Anti-Immigration Conservative Intellectuals Are Seriously Misleading Their Party

Anti-immigration sentiment hasn’t just infected the base in Trump’s GOP but also some of the smartest conservatives, especially many reformocons. They see the rise of Trump’s economic populism and restrictionism as a vindication of their diagnosis that the GOP ignores the antipathy of its white working class base to immigration and globalization at its peril.

But what they are ignoring is just how out-of-step such sentiment is with the rest of the country. Rush Limbaugh and his media acolytes have been beating the anti-immigration drum for two decades now. But what is the impact on public opinion? GOPers are vastly more anti-immigration. But other Americans are vastly more pro-immigration now than when Limbaugh et al started out polls show, I note in my column at The Week.

In 1994, 63 percent of Americans said immigrants burdened the country and 31 percent said they strengthened it. Now, it’s the exact opposite with 59 percent saying strengthen and 33 percent burden.

And what’s true for America in general is even truer for the new generation of voters: millennials.

These conservatives won’t secure the GOP’s existing base as much as they’ll sacrifice the future one.

Go here to view the piece.