Posted on 01/26/2018 4:43:41 AM PST by Kaslin
He who frames the issue tends to determine the outcome of the election. That's an old political consultant's rule, and its application has never been more apt than in the Senate Democrats' failed government shutdown over immigration policy.
Issue framing is especially important on immigration. It's an issue on which small percentages of voters on different sides have very strong views and on which the large majority of voters with less interest have conflicting views.
Euphemism has been the weapon of the liberals on this. You can't say illegal immigrants; you have to say undocumented immigrants. You can't say amnesty; you have to say a path to citizenship. You have to say that for immigration legislation to be considered comprehensive, it must provide a path to citizenship for the bulk of the estimated 11 million immigrants who are here illegally. You have to say that more restrictive plans are hard-line, presumably implying they are undesirable.
In debates over immigration legislation in 2006, 2007 and 2013, euphemisms held sway. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both sought "comprehensive" legislation, including mass amnesty. That was the policy of every president since mass immigration under the 1965 law began being noticed in the early 1980s.
Donald Trump, notoriously, campaigned for something different, starting just moments after he stepped off that escalator in Trump Tower in June 2015. His use of confrontation and sometimes vile language strikes many Americans, including me, as distasteful. But it has also helped him frame issues, including immigration, his way.
He was attacked as racist for saying that Mexico does not send its best. But Pew Research Center data confirm that immigrants from Mexico have on average lower education and skill levels than immigrants from any other country.
His use of the term "chain migration" was attacked by Sen. Dick Durbin as offensive because slaves arrived in North America in chains. This effort at euphemism enforcement was a stretch, as people of varying views have been using the term "chain migration" for two decades.
Trump's positions on immigration did evolve during the campaign. He joined the large majority of Americans who favor legislation granting clear legal status to the 700,000 or so "dreamers" -- those brought to this country illegally as children -- who registered under Obama's legally dubious Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. That was a bow to the classic Judeo-Christian teaching that sins of the fathers should not be visited on the sons.
President Trump's September announcement that he would allow DACA to lapse in March but would sign legislation including a permanent arrangement for dreamers set a schedule for negotiation. But he insisted that any bill include other provisions, many unfamiliar to the public.
One would abolish the visa lottery -- which has few defenders, given the number of terrorists and parents of terrorists it has admitted. Another would require use of the E-Verify system to validate the status of job applicants.
A third would move legal immigration slots from extended-family reunification, which accounts for the lion's share today, to a skills-based system like Canada and Australia's. This was an unfamiliar term during previous immigration bill debates, largely unmentioned by advocates of comprehensive legislation, and their opponents' arguments got little airing in the press. But it's become more familiar during the Trump presidency, and a recent Harvard-Harris poll showed 79 percent of voters in favor of using "education and skills" to determine immigration rather than using the fact that one has relatives here.
Then there is the border wall, a staple of Trump's campaign rhetoric. Many polls show voters opposed to it or skeptical about whether it would work. But when you frame it, as Trump has, to include both "physical and electronic barriers across the U.S.-Mexico border," it's favored by 54 percent, according to Harvard-Harris.
Trump won the 69-hour showdown fight with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer because he was willing to frame the issue as a choice between funding the government, including the military, and helping immigrants who are here illegally. Democratic senators might wince at that, but they didn't want to defend their party's position.
Trump continues to have leverage on immigration, and he will as long as he keeps emphasizing the specific provisions he is demanding, in non-euphemistic language if necessary. Of course, this could still get bollixed up. But the only way to get a permanent DACA-like solution is, if he insists on it, Trump's way.
Trump gave the Repubs the leverage they need to destroy Schumer and company - here’s hoping McConnell and company use that leverage...
I agree. Trump’s deal is way too good for my tastes. And the dems still want more. It exposes them for the hypocrites they are.
We all know how reassuring that thought is.
In “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” one little boy “reframes the issue.”
That statement assumes facts not in evidence.
Trump’s “deal” was a ploy to get immigration to further blue-on-blue destruction. As the coastal elites continue to push this issue, they further alienate what was left of potential “Trump Democrats” who voted for Hillary with misgivings. As long as the DACA “kids” keep on acting like entitled idiots, i.e., screaming at Pelosi, protesting in front of Schumer’s apartment, they will have less and less support from the majority of Americans and suddenly Trump’s 1.8 million offer will become maybe a hundred thousand, those who are truly serving in the military and high school valedictorians, who will be inclined to look positively at Trump and negatively on Democrats who insist on bringing unlimited terrorists and leeches into the country.
“...a bow to the classic Judeo-Christian teaching that sins of the fathers should not be visited on the sons.”
***********
So Christianity is about allowing the fathers to continue to sin by sneaking their kids in?
All of them out. Dual Citizenship is Double Death. They will chain in by arranged
marriages or sham marriages and pop little watermelons by the handful with no
intent to assimilate. Invasion by womb. We don’t need to be Merkelized. NFWay.
The message is “lie cheat steal so that your kids may prosper and have good lives.” This makes good honest decent people who obey laws and try to succeed through hard work seem like chumps who leave their children without the rewards accrued through looting and cheating. The end is that children of honest parents are ruled over by children of cheaters who feel superior to them. This seems all wrong.
I'd think it's a shrewd move to clean house and get a whole lot of "dreamers" out of the country. The larger number means that those who don't register have no excuse....they're deported.
I hear you - McConnell has experienced winning but it scares him...
Dude doesn’t know his scripture:
“Exodus 20:5 - Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me;”
Then he uses a euphemism himself: "Obama’s legally dubious Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
"Legally Dubious"? Hell, it was flat out illegal.
Modified by
2 Kings 14:6
6 But the children of the murderers he slew not: according unto that which is written in the book of the law of Moses, wherein the Lord commanded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children be put to death for the fathers; but every man shall be put to death for his own sin.
(KJV)
Mr. Barone, with all due respect (which is essentially none, in this case), KISS MY ASS. I'm tired to death of all of the "intellectual" conservatives, using this virtue signaling disclaimer. EFF you. And honestly, I'm normally a pretty big fan of Barone.
29 In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge.
30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.
I’m a Torah guy, so I don’t count New Testament as “scripture”. So, there’s a difference.
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