FiveThirtyEight recently asked a panel of 2,000 Americans what issues worried them the most. The answer was inflation, which is pretty predictable these days.
But I'm more interested in how much Republicans and Democrats disagree about things. In the case of inflation, 42% of Democrats thought it was a top worry while 65% of Republicans thought so too. That's a difference of 23 percentage points.
But that isn't the area of biggest difference. Immigration is:
You don't have to believe in the great replacement or anything like that to understand that this has been a very, very large difference of opinion for a very long time. It's the second biggest worry for Republicans behind inflation—which is a transitory issue—while it barely registers with Democrats. This is going to haunt our politics forever unless Democrats eventually agree to take it seriously.
Or maybe Republicans could agree to not take it seriously.
But I guess that's not in the cards, is it?
The most important thing for Republicans, and we should all agree on this, it's completely harmless after all, is to have the heaviest ball and chain attached to our ankles that we can throw over the side. It's just a silly and trivial problem of liberals that we aren't taking this seriously, like we're purposely causing trouble and division wherever we can. Think how much better the world would be for them if we were dead!
I think this issue, like so many that divide the parties, is a regional one. Many red states are along the southern border. Blue states not so much. In addition, urban areas are USED to lots of immigrants. Rural areas find them disturbing, and you have only to look at rural areas that have seen an influx of Central Americans (in meat-packing plants, for instance) to see this. Meanwhile every hotel in the northeast is a hotbed of illegal immigrants, as everyone knows, yet you rarely hear the same cries for "securing our borders."
Um, the only border Republicans care about is the southern border. TX is red, NM and AZ purple to blue and CA deep blue, so I think your theory immediately breaks down in your first 2 sentences.
Mr Pug is right! TX is the only border state that didn't vote for Biden.
The six senators from New Mexico, Arizona and California are all Democrats.
And Texas isn't really red but is not really Democratic, it's pure Jim Crow.
As a California resident I can tell you that neither Democrats or Republicans think immigration is much of a problem as pretty much all of the hard, not very good paying, jobs are done by recent immigrants. Immigration is a *solution* to a problem. The big divide is Democrats wouldn't have a big issue with illegal immigrants having a path to citizenship whereas most of the central valley would prefer that they continue to have no political power. Drive down I5 and you will find out pretty quickly what California Republicans think is the biggest problem: Other people and fisheries getting "OUR" water (the water in question being 200 miles away, stored behind dams they didn't pay for, and delivered through a network of canals they also didn't pay for)
We liberals take immigration plenty seriously. We think that, on-balance, relatively available immigration is a good thing, and we're not particularly interested in changing our minds because a bunch of xenophobes disagree with us. So sue us.
Well put ColoradoDenverite. I'm very much in support of widening immigration into the US, we are in dire need of replenishment of the lost souls in the past couple of years. The Xenophobes will be proven to be the sad sorry sacks they are as time goes by.
Careful! Kevin might ban you for wokeness.
That's a relatively new position among democrats. The party has moved very much to the left on this topic in recent years. Having a secure border used to be part of the party's platform until a couple years ago when they removed it. (Presumably to not be accused of racism by the twitter people.)
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/19/694804917/democrats-used-to-talk-about-criminal-immigrants-so-what-changed-the-party
Wow. So because the Theocratic EuroSkin Jihadis of the Right get their panties in a twist when they see a brown skinned person living a happy life, then Teh Libs [i.e. "we"] should agree that dumbshits from Arkansas are the future of American tech?
What are you thinking?
I was hoping that Kevin simply fired off an unclear sentence in his haste to get the post up - that he mean dealing with the Xenophobia rather than coddling the Xenophobes at the expense of diversity and inclusion in the USA. But that's just me trying to find a pony in the pile over there in the stables.
This is going to haunt our politics forever unless Democrats eventually agree to take it seriously.
