Electoral courtship of immigrant voters dissolved the Republicans’ restrictionist role

Evidence

The Republicans dominated national politics in the first decade of the twentieth century. Furthermore, the G.O.P. had served as the principal channel of restrictionist agitation. Now the attraction of southern and eastern European voting blocs to the Republican column ended the party’s effectiveness as a nativist instrument. The shift of big business to an anti-restrictionist point of view undoubtedly helped to break the Republican-nativist alliance, but before business opposition to nativism had fully crystallized the Republicans were already feeling the pressure of their new supporters. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 733

Categorization

• SEED: The material base of nativist politics: party patronage and vote-seeking directly structured whether elites championed restriction — an angle on how manufactured enemies are themselves subject to political economy.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s research on whether group solidarity persists when the threat is politically inconvenient — here the enemy is dropped for votes. — connects to: Nativism’s core aim shifted from voting restriction to immigration restriction — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 583; Nativists pursued naturalization restriction chiefly to curtail foreign-born political power. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 581; Electoral competition for expellee votes fossilized symbolic irredentism that no longer meant return — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 741

Broader Connections

• Nativism’s core aim shifted from voting restriction to immigration restriction #expands (0.90) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 583
• Nativists pursued naturalization restriction chiefly to curtail foreign-born political power. #corroborates (0.85) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 581
• Electoral competition for expellee votes fossilized symbolic irredentism that no longer meant return #epitomizes (0.80) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 741