They Just Want To Yell About Immigration

There is no "immigration/border reform" that will keep Republicans from screaming about it, if they have decided it's the issue to scream about. It is an issue completely untethered from whatever the reality of it is, and people mostly don't care until conservative media/politicians are telling them to care and then they get enraged.

What I mean by that is if they never mentioned it, it would quickly drop down the list of things people care about. They aren't mad about immigration, they are mad about what they see on the teevee.

Ingraham tells Republicans to walk away from border deal negations because Biden will take a “victory lap” if a deal reached pic.twitter.com/y4UILwtG9d

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 9, 2024

Ingraham's mostly wrong here. They can do a deal and go back to yelling about it the next day. On this issue - more than most - nothing is real.

Another way to put this is that Democrats doing a "deal" will placate precisely zero vetoes voters and enrage the set of voters who are already a bit enraged.