Man, I didn't even LIKE Obama very much, but he's so far above any Republican candidate of the past sixtyish years that it's not even funny.
But scary black man, so GOP gonna GOP
Absolutely! He was a fairly middle of the road moderate! He even kept up the drone strikes that Republicans love so much! But his skin tone makes him a horrible existential threat to them.
And Obama wanted sooo much to be a Centrist hero. He would’ve accepted virtually anything just to pass a bipartisan bill. The Republicans could have worked him for all sorts of policy concessions in his first term but just couldn’t tamp down their hatred
I have a suspicion that Biden’s just calling their bluff on immigration. Doing so caused the Republicans to torpedo their most salient talking point ahead of the election, and he’s not forcing the issue like he is with student loan forgiveness
Here’s the thing “calling their bluff” on closing the border only makes it seem like that’s a reasonable and laudable goal for everyone and they’re not bluffing so when they get the opportunity to they’ll push for it. It’s like calling their abortion stance a bluff but they’re very sincere.
Sure. However the Republicans had won the messaging war on this. Popular opinion was already on their side. Letting the Senate bill implode has effectively killed it. The House won’t even consider writing their own bill. Barring some dramatic event it’s a dead issue at least until next term
It’s polling as the most salient issue for voters at the moment. Buying and reinforcing the conservative framing is how they consistently win on anything touching on race, immigration, poverty etc. hell “conservatives have a strong message on abortion” was the conventional wisdom until Dobbs.
