Opinion | This Is the Democrats’ Biggest Problem

There’s a combat proper now throughout the Democratic Get together about ICE enforcement. “For weeks, we’ve been pushing commonsense reforms.” “Actual accountability begins with abolishing ICE.” “Americans — Americans — being arrested, being detained, being held for days.” That could be a type of proxy combat for a bigger combat, which I feel isn’t really being had proper now in earnest however will within the primaries. That means: What ought to our immigration coverage be? Which is: What ought to our immigration coverage be? I do suppose there’s a way that the previous consensus is lifeless. What was the previous consensus? The consensus was: elevated enforcement, path to citizenship. “You’ve acquired to move background checks, you’ve acquired to study English, you’ve acquired to pay taxes and a penalty, and then you definitely’ve acquired to go to the again of the road, behind everyone who’s completed issues the appropriate approach and have tried to come back right here legally.” To me, the larger factor is: There’s a basic combat over what sort of nation we’re occurring proper now. I imply, the emergence of a real blood-and-soil pressure of conservatism — “This nation is for us and by us”; the individuals who can go and go to their ancestors’ graves, the place they are going to bury their youngsters — that’s what this nation is; it’s not a rustic of concepts; it’s not a creedal nation. All that pluralist claptrap that you simply acquired taught — individuals come from throughout, they usually can all be Individuals. The well-known Reagan speech, the place he says you may go to Germany and may’t be a German, you may go to Italy and may’t be Italian, however anybody can come right here and be an American. This was his final speech. His final speech. Sure, which is an ideal articulation of what was once a reasonably type of consensus imaginative and prescient that underlay the debates occurring above it, that consensus is torn aside. When that combat is going on at this elemental stage, I feel it’s very arduous to come back again in with the previous coverage query with out really making an affirmative case for what sort of nation you need.