"Aren't you reading some of these threads? How does the sheer hatred eminating from some of these posters escape your notice?"
Sure, I'm reading it.
But I also read these same posters, who are mad as hornets, when they respond to my direct question about whether a FENCE enacted this year without any amnesty or guest worker enacted this year would be enough for them to come back and vote Republican.
And their answer has INVARIABLY been "Yes". Often it has been an extremely sour "Yes", as in "Yes, but they're still skunks and I don't trust them", but the important thing is that it is Yes, and that means we keep the majority.
You see them as unappeasable.
I see them as having a legitimate point that really can't be gainsayed: the current laws of the USA are being openly flouted, and neither party is lifting a finger to enforce them. The BorderBots DO have the law on their side, which is a very hefty thing, not to be taken lightly. They are angry because they have gotten nothing and think they see the country going to Hell in a handbasket. And they have become worked up into a titanic rage by the purposeful blind eye the Republican leadership is giving them right now. They are being COMPLETELY disregarded by the President and the GOP Senate leadership.
OF COURSE this makes them incandescent, and if it is not fixed, OF COURSE they are going to pull the roof in on all of our heads. When I just focus on policy options that are DOABLE - agreeing to a fence and kicking the can of amnesty and guest worker upstairs into a commission to study it and present a report next year - they all have told me that this wouldn't be enough to make them HAPPY, but it's a key START, and they would trudge to the polls to vote to keep their victory.
That's what I have keyed on. The angriest, most incandescent, most rabid BorderBots here, when I have asked them directly, personally, point blank, have ALL, to a MAN, said that a real fence and no amnesty this year would be enough to bring them into the fold for this election cycle. Not happily. Not fully satisfied. But it's ENOUGH.
I want to WIN.
And to WIN that's what we're going to have to do.
In other words, they say they're unappeasable without everything, and you're believing it, but it's not true. They are emoting from the position of having been slapped in the face and had their pocket picked, and they are balling up their fists and getting ready to bury them in our faces. We have got to blink here and give them the KEY things they want. THEY say it's enough.
YOU go ahead and do the experiment. You are out there bearding the lion with these folks all the time. So just ask them, calmly and point blank: "IF we give you your fence and we agree to postpone a decision on guest worker and amnesty until a commission gives us a full report sometime in a year or two, will that be enough for you to vote GOP this year?"
They will all answer you "Yes". They may spit when they do it, because they're mad as hornets, but they are neither insane nor stupid. And they're not completely unappeasable either.
Try it.
You'll see.
And then you'll understand why I am more optimistic than you are that we CAN keep the party base together if we just cave and give these people what they want.