Do you know who this is? I realize there is so much time left in the year for a bigger asshole to appear, but I think this guy has to be in the running. Thomas Gerard Tancredo, formerly a Republican representative from Colorado. One of the most staunch anti-immigration conservatives in the land, he once sponsored a bill called the Mass Immigration Reduction Act which would have put a moratorium on immigration. I don't know if he understands economics, sociology, or any other discipline committed to actually understanding social processes, but to stop the flow of immigration (while being impossible anyway) would be disastrous for a nation that is aging and has a replacement fertility rate which means a much smaller native employment pool. Not too mention the degrees Americans inordinately receive (30% of Americans will earn a bachelor's degree, which is significantly higher than every other country in the world) fosters an attitude that shuns menial, physical, or other types of labor sectors that immigrants often populate heavily.
As the first speaker at the Tea Bagger's Coconut Bangers Ball, he had this
lovely quote to offer us: "people who could not even spell the word 'vote', or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama." During a townhall meeting in Iowa a few years ago, when asked how we could stop terrorism, he replied that the only thing "he could think of" was threatening or bombing Mecca and Medina.
That a guy like this even exists speaks to the unfortunate political landscape the the U.S. has fostered.
