No, on immigration issues, Bush is probably to the "left" of most European social democratic parties, who wouldn't be caught dead talking as rapturously about multiculturalism as Bush does. And that fact attests to the successes of the left in the US on racial justice issues compared to Europe, who may provide lovely health care to their traditionally white citizenry, but are incredibly loathe to allow in new immigrants.
A bill to require hospitals to provide information about undocumented immigrants to the INS was massively defeated in the US Congress just days ago.
There are many reasons why the left is less strong in many ways in the US and Europe, but I don't buy it's because of some inherent reactionary element of its soul. Some are pretty structural-- capital was stronger and more concentrated, especially compared to Europe after WWII when capital was decimated there; others are a flip side of immigration--- the US welcome more immigrants but is therefore suspicious of providing benefits to "strangers." But there are always counter elements to those problems and many progressive elements continue to exist in the US.
If Americans were so inherently reactionary, trial lawyers would not fight so hard to get their cases before juries, since it's those American juries that happily wallop big corporations with massive judgements. And it's elite judges who always bail out the corporations and cut those judgements.
So I put my faith with the people, not the elites.
Nathan Newman