Yeah this comment truly baffles me. Who with the remotest connection to this universe says Democrats don't take "this" seriously, as either a policy matter or a political one?
What Democrats refuse to do -- quite rightly, and entirely within both the letter and the spirit of the laws, going back to the fking Declaration of Independence -- is to engage in race-panic, or to admit that it is anything except the product of profound ignorance and hateful bigotry.
Democrats don't take immigration seriously? What are they putting in the water in Irvine?
kevin seems forever stuck in the fantasy that some sort of racist appeasement effort would magically convince racist republicans to support democrats. yet he also constantly point out that decades of fox news et al has poisoned the republican voting base with racist propaganda and scaremongering and the only solution is someone disarming right wing media. not sure how he squares those two ideas.
Racist appeasement...
I just read that Kissinger is advising that Ukraine should cede territory to Russia...
Appeasement to the Nazis in the 30's, appeasement to the Southern States from the 1790 on until that day in Charleston...
I'm sure I'm missing some other examples that could curdle blood.
When will we learn?
I wish I could upvote this. It is one of the great ironies of human existence that the people who get along with lots of other people and enjoy the experience end up having to fight the jerks who don't, just so the jerks don't get their bloody way.
It happens over and over.
And the worst is that each project their views into others, that is to say, he sees good in others because is good, she sees evil because it's in her heart, he sees fear everywhere because he's fearful, she cares about others and is devastated when others don't, on and on...
It's that missed connection...
+10
A younger Hank would want to make Crimea into Cambodia, so... progress?
I heard that too...but my main take was, "He's still alive?" (yes, he's 98).
Well, there were all those treaties that Native Americans/First Nations signed with the European invaders, hoping to keep some of the vast lands they had lived on for millennia …
Right. Add the contracts and finally brazen theft of the Hawaiian islands.
It's his most Sanders/Warren/Fetterman Nouveau Lester Maddox Democrat quality.
Economically, he's pretty for removed from Bernie; culturally, he's not very Warren like; criminalogically, very unlike Fettz, but he definitely believes the New Deal worshipping Holler Dem of Appalachia can be lured back to the Donkey Party.
And since living in a southern state, I've had to listen to people who are proud of their people having arrived here couple of centuries ago countering any mention of First People's history by saying that even they came from somewhere else.
I don't often wear my t-shirt with the slogan "no one is illegal on stolen ground" because even less controversial ones bemring out the hate. But I remember my Native friends in grade school in Kansas & the adult students at Haskell. There, the treaty with the Wendat still protects their burial grounds in KCK. Here, some tribal people still can't get state recognition of their tribal affiliations.
No need for a "racist appeasement effort". Just make an effort to enforce immigration laws and state vociferously that a secure border is essential. Dems have recently done the opposite. They literally removed from the party platform any mention of a secure border. The DNC assistant chair wears a shirt that says "I Don't Believe In Borders". Don't need Fox News. Dems do this to themselves.
Some portion of anti-immigration sentiment is racism. Seems a little too convenient to try to place all the eggs in that basket though. Lots of immigration is good for business interests but it’s hard to see how it helps the average voter
I don’t mind immigration, but I’m also a skilled worker in a hard-to-replace profession. It wasn’t 50 years ago lots of Americans worked on assembly lines, now those are mostly gone. To say the blowback from that drastic change to the American way of life is entirely due to hate for brown people is a little intellectually lazy
Imagine if all skilled labor was sent out of the country, and the children of engineers and doctors and architects couldn’t do the jobs their parents did because those jobs are gone. Don’t you think there’d be a profound political backlash for that?
My diagnosis is that we have done a really poor job of protecting American workers from displacement by foreign labor, and obviously anti-immigration and xenophobia isn’t the most unpredictable reaction from that. Not excusable, but predictable
So, wait ... corporations transferring skilled jobs out of the US is somehow the fault of unskilled people coming into the US?
Can you explain in a little more detail, please? Because I am confused.
