Can we do anything about the surge of illegal immigrants at the southern border? Republicans would like to, of course, and they're hopeful they can persuade President Biden to go along with tough legislation.
Or are they? Jake Sherman reports that Mitch McConnell told a closed meeting of Senate Republicans, “The politics on this have changed”:
McConnell referred to Trump as “the nominee” and noted the former president wants to run his 2024 campaign centered on immigration. And the GOP leader said, “We don’t want to do anything to undermine him.”
“We’re in a quandary,” McConnell added.
Yep, that's quite the quandary. Do what they think is right for the country, or do nothing so that people stay mad and Trump has an issue to run on?
It's commonplace for partisans to claim that the other side doesn't really want to solve a particular problem (racism, abortion, etc.) because they don't want it to go away as a base-mobilizing issue. Very seldom, however, does the opposition actually confirm that. This time they have.
Nor do they want even to distinguish between legal and illegal immigration, much less the nature and process of asylum-seeking (which happens to be, ahem, legal). For Republicans, "immigration" -- and "border" and any other related buzzword -- means entry to, or even mere existence in, the country of non-White people, which because we are by divinely inspired mandate a White nation, is ipso facto bad. For Republicans, the problem is not illegal immigration; it's the existence of non-White people in any but a clearly subservient position. "Illegal" is just a handy word to tack on, because they are, after all, the Party of Law and Order (except of course for sexual assault and business and tax fraud and violent insurrection and so forth).
+1
This has long been the GOP take on immigration hasnt it? For...15-20 years at least?
The only news here is that someone wants a new narrative on this same old story.
... well, except from non-"sh!thole" countries; I believe the Republican nominee has mentioned Norwegians as acceptable, for example.
Norwegian immigration to the United Shitholes is in the double digits.
Trump has taken to doing his own makeup,
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1750269583846412639
Somebody needs an intervention.
Maybe he has just gotten worse at it. On the nice website of "Doctor Zebra" (John Sotos, MD) it says he prefers to do his own makeup, with a link to a WaPo article from 2019.
!
Dear god this would never have occurred to me.
Where the hell is Trixie Mattel when you need her?
If you assume that politics is way more about winning , versus doing what is right, then clearly the GOP does not want to make a deal on the border.
1. Politically, the border is seen as a weakness of Biden. Why give Biden a path to a solution?
2. Politically, the border is seen as a Trump strength. Why remove a great foil from Trump's arsenal ?
3. Anything bi-partisan is likely good for Biden. So....
4. Forcing the House and Senate Democrats, the national news etc, to talk about the border is also a GOP win.
5. TALKING about the border is so much better for Trump then discussing tons of issues (his many trials, his corruption etc). Without the border, Trump is a shell of his political self.
Also, Republican farmers, construction contractors, meatpackers, and golf course owners are addicted to slave labor, because they profit enormously by illegally hiring workers without authorization.
Trump himself paid a million dollar fine for illegally doing so. So the donor class doesn’t give a shit, and they can keep the rubes up in arms—what’s not to like?
It’s like abortion—until the Supreme Court wrecked that issue, like the dog catching the speeding car by the bumper.
All true.
The Library of Congress has a paper on Mexican immigration into the US. Seems 100 years ago a bill was passed limiting immigration but excluded Mexico as farmers protested lack of good field hands.
I only learned about the Mexican Repatriation several years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation
I afraid that’s what Trump’s minions have in mind.
I'm looking forward to being deported.
Time to find a hideaway in some shithole country.
Massive illegal immigration is a three-fer for Rs:
1) The business wing of the party gets a huge pool of laborers who can be paid diddly, treated abominably, and fired at any time without recourse;
2) Political candidates can point to chaos at the border and blame it on Biden;
3) The racist wing of the party stays riled up.
So of course they don't want to solve it. The status quo is working quite well for them.
^^^THIS^^^
And sacrificing Ukraine to Putin is an added bonus for these unprintables
Mitch is having real buyer's remorse about letting Trump off in 2021. I'm sure there are another ten or dozen who wish they'd have voted to Deep Six him when they had the chance.
The current fight is not about where the ship is headed. It's about who gets to stand at the wheel. As a result, we're looking at problems and extrapolating what those problems mean about out values.
That's backwards. We need to talk about our values and then decide what to do about our problems.
I've heard at least one person saying the Democrats will bring up the Republican two faced behavior during the campaign, but I bet they don't. Maybe it will get mentioned once and then some twitter warriors will say something like: How dare Biden talk about asylum seekers or immigrants in general as a problem! And then Biden and the Dems will decide to never mention it again.
I hope I'm wrong and this is used as an example of the Rs being unable to govern or do anything when action is needed.