Language Economics: Why Santorum’s Argument Doesn’t Translate

Take the United States, for example. A language that many native speakers butcher and abuse every day (see: Twitter), English proves to be a substantial entry barrier to higher wage earning job markets for non-native speakers. Statistically lower skilled and less educated, the fact is that pro-big business conservatives ultimately prefer maintaining the Latino immigrant population as a cheap source of labor in order to woo investments from large corporations. An easy way to do that? Don’t make English the official language of the United States.

What’s more, in an epoch of economic uncertainty, the truth is that having an increasingly large, permanent labor class working for petty wages while a few others make huge profits is just what the free-market capitalist doctor ordered. Furthermore, it’s something that falls right in line with the cracked platform the GOP has made for itself throughout the past three decades. To think otherwise is simply naïve.

Unfortunately, openly admitting all of the above would be an unpopular move that wouldn’t likely garner much support from the masses. So in light of that, what can we take away from Santorum’s deceptive statements in San Juan? Well, not much. It’s a classic smoke and mirrors act on behalf of Santorum and other like-minded politicians: pander for the votes of the radical and radically intolerant with equally fanatical ideas only to maintain the economic status quo. Except this time, and perhaps a result of still being comatose from the rapturous Puerto Rican weather, Santorum chose to debut his latest display of political backwardness under the flimsy guise of “conviction” to the wrong crowd.

However, when given the facts that the 48.4 million Hispanics currently living in the United States constitute as the largest and fastest growing ethnic minority group and are likely to open businesses three times faster than the national average, you might start to wonder what the future of the “right” crowd really is. Furthermore, at a juncture where more and more studies demonstrate the numerous benefits of bilingualism, you might also wonder why a politician would waste his time catering to the intellectually complacent to begin with. But so it goes with a party in decline, anyway: they cry loudest—and in English—before they go out.