The assembly lines aren't filled up with brown people from Mexico. The assembly lines are IN MEXICO. That has exactly 0.0 to do with "immigration" and 100.0 with capitalism mowing down yet another forest of workers.
Farmers automated a lot of their work, which mean fewer workers and fewer kids needed to run farms. Rural towns lose population and services.
So....blame immigrants, blame liberals, blame Democrats, blame....
Just this week, I read that some Iowans are hoping to encourage more immigrants because they've been losing population. And many farmers haven't been able to hire enough workers.
A lot of those assembly line jobs were taken over by robots. How do you “protect” against that? The number of unauthorized workers appears to have stayed pretty stable over the last few years. I don’t think the unauthorized labor force is really what Republicans are concerned about. It’s the fear that those laborers and “caravans” will have children who will be citizens and “replace us” and that “our tax dollars” will be used to educate and feed them.
The hatred seems to be mostly confined to people coming from Mexico and Central America. Though Trump has tried to gin up Asian hatred too.
The Deputy Chair of the DNC wore a t-shirt that said (in Spanish, no less), "I Don't Believe in Borders". You think that shows that democrats take immigration seriously? Up until a few years ago the official Dem party platform stated the need for a secure border. If they take it seriously why did they remove all language to a secure border?
>> This is going to haunt our politics forever unless Democrats eventually agree to take it seriously.<<
Gee this is annoying Democrats have always taken the issue seriously. Doesn’t Kevin remember when Obama was “deporter in chief”?
Republicans have been ginning up “immigration” (really southern border immigration) and using it as a racist wedge issue for a very long time. But none have been as effective as Trump with his racist hate wall “solution”.
The reality is that the thing that will most affect immigration world wide will be climate change. If Republicans were serious about the subject they wouldn’t be denying climate change and taking action to mitigate it. But they aren’t and actively take steps to continue policies that will accelerate climate change. No wall will stop what’s to come.
Kevin lives in California, where immigration ultras killed the GQP in 1994.
Something tells me, though, that Drum was a Pete Wilson '90 voter. So, maybe he doesn't exactly see 187 that way.
I think your chart misses the meat of what republicans and democrats disagree most fervently on. Even on the right side of the chart , where the disagreement seems much less (political extremism and crime), if you dig a little deeper and ask "who's to blame for…" then I think you'd find a gaping chasm that would rival or surpass the number for immigration.
Another victory for conservatism,
14 Children Dead in Mass Shooting at Texas Elementary School,
https://www.thedailybeast.com/students-hospitalized-after-active-shooter-incident-at-robb-elementary-school-in-uvalde-texas
If those children hadn't been in school in the first place this never would have happened . . .
If you look at the comments at the Fox “News” site you will see that the consensus there is “There should have been armed guards/teachers/students” with “isn’t it funny how this stuff only happens during an election year” and “we should have finished the wall” just behind.
The main concern there seems to be fear that school shootings will somehow lead to them having a problem buying another AR-15.
these are the people (along with the shooter) kevin would have us take more seriously. def bad timing for his post.
Every gun is a promise of crime, the gift that hasn't gone off yet.
Maybe we should print that on some bumper stickers to remind people.
And Senator Ted Cruz offers thoughts and Prayers. SIGH.
Just saw Ted Cruz on TV. He said we must no politicize this tragedy. Thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers.
For the criminally insane it's always the wrong moment to talk about their crimes, except among themselves of course where the vicarious thrill gives them such a giddy high they can hardly believe it's legal and they're getting away with it.
It was Gawd showing His People that the Devil runs Edumacashun!
this is one in a series of posts where you've insisted democrats need to take republican issues "seriously". but as far as i recall, you never tell us wtf that's supposed to mean. i take republican immigration obsessions very seriously. i'm sure every democratic politician and activist does too. what do you suggest democrats do about that has not been done? what should biden specifically as the current president do about immigration that would think would help?
