"No it's not that simple. It's only being presented as that simple for the moment.
As soon as a border fence is agreed to we'll get the next bit of agitprop. Several hundred thousand people a year enter this country with travel visas and they don't leave.
They will be the new cause celeb and the the new unreachable goal post location will be -- mass deportations."
Agitprop?
You don't take the border conservatives as seriously as I do.
I seriously doubt that it would be as you suggest.
I think it would be like the pro-lifer stress over Miers followed by the rush back to the colors when Alito was named. Sure, there were a handful of malcontents who tried to question Alito's credentials and pro-life commitment, but most pro-lifers are sincere conservatives and want to see the party do well. They WANT to support Republicans. Miers made that impossible, but Alito returned them to the fold.
I believe that the identical thing will be true of the border conservatives if they're given their fence this year. Listen to them right on this thread and others. They're not out there spewing general propaganda. They have AN issue of singular importance to them, which the Republican Party OUGHT TO BE with them on anyway (we already have immigration laws that are being broken, and which ought to be enforced). The GOP seems to be stiff arming them, and they are mad as hornets. I get no sense from these folks that most of them WANT to be angry with the GOP. I think most of them are scared that everything is coming apart, just like you ought to be if you care about the GOP's fortunes, because everything IS coming apart.
But what it's coming apart about, now, is illegal immigration. This is fixable. Vote for, fund and start building the fence. You will get these people back and the party will win. Sure, there will be some who really hate the GOP on principle, but not most, not at all.
Anyway, it's your only hope of holding onto the majority, so you'd best reconcile yourself to it and give it a shot, because otherwise, defeat is certain without these folks.
Well said!
I don't take the border conservatives seriously?
I am a border conservative. Many of the critiques of the agitprop you see around here also are border conservatives.
It's not a contradiction to be for border control and against border propaganda.
You should take seriously the damage border agitprop can do to our cause.
I'd be willing to agree to that and support that.
Just as long as the fence people understood, clearly, that there would be an expansion of the guest worker program on the table next year, as well as some path to citizenship for some or most of those already here.