re: #110 KGxvi

I think Bush believed it. It’s why he supported immigration reform. And I think there was, at the time, a critical mass of Republicans who believed it as well. But in the subsequent two decades, many were chased out of the party or left of their own volition.

I was much more likely to vote for Republicans back then; today, there’s just no way I could justify it.

I disagree, I don’t think Bush’s “immigration reform” initiative really was planned to go anywhere: it always seemed to me to be pretty much designed to run right up against both sides’ maximalist objections (shorthanded as “amnesty” vs. “enforcement-only”) in order to maintain the status quo: i.e. keeping a certain mass of cheap, exploitable labor in the country, while maintaining a level of enforcement just enough to keep civil-libertarians quiet, and allowing politicians to inveigh against “illegals” while keeping their donor class happy enough to not complain about their actually doing anything about it.

Of course, that was America pre-Great Recession, pre-Trump: so irrelevant history now…..