Here Comes the Pushback

Mark Thiessen advises the GOP on how to properly fight President Obama’s executive (IE, tyrannical) amnesty:

The administration’s new guidelines prioritize the deportation of illegal aliens with felony convictions. But his regulations leave those convicted “of a ‘significant misdemeanor’ which for these purposes is an offense of domestic violence; sexual abuse or exploitation; burglary; unlawful possession or use of a firearm; drug distribution or trafficking; or driving under the influence” in a lower category of those to be deported, along with those convicted of other crimes “for which the individual was sentenced to time in custody of 90 days or more (the sentence must involve time to be served in custody, and does not include a suspended sentence).”

This is absurd. Prosecutors reach deals every day that allow people facing felony charges to plead down to misdemeanors in exchange for a guilty plea. The same goes for time served in custody. Those plea deals should not come with executive amnesty as well.

Furthermore, Congress should insist that illegal immigrants allowed to stay under Obama’s executive action be barred from receiving certain taxpayer-funded benefits, such as welfare, food stamps, tax credits, Social Security and Medicare. Obama claimed in his immigration address that he wanted to help “immigrant fathers who worked two or three jobs without taking a dime from the government.” If that is the case, then he should have no problem with legislation ensuring that is the case.

Thiessen’s ideas dovetail perfectly with what Glenn Reynolds suggested on Monday:

POLITICO SAYS THAT GOP CANDIDATES DON’T GET IT when trying to get tech money.

Actually, I’d say that if they’re trying to get tech money, they really don’t get it. First, these companies are Dem allies and that isn’t likely to change. Second, there are more votes to be had running a populist campaign against the New Oligarchs of Silicon Valley than any donations could possibly buy. A winning GOP campaign would attack the plutocratic oligarchs of the super-rich and the welfare-chiselers of the non-working poor, on behalf of the 75% of the country in between.

Whatever the Democrats’ history might have been, they are now fully the party of welfare dependency for the shiftless and crony capitalist dependency for the connected. That’s not a majority coalition — if the GOP is smart with its wedge issues, and cuts out the ridiculous and self-defeating Shutdown Theater.