The GOP Is Completely Hosed On Immigration

Obama is standing his ground on his threat to take executive action on immigration, and Republicans are beside themselves in rage. Needless to say, I can't get enough.

Mitch McConnell recently stated that such a unilateral act by Obama would be akin to "waiving a red flag in front of a bull" and it would "poison the well' with regard to any chance of bipartisanship in the future. And radicalized right wingers like Charles Krauthammer described such potential action by the President as "an impeachable offense."  But Obama is going to do it anyway.

The most hilarious part is that Republicans apparently think that Obama has a choice. He clearly does not.  If Obama fails to act on immigration before the end of the year, then the Democrats will take a huge political hit insofar as Hispanic support is concerned. Latinos are mad enough that Obama put the promised reforms on hold until after the election.

But if Obama acts -- which he must do -- then really good things happen for the Democrats:

Not only does the President, and the party, get credit with Latinos for attempting to move forward on immigration reform, but at the same time he puts Republicans in an impossible position. The GOP base is apoplectic about the potential of any reform. Yet, saner party leaders know that Republicans are in danger of losing Latinos forever (other than Cubans, Latinos tend to vote Democratic). So the President effectively puts Republicans in a box — dog-fight style — two years before a presidential.

What about the impeachment threat, you say? Well, that's the best part. Obama wants to be impeached.

Just think about how that would look. Here is a guy trying to do something while the least productive Congress in modern history refuses to do anything, and the lazy GOP-led House of Representatives responds . . . by impeaching the one guy actually trying to solve the problem.  Mitch McConnell knows how awful the optics would be for the GOP on something like that, so much so that he's even ruled out merely shutting down the government if Obama acts unilaterally on immigration reform.

And what about McConnell's statement that Obama will "poison the well" with regard to future cooperation from the GOP?  Well, that's all horseshit, of course.  The GOP got crushed in the 2008 and 2012 elections, and how did they respond?  They veered even more to the right and cooperated with Obama and the Democrats even less.

So anyone out there who actually believes Republicans will finally start negotiating in good faith -- now that they've won a big mid-term victory over the hated President Blackenstein -- just hasn't been paying attention.