The top 4 in your chart are a pretty tight group. Arguing one issue or another in that group is the "top concern" is splitting hairs
I'm a Democrat. I take immigration seriously, but my preference is not the racist one so it gains me nothing with Republicans. I say make a reasonable path to citizenship for everyone already here, make it easier for people to legally immigrate, and crack down like crazy on big employers of undocumented workers. Let the workers become citizens, stop the illegal, under the table exploitation of undocumented workers that everyone knows is happening right in front of their faces. I never understand why ICE coming in and rounding up a bunch of poor, overworked immigrants is cheered by the rightwing while the person employing them just continues doing it with not even a slap on the wrist.
Alas it's all about the hate, just like the wacko pro-lifers, its never about the issue they talk about. I'm with you, we could stop the cycle of human trafficking and exploited labor with immigration reform.
+1
wanting to build a border wall isn't taking the issue seriously. and let's not forget spineless marco rubio's role in crashing and burning the last serious attempt at immigration reform.
+1
Have had friends from several Latino countries including two from Cuba, but Rubio & some other Cubans have their own biases against many of those with whom they don't identify, & they don't mention the fact that some of their people benefited from the "wet foot, dry foot" policy due to the fact that they were anti-Communist opposed to Castro.
The issue here is that the people who vote for Republicans don't take anything seriously, except the serious issue of whatever they can do to cause the most harm for the most people while pretending otherwise. That they take entirely seriously and until the Democratic starts taking that seriously we will get nowhere at all with anything.
I think this is absolutely correct. Basically, I think Maslow's hierarchy of needs explains MAGA America.
The data I've seen indicates that MAGA base consists of people whose incomes are above the national median. They aren't Elon Musk rich but they are comfortably middle class and they aren't suffering economically. They are fat and happy and the culture wars are a decadent indulgence of their emotional needs. Promises to use government to improve their lives fall on deaf ears.
They should play fantasy football or something.
Make The League Great Again!
I have the impression their general anxiety issues become increasingly focused on death and meaninglessness and they're in a panic to have some kind of validating drama, on top of their manner of harming whoever and whatever they can get away with harming.
Kevin surely knows that Biden has largely maintained Trump's awful immigration policies, right? Jesus Kevin. The Democrats could all call for building the Trump Wall (and name it after Trump) and they'd still be freaked about and blaming Democrats for "open borders".
Again, just Jesus.
The "they'd still be" wasn't entirely clear, but I was referring to Republicans.
Sure would be nice if this awful commenting system had an edit button.
kevin being a tech guy, i'm pretty shocked he hasn't implemented something better for the comment system.
I thought Kevin was a marketing guy who worked for a tech company.
well, he strikes me as techie to the point he has the chops to implement a better comment system on wordpress with minimal effort.
Dude can barely figure out how to send an email from Paris. Yeah, big techie.
Reminds self: you do not, under any circumstances, need to hand it to Sig Heil 88.
haha holy s*** i get it now...i remember you accusing me of being some anti-semitic troll under a new name a while back and i had no idea why...you're probably not going to believe this, but i'm not who you seem to think i am, and the user name is meant to be like a long sigh with the extra H. i created it after literally sighing aloud reading one of the posts or comments. anyway, it 100% does NOT stand for what you think it does, and i never commented on any previous site of Kevin's. pretty sure if you actually look back at all my comments here there won't be any evidence to support your theory.
No, I think Monty's got you pegged just right. Did you think that just because the stats are not aumated here that no one bothers to keep tabs on our more egregious offenders?
Please give me some examples. Or even one. I'm totally at a loss to what you are talking about.
Also, why would I create a pretty obvious (although accidental) name like that and then deny the meaning, if that's what it meant? It makes no sense.
Why did Dems remove the reference to the need fr secure borders from their official party platform? Why did the assistant chair of the DNC wear a shirt that said (in Spanish), "I Don't Believe in Borders"?
