Watching the House Republicans try to figure out how to pass some kind of immigration reform without inviting a fatal backlash from their racist base is one part comedy and one part tragedy. It’s funny because they all try to pretend to be standing on principle, but they are really trying to wait until most members have been renominated and cannot be defeated in a primary challenge. And it’s sad because the modern GOP has taken on all the attributes of a xenophobic, nationalistic, race-based fascist party. Even the people who want to do the right thing seem to want to do it less because it has intrinsic merit and more because they are dimly aware that fascism isn’t a long-term winning political strategy, at least so long as we keep having elections.
I keep hearing “reasonable” Republican strategists arguing that the party cannot continue to alienate Latinos and Asians, but they say that because they know it will cost them elections. You almost never hear them slam the racists (unless anonymously) and it’s even rarer that they make a moral case for immigration reform.
At some point, a decent person stops trying to convince a group of vile, angry bigots to reform and walks away from the group.
