Opinion | This Is the Democrats’ Biggest Problem

There’s a struggle proper now throughout the Democratic Get together about ICE enforcement. “For weeks, we’ve been pushing common sense reforms.” “Actual accountability begins with abolishing ICE.” “Americans — Americans — being arrested, being detained, being held for days.” That may be a form of proxy struggle for a bigger struggle, which I believe isn’t truly being had proper now in earnest however will within the primaries. Which means: What ought to our immigration coverage be? Which is: What ought to our immigration coverage be? I do assume 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 received to move background checks, you’ve received to study English, you’ve received to pay taxes and a penalty, and you then’ve received to go to the again of the road, behind everyone who’s performed issues the appropriate approach and have tried to return right here legally.” To me, the larger factor is: There’s a elementary struggle over what sort of nation we’re taking place 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’ll 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 received taught — individuals come from throughout, and so they can all be People. The well-known Reagan speech, the place he says you may go to Germany and might’t be a German, you may go to Italy and might’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 form of consensus imaginative and prescient that underlay the debates taking place above it, that consensus is torn aside. When that struggle is occurring at this elemental stage, I believe it’s very exhausting to return again in with the previous coverage query with out truly making an affirmative case for what sort of nation you need.