Bottom line is there is nothing the Democrats can do that will gain any support from Republicans on any issue. They are the nihilism party that only wants to wreck things as much as possible when Dems are in office, and when they are out of office pass laws that pike Dems in the eyes as much as possible.
In the GQP, Cleek's Law is higher authority than the Original Recipe Madisonian Constitution.
Bottom line is there is nothing the Democrats can do that will gain any support from Republicans on any issue. They are the nihilism party that only wants to wreck things as much as possible when Dems are in office, and when they are out of office pass laws that poke Dems in the eyes as much as possible.
I would happily exchange a doubling of the budgets for immigration enforcement, assuming that included court related costs, if in exchange we got legislative permanent relief for DREAMers.
In fact, Democratic legislators have tried to make this deal several times over the last 20 years. It has passed the Senate and then been shot down by the Freedom Caucus. Ted Cruz hasn't been helping, either.
I expect Kevin is being tongue-in-cheek with "Why don't Democrats take this seriously?"
I see the GOP immigration hypocrisy in their (convenient) absence of any penalties for employers who hire undocumented workers.
The GOP has never (ever) tried to fix eVerify, because it's the perfect loophole for employers hiring undocumented workers.
And what have Dems done to beef up border security and immigration enforcement?
i don't think kevin is being tongue in cheek. he's made this ridiculous argument multiple times. "just be reasonable!" after decades of dems being reasonable, conciliatory and attempting to cut bipartisan deals and govern reasonably. all the while republicans spitting in our faces, calling us traitors and finally trying to overthrow the freaking government. but hey, if we just took their racism more seriously, i'm sure that's problem solved.
I agree, find a way to work with DREAMers. Make them earn their stay but let them stay. But at the same time get serious about immigration enforcement. Put it back in the Dem party platform. (It was there until a few years ago when they purposely removed it to appease liberals.)
Is it a Keving trolling day already?
On what Earth do Democrats don't take immigration seriously? Democrats are the only ones who have tried to actually fix the system in the past 30 years (for a bit there some Republicans were on board, but then they got cold feet and most joined the Trump party).
Idiotically calling for a "big beautiful wall" or instituting policies that treat immigrants like animals with the explicit purpose of using cruelty as a deterrent is not taking things seriously Kevin.
+1
Except, your construction exists within the confines of the polling question of the issues that concern Americans the most, which is not the same as what issues divide Americans the most.
For instance, I'm quite certain that gun regulation and abortion are highest. And if 538/Ipsos were to conduct their poll Americans this evening, I'm certain that recency bias would bring gun regulation to the forefront in that poll.
And by the way, I just want to say, "fuck you" conservatives who claim to value life but widely support the death penalty and look the other way every time a dozen children are shot dead.
They support the death penalty even for the provably innocent,
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-supreme-court-just-said-in-in-shinn-v-ramirez-that-evidence-of-innocence-is-not-enough
That was particularly bad news to those who advocated against the DP in Virginia, lobbying in Richmond, & holding vigils at Greensville Correctional Center back when Mary Sue Terry backed the infamous 21-day rule, which blocked exculpatory evidence presented even that quickly after conviction & sentencing.
" Innocence is irrelevant."
Part of the problem is that, while suspects are provided with legal representation, there is usually a low limit on funding for lawyers & none at all for investigative work.
Seems like something that should be a Federal program.
Why is a case like this not murder under color of law?
I really don't understand how that became the "rule of law " here in Virginia, but it wasn't even a state law - just a court rule.
Never will understand this area - current gun-ho administration would like nothing more than to reinstate the death penalty, so Virginia for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, whose members were expecting to disband, have decided to continue.
And one member I knew who usually called or wrote the governor for clemency once sent me into shock by declaring that a young woman was raped, her throat slit, then dumped in a river whose banks she tried to climb, should have been able to escape her murderer - because my acquaintance claimed to have once fought off a drunk. But this man had been high on both alcohol & an illegal drug - meth, I think - & attacked from behind. Police often claim that it takes several of them to take down such people. So while i will never support capital punishment, i will never comprehend what passes for justice or why blaming the victim exists to such an extent.
