The Atlantic: How Democrats Lost Their Way on Immigration

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Here's an important question: how enthusiastic would these Progressive cheerleaders of large-scale and undocumented immigration be if the overwhelming majority of those coming into our country were highly educated and/or highly skilled?

They wouldn't be - at least not like now. That is a guarantee. Though, that does happen to a degree. Tech companies have been angling to bring in as many immigrants as possible to fill IT jobs at a lower cost, and that peeves me like you wouldn't believe. I know those immigrants are just looking for work, but what really makes me angry is the corporations who are so obsessed with profits that they would sell out the Americans who made their companies what they are, just to make a couple extra bucks. I'm willing to accept the inevitably of machines eventually automating me out of a career (mine is safe until AI really becomes powerful, I think), but not immigrants being shipped into the country by greedy tech companies just so they can make a little more profit that they don't even need. Most of these companies aren't starving. They are just greedy.

So this is something I've always hated about the Democratic Party during the Obama years. They have completely abdicated responsible and fair approaches to illegal immigration for partisan reasons (and special interest influence). It's ridiculous. Having a pathway to citizenship and all that is fine, but the party is pretending like immigration is no big deal and, frankly, can anyone say with a straight face that if Democrats controlled everything, that they would enact policies that aimed to reduce illegal immigration and tried to protect American workers from some aspects of it? I just don't believe it. They'd give tech companies everything they want, and they'd avoid border security issues for as long as possible.

I mean, let me put it this way: Hillary and Bernie literally allowed themselves to be backed into a corner during that Univision debate, and basically promised they wouldn't deport anyone but felons. Seriously?

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Mortimer's got a point though. You know how many DEMOCRATS I'm friends with who have voiced frustrations in casual conversations about Democrats being ridiculously open border and anti-deportation?

Between the corporate lobbying, the portion of the base that wants basically no deportations aside from felons (??) and the party's perceived need to pander to Hispanic voters, it is really a perfect storm for them. I think Democrats could suffer little to no electoral impact by being somewhat less "generous" towards immigrants, but they won't do that for the reasons^ stated above.

Politically, it's a tough line to walk. You don't want to be seen as a party who seems to care more about foreigners than Americans. Having your presidential candidates basically promise not to deport anyone but violent criminals doesn't help that.

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I'd venture a guess that the vast majority of people wish poverty didn't exist, but the real issue is how to address it and how much of our resources to devote to fixing it. Given the way the world is, there has to be limits. Further, it's not even like the entire country wants to fix everyone else's problems. Sure, you can disagree with them, but you must strike a balance. You can't just ignore their wishes entirely. It is their country too, and those that wish for America to play a limited role are no small bunch.

It's one thing to deport those here already and another to further lock down the borders and prevent a situation in the future where we have another 10 - 12 million undocumented immigrants. The idea that that we can have some sort of border security, but then say, "well, if they manage to sneak in, they can stay" seems kind of ridiculous. Give the people already here at this current point in time citizenship, and work to prevent a similar situation in the future.

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... this is all on your party. You guys had compete control in 2009, with Congressional majorities not seen in a generation and you did crap with it.

Ah, the ol' "you controlled the federal govt for 2 years, so why didn't you fix everything?!" line. I swear, over the past 3 years, I've seen this brought up so many times in a complaint of why Democrats didn't fix [insert issue]. Collectively, it's like people are upset Democrats didn't fix every single issue there is with their 2 year trifecta, and far shorter Senate supermajority.

Republicans have controlled Congress for a majority of the time since 1994, and instead this is all on Democrats?

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Because I've already commented on what I've wanted to comment on earlier in this thread, Jeffster. I do not wish to engage everything, and your post was rather big. Nothing in it made me want to respond except that one little thing I picked out.

As for what you said - nuke the filibuster on day 1? The filibuster back then wasn't yet the problem it is viewed as today. Republicans massively amped their use of it in the following years so they could obstruct Democrats and turn Obama into a do-nothing president. Personally, I'd rather have a filibuster so long as it isn't abused. At that time, there wasn't really a good enough reason to kill it, imo. Of course it's obvious now, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say.

Also I think it's a little bit disingenuous to compare LBJ's big majorities to 2009-2011. First, LBJ actually got Republicans to support parts of his agenda. The parties were not so ideologically homogeneous back then, and things were far less polarized. Obama had to deal with an almost completely unified GOP front hellbent on denying him any wins, even if it hurt the country. Second, those LBJ 1965-1967 majorities were huge - much bigger than Obama's first Congress. He had wiggle room on various issues, especially when combined with a more cooperative GOP caucus.

Lastly, I do not think Democrats/Obama anticipated losing all that power so quickly. Losing 63 -/+ House seats in a single election is a pretty rare occurrence. I'd be willing to bet their actions would be much different if they could have seen what would happen in late 2010.

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You must not remember but the filibuster was already a nuisance in the 2007-2008 Congress. The nuclear option was originally brought up by Republicans in 2005 over judges, so the idea was already out there.

No, I didn't. But again, I have to say, eliminating it after a brief period of severe abuse* is still drastic. You're talking about throwing out a procedural tool that has been in place in some form for many generations. That is exactly the kind of bs I hate - changing the rules immediately when you find yourself thwarted. It's what I see Republicans doing anywhere they have power and want just a little bit more (see: North Carolina). And again, it's easy for people to be fed up now, but that is the result of over a decade of abuse.

* what you consider to be sufficiently abusive to justify gutting the filibuster is probably different than mine. The escalation since the 80s is a lot less important to me than the surge shown since Democrats took over in 2007.

The Democrats purposefully kept in the legislative filibuster because deep down most of them didn't really want to pass the progressive legislation they promised their voters. They could always use Republican obstruction as an excuse why they failed, and then ask to be re-elected so they can try again, promising next time they'll surely come through. It's so glaringly obvious it's just a big scam.

Ugh. Ok. I'm sure a few appreciated that outcome, but that sounds mostly like conspiracy talk that is favored among the left as a way to vent their frustration of the party not being sufficiently liberal.

I won't indulge that.

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Use tinypic.com or imgbb.com

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Didn't NC Dems do rule changing when Republican Governor Jim Martin was elected Governor in the late 80's? The Dems nearly dominated NC Politics till 2011 on the state level.

Maybe, but not only do I prefer to keep things within the current generation in this respect (for a couple reasons), but two wrong's also do not make a right. I'd also argue to what extent they went. The NCGOP is making a lot of moves to consolidate power, to the point where it might be fare to say that they don't even really care about how the government is structured or whether they even have elections, so long as they call the shots.

I mean for gods sakes, now they even seem to be open to just impeaching the last Democratic statewide office holders to try and increase their chances of taking over those offices.

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Oh I didn't say two wrongs make a right in the instances that NC Dems took power away from Republican Governor Jim Martin in the late 80's and how NC Republicans are taking power away from current Dem Governor Roy Cooper currently. Its just that I think in NC politics whatever party controls the state legislature seems to like taking power away from a governor of the opposing political party.

Still, I think it would be hard to match just how much power they attempted to remove from the Governor this time around, including shifting some duties to either to the legislature or other statewide offices they just won. It was so brazen. I do recall reading something that referenced what Democrats did, but I thought it may have only been related to the Governor's appointees, as in, how many or who he could place where.

And that is only related to the Governor. The NCGOP is guilty of far more tom-foolerly in their question to consolidate power in North Carolina.