Millions of U.S. viewers who tuned in Thursday night for the Latin Grammy Awards on Univision, the country's leading Spanish-language television network, were blown away by a surprise opening act.
President Barack Obama's prime-time address unveiling his plan to defer deportations of about five million mainly Latino illegal immigrants deftly coincided with one of the top-rated Spanish shows of the year. Awards organizers delayed the music and dancing until after Mr. Obama's speech.
Dancing there was, and not just at the Latin Grammys. Univision's feisty news anchor Jorge Ramos – one of the most influential Hispanic opinion-makers in the United States – told Time magazine that Mr. Obama's move was a "triumph for the Latino community" that demonstrates "our newfound power."
The mood among Republicans, however, was practically apocalyptic. Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn warned that "the country's going to go nuts, because they're going to see it as a move outside the authority of the President." He said he fears there will be "anarchy" and "violence."
The political divide over illegal immigration is perhaps the most fractious in a fractious country. Mr. Obama's move, and the Republican reaction, could make lifelong Democrats out of Hispanics the way civil-rights laws cemented African-American support for the party. But it could also trigger a backlash among white voters that hurts Democrats for decades to come.
"Many white Americans see that America is changing, believe that immigration is driving many of the negative changes and know that one party stands largely on the side of immigrants while the other party stands largely in opposition," according to University of California political science professor Zoltan Hajnal. "For many whites, this is a powerful motivation to vote Republican."
So what? Don't whites make up a declining share of the electorate anyway? And doesn't Mr. Obama's stand put him on the right side of history, just as Lyndon Johnson's Civil Rights Act was the right thing to do, even if it made permanent Republicans out of most Southern whites?
Mr. Obama's place in history is best left to the historians, though it's hard to argue with his compassionate stand. Republicans, on the other hand, do seem to be tempting fate. As Brookings Institution demographer William Frey noted last week, "minorities will outnumber whites nationally among those under age 30" by 2027. This is creating a "cultural generation gap" with "radical implications for American politics."
Just not as soon it looks. While Hispanic voters make up an increasing share of the electorate, they are concentrated in a small number of strongly blue (California) or red (Texas) states. In the so-called battleground states that typically determine presidential elections, they account for more than 5 per cent of voters in only three: Florida, Nevada and Colorado, according to a New York Times analysis.
Many Republican strategists think the party can win over enough Hispanic voters through their pocketbooks and personal values to maintain a lock on Congress and win the White House. They were somewhat vindicated in the recent midterm elections, as 45 per cent of Texas's Hispanic voters chose the GOP candidate for governor over Democrat Wendy Davis, an outspoken advocate of abortion rights.
Even Americans who support a path to citizenship for the country's 11 million-plus undocumented immigrants agree that it should be part of a broader legislative package that includes stepped-up security, in order to deter a renewed onslaught of illegals across the border.
By using an executive order to halt the deportation of illegal-immigrant parents of children who are U.S. citizens, Mr. Obama is testing the boundaries of his authority. He previously deflected criticism for not using his executive power in this way by saying that he was not an "emperor," that he needed Congress to act.
With Thursday's announcement, Mr. Obama is merely being selective in how he enforces existing laws. He has ordered authorities to prioritize deportations of criminals, sparing most other illegal immigrants. And he will allow about four million undocumented parents of so-called anchor babies to apply for work permits, though not permanent residency.
The risk for Democrats is that Mr. Obama's move falls short of the outright amnesty package the party's activist base has pushed for. By disappointing segments of the Democratic base while angering Republicans, Mr. Obama may have set Democrats up for failure in 2016. Republicans, however, face the risk of overreacting and alienating the fastest-growing bloc of voters for decades to come.
Either way, a gaping U.S. political divide only seems set to widen further.
Konrad Yakabuski