Sorry for long post; the "Virginia Way" often confounds me.
Abortion was one of 538's listed issues, and "crime and gun violence" was another. Abortion came out very low on the list of concerns for both Republicans and Democrats. But this was before the Dobbs abortion opinion leaked, and before the mass shootings of the past two weeks.
Us Catholics are consistent. Against abortion and against the death penalty.
Mr. Drum should clarify what he means by "take seriously", since I'm pretty sure that the serious Dem position is well-established and blocked by GOP intransigence.
Also why don't Republicans take climate change seriously, this is going to haunt or politics until they do.
If they take it seriously why did they remove border security from the official party platform?
Oh, my... my takeaway was totally different from everyone else's. The way Kevin brushed away inflation as transitory... yes, but right now it's hurting people who don't have money... just more evidence to me that the Democrats aren't concerned about the economics of working people and the less wealthy retirees.
I'm not a Republican, but the Democrats no longer speak to me. When are they going to care for anyone other than their real base: the "coastal elites"?
The stimulus plan that encouraged rapid economic growth and job creation has benefited working class folks. The direct payments and child credits directly benefited working class folks. The health care subsidies and expanded unemployment directly benefited working class folks. The small business grants helped working class folks.
The economic problem of inflation is a serious one, but we should identify the actual conditions. Most working class folks have more money in their bank account and higher wages than they did pre pandemic, but the economies ability to provide goods and services has not kept up with everyone being better off. This is due to various causes all over the world (millions of dead or disabled workers, climate and war induced food and oil shortages, massive temporary shift from buying services to buying goods).
Amongst all the possible economic problems, this is a good one to have. Light years better than the problem of throwing millions of working class folks out of work to keep prices down.
Biden is very pro union. You saying that unions are coastal elites?
But inflationary tax cuts for the wealthy do speak to you? There is a simple and obvious solution to inflation; raise taxes, especially on people that have a lot of money. There are 0 GOP votes for this in the House and 0 GOP votes for this in the Senate. There are at most 48 Democrat votes in the Senate for it as Manchin and "Maverick" Sinema would also surely vote against it. What I think the GOP would do to tame inflation is find some way to get rid of the Social Security COLA as well as raising premiums for Medicare.
Lol, oh yes....this is the fault of Democrats. If they just 'took it seriously' all would be resolved. Oh goodness.....
Except it isn't about immigration per se, it's about racists using "immigration" as cover. It's not a difference of opinion, it's differing (and opposing) values and I'm not interested in debating my values with racists.
So yeah, I don't take it seriously.
Incorrect.
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/19/694804917/democrats-used-to-talk-about-criminal-immigrants-so-what-changed-the-party
Having read KD for years I’m going to assume “take immigration seriously” means something like being for a national ID card and e-verify. For all I know they are already for those things. They’d surely be filibustered, so, does it matter?
It’s probably good advice, though, to be in favor of a “law and order” immigration system, which to me means, if you’re working here, you have at least a temporary work permit. It also means if you’re working here you have access to health care. Most regular folks would support that I think. And the Republican party would have to go nuts to stop it, probably alienating a fair amount of their business support. Or maybe not, because in fact the GOP loves the status quo. So who knows.
Do not be naive The Republicans are all about White Supremacy, "immigration" is a stalking horse for this. They do not want to fix the issue because to fix the issue is to take away the useful stalking horse to whip up their racist core support. Also the "sensible" country club Republicans aren't keen to truly fix things because then business lose the pool of trafficked humans to exploit.
