Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jan 15 2019 06:09pm)
it was never about the wall in its own right anyway, it's about what the wall symbolizes: a very restrictive, hardline approach to immigration from the south. building a huge fucking wall along the entire border to mexico is quite the hostile act, and that's the very reason why Trump's base was so riled up by it, even though it is an ineffective way of actually enforcing the border: the wall would be a tangible, durable way of saying "we (=trumps base) do not WANT immigration from the south". and this hostile stance towards immigration from the south was already widespread among the GOP base before Trump came along. he just channelled it towards his idea of building a wall.
and that's also what you dont acknowledge: the type of immigration reform that the GOP base had in mind prior to Trump was very restrictionist, while the immigration reform the Democratic base had in mind was more along the lines of 'amnesty'. generally speaking, Republican leaders were to the left of their base on this issue, while Democratic leaders were to the right of theirs.
there are lots of other polls which generally show the same thing: Democrats becoming increasingly liberal on everything immigration over the last decade. Trump has been an accelerant on this trend, but the trend was there even without him.
i think overall we agree enough to disagree. we both agree that Trump is having a uniquely potent effect on politicization, unless I'm wrong it seems the only disagreement is that Dems are naturally (and bereft of Trump) in a non-negotiable place politically. not the politicians, but the people, which you think would have kept the politicians out of any possible negotiations. unless i stated something wrong.
I would only add in closing that, despite the DACA measure under Obama, immigration was a relative deadzone for policy for almost 15 years between Bush's "real ID" push circa 2004 and when Trump made changes in 2017. the 2014 DACA measure is a blip on the radar legislatively. the only other change im aware of was a beginning of the operation to combat cartels under Obama in Mexico with the help of US military personnel and equipment.
This post was edited by thesnipa on Jan 16 2019 07:45am