i guess im confused, it got worse than it was historically, when it was historically stagnant, once Trump came around, but it's not Trump.

help me out here, i frankly don't get wtf ur trying to say, at all. you seem to be arguing yourself with every post.

you can pull all the correlation data out of your bunghole that you please, but if there is a marked change once Trump comes in, guess what?

the chart i posted on the last page shows that the Democrats had been becoming more approving of immigration since 2010 or 2012, definitely long before trump came around.



ok, so let me make it as clear as possible:

1.: democrats had been trending to become increasingly liberal on immigration since before Trump emerged as a political force in 2015.
2.: the democratic base in 2018 is almost twice as approving of immigration as in 2006.
3.: the GOP base's stance on immigration in 2018 is almost identical with its stance in 2006.

4.: for many election cycles, the GOP base has yearned for candidates who are tough on immigration. before Trump, the majority of the party establishment and the elected officials of the party had significantly more moderate or liberal views on immigration than the party base.
5.: this means that the GOP establishment and the GOP base had a disconnect on the issue of immigration for many years before Trump came along. Trump more or less has realigned the party with the base on immigration.
6.: therefore, it is no contradiction to state that the policies pursued by elected republicans on immigration and the rhetoric used by them have taken a sharp turn to the right since Trump, while their voters' stance on the issue has remained largely unchanged.

7.: I say that the inability to strike a compromise on immigration is mostly due to the huge gap between the two parties' bases in their views and attitudes on this issue, versus your hypothesis that the main problem is only a rhetoric one and not related to policy.
8.: the data clearly shows that the widening gap between the two parties on immigration is caused by the Democrats becoming more pro-immigration, and not because of the GOP becoming more anti-immigration.
9.: since the policy gap on immigration is driven by an increasingly liberal democratic base, they are the ones to blame for the deadlock if my hypothesis of substantive disagreements preventing a compromise is true.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jan 15 2019 03:53pm

You writing novels again? Should publish sometime

This post was edited by duffman316 on Jan 15 2019 04:11pm

Yes I am, it is a work in process and very rough. It is receiving a lot of good criticism among writing circles, though. I just need to work it out of my mind, and then spend a lot of time revising and editing.

Like... A LOT of editing.

This post was edited by IchBinDaddy on Jan 15 2019 04:33pm

Make me a character in your novel

It can be a small part

This post was edited by duffman316 on Jan 15 2019 04:36pm

The shorter you can make it the better it will be

That is a possibility



That is true, I was thinking around 200 manuscript pages, or around 100k words.

This post was edited by ChrisKz on Jan 15 2019 04:39pm

that isn't my hypothesis. i realize a gap naturally exists between the two parties. my point is that Trump himself is a wall between them and a reasonable enough opinion that a negotiation can happen. im also talking about Democrat lawmakers, not their voters.

If i list a used car at $5,000 and your top price is $4600 we can work out a deal. If your top dollar is $500 we can't. Because of who Trump is the dems will likely never get to a negotiable stance for Trump to negotiate with.

the issue i see on this is we both agree the Dems are digging their heels in and not giving Trump anything, but then I point out that Trump is the driving factor in this and we seem to meet an impasse. that's odd to me.

Trump derangement syndrome is something the democrats have, but who is it named for? The cause. we didnt have Obama derangement syndrome, we didn't have Bush derangement syndrome, etc etc etc. I could get more nuanced and offer up the internet and real time media as additional factors, but i'd hope we can agree Trump is on his own level with severity of rhetoric. that's supposedly his appeal.

Is it really Trump's personality that is the driving factor though?
I mean, it certainly contributes, he's a firebrand. But is it the only or even the main factor?

For instance, the Dems are still salty AS FUCK because of their 2016 loss. Stonewalling (pun intended) Trump's key campaign promise is a way for them to take revenge for their crushing defeat two years ago, and in a certain sense, it is also a way of undoing, on the policy level, Trump's electoral win.


-----

Just imagine an alternative universe for a second. One in which Marco Rubio had been the GOP candidate in 2016. He's still the slick, spineless opportunist, and so he takes on a hard stance towards illegal immigration because that's what the GOP base wants. He runs as a conventional republican on most other issues, maybe throws the Tea Party a bone here and there, but his rhetoric is that of a career politician, it is far less incendiary than Trump's. When it comes to immigration, Rubio pushes hard for the wall and is very explicit in his opposition towards illegal immigration, but unlike Trump, he goes to great lengths to differentiate illegal from legal immigration and to emphasize that law-abiding immigrants are welcome in his America.

The Dems dont take Little Marco Rubio too seriously, he's too young, too inexperienced, and after all, Hilldog is the most qualified candidate ever, right, RIGHT? Then comes election day and Rubio catches them from left field and wins the White House through the electoral college, just like Trump did in our reality. Two years later, President Rubio pushes for the wall he promised.

In this scenario, would the Democrats oppose Rubio's wall as ferociously as they oppose Trump's? Probably not. But would there be stonewalling efforts from the Democrats against Rubio's wall? I, personally, am convinced that he answer is 'hell yeah'.

----

To combine my scenario with your bargaining example: a President Rubio would perhaps offer $1000, and the Dems would start out at $4000 instead of the 5000 they wanted from Trump. But even then 4k vs 1k is still too big of a gap to be bridged.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jan 15 2019 05:26pm