Well, white supremacy is a cover for Zionism. Destroy capitalism. Immigration problem solved
Democrats in Congress have taken immigration seriously. They wrote a bill in 2013 that agreed with what the majority in the country wanted and probably still wants - tighter control of illegal immigration but a path to citizenship for those already here, etc. Enough Republicans in the House would have voted for it to pass it, but the Republican leadership did not allow it to come to a vote.
While the big-money wing of the Republican party would just as soon have abundant immigration to keep wages down, the base has always opposed it, and Trump exploited this to beat the other Republican candidates in 2016. It is no longer socially acceptable in most places to say "let's bring back white supremacy" directly, but apparently it is now OK to talk about Replacement Theory. The immigration issue is basically another way for Republicans to exploit racism.
Of course some on the left think that the way to oppose Trump's cruel attempts to stop immigration is to call for what is essentially open borders. So the public debate has been taken over by the extremes, and Republicans will continue to prevent reasonable reform.
Conservatism relies on the youthful enthusiasm of the stupid.
What else can they do?
Taking it seriously involves immigration reform and you won't get that until the Democrats have 60 senators. The only reform Republicans are down with is somehow forcing white people to move here from Europe. They want to deport people but won't increase the number of immigration judges. We've seen in the recent past what happens to Republicans who actually want to solve the problem. Just ask President Rubio.
For Big Pharma, the ideal drug is one that treats the symptoms but never cures the disease. Similarly, for Republicans, the ideal issue is one that pisses people off but never gets solved.
Lol, nope. 60 Senators who who won't agree. Immigration is a issue even people who support it in a certain way, don't totally comprehend.
Adjust for land. Give Ohio Democrats the same weight as NYC, results change.
Adjust for land kevin. This will change these results.
KD: stop teasing- what should Dems do? I know for a fact that many Dems are for increasing use and improving E-Verify but the Republicans are not interested. What else: more judges- check; realistic quotas- check. And what are the GOP serious proposals?
"This is going to haunt our politics forever unless Democrats eventually agree to take it seriously."
We are breaking immigration records each decade, dwarfing the immigration waves between 1880 to 1920. Why? Who knows, but most people on the left like it and most on the right don't.
Regarding the southern border, most on the left have little interest in border security, while most on the right have a strong interest.
So if more Democrats just took an interest in deciding what level of immigration makes sense in the 2020s, and how we could better protect the southern border, they might win over more independent voters and some moderate Republicans too.
How about we set the annual immigration target at 500,000 - the average for the last half of the 20th century? Why are we going for over 1,000,000 per year instead?
And for southern border security, why not more interest in technology to detect intruders and so on? Yawn, I know. But this is why Democrats lose so many people on these issues. (To Biden's credit, he is investing quite a bit in new border security technology.)
"We are breaking immigration records each decade, dwarfing the immigration waves between 1880 to 1920. Why?"
Simple, because there are more people now. Even if all the rates remain constant, simply having more people in the world means more people immigrate, more people emigrate, more people are born, more people die, etc. If you want things to be as they were a hundred years ago you are not living in the real world. Having said that, the share of the US population who coming from immigration is about the same today as it as at the end of the 19th Century.
"Regarding the southern border, most on the left have little interest in border security, while most on the right have a strong interest."
No most on the left have an interest in serious border security, the right only cares about border security when it comes to stopping brown people in the most inhumane way possible. Not to mention that a "Big Wall" isn't actually doing much for border security. If instead of mostly brown and black skinned immigrants from Latin America at the southern border, you had blue eyed blondes coming from Norway (never mind that the latter are actually much liberal than the former), the right wouldn't give a damn about "border security".
"And for southern border security, why not more interest in technology to detect intruders and so on?"
Democrats have never opposed this, and have actually made it a part of every immigration reform proposal they've made. Back when the Orange Mussolini was still in office they actually agreed to every dollar that Trump wanted for his wall and related border security improvements in exchange for DACA (which covered about 700,000 kids who had lived close to their entire life in the US), and it was Trump and Republicans who balked at the idea.