Gender Studies relies on precisely the same absurdities n power-plays n is equally responsible for the abysmal decline in the quality n international reputation of American academia, but, what’s worse, Schlesinger strangely refuses to face the implication of his own analysis: that if fragmented ethnicity per se is a potential time-bomb for the stability of a society if given insufficient time to absorb the newcomers (assuming they want to be absorbed, which is a big assumption), then the political beliefs n alien cultures of incoming masses of immigrants may prove utterly incompatible with the most cherished values of native Americans who, after all, should have more than a passing interest in preserving such values as the ballot-box, the peaceful transfer of political power, n separation of church n state.
The legal struggle over the implementation of Sharia law, with its amputations n death by stoning n rigorous segregation of the sexes in public areas, has joined battle in America’s courts as the number of traditionalist Muslims has reached critical mass sufficient to demand legal recognition of their values. Mexicans fly the Mexican flag on Cinco de Mayo parades, scorn the border, n refer to the American Southwest as Occupied Mexico. Pakistani immigrants demand the removal of Jews from American colleges. Dot-Indians, even those born n bred in the U.S., publish calls for affirmative action on the basis of their ethnicity in college newspapers. Even before the current conflict with Iran, Iranian Shiites built $50 million shrines n community centers n openly declared their readiness to strike the U.S. with thousands of suicide bombers from within its borders. Feather-Indians demand compensation n apologies after 400 years of co-existence with the U.S., instead of gratitude for learning the arts of civilization n the concept of human rights or offering their own apologies for centuries of torture n massacres of innocents, inflicted on both settlers n other Indian tribes.
In the past thirty years, over 100 million people immigrated to the United States. If the Dems regain Congress n the Presidency, another 100 million will soon arrive; n another decade will likely witness yet another 100 million. With over a billion people in each country, China n India could each send 200 million people to the U.S. overnight without their noticing the difference in their own countries. Of this enormous influx, virtually all come from societies that differ profoundly from the U.S., n a great majority from countries that have no experience whatsoever with democracy or human rights as Americans know them.
This immigration will not only crush the environment in this country n deplete what remains of its resources, but, given the gridlock in Washington, will paralyze the body politic n prevent a majority from emerging on any conceivable topic, including the preference of ballots over bullets, which the wholesale fraud in mail-in ballots n assassination attempts amply prove. On the day of 9/11, Washington temporarily suspended the Constitution. If the political conflicts implicit in unrestricted immigration n infinite ethnic diversity become even more endemic, you can kiss the Constitution, n the ballot-box, goodbye. Schlesinger petulantly addressed only the disintegration of America’s colleges n the rise of incivility among professors n students back in 1991. Had he bothered to look beyond his books, he might perhaps have seen coming in the distance droves of domestically-produced car-bombs n suicide-bombers recruited from the ranks of 300 million colonizers in an Occupied America.
