That ship sailed some time ago.

-Laelth

With the push for immigration reform. Big money knows that legalizing the undocumented and increasing legal immigration are great ways to drive down wages and keep them permanently low.

Flipping Texas blue will not come cheap.

That's why unions and the progressive caucus are in favor of legalization. It is the tea party pressure on the House republicans that is resisting immigration reform.

Legal immigration does not drive down wages (or Canada's wages would be on the dumpster). Each American citizen and legal immigrant entering the workforce represent an increase in the supply of labor but also an increase in the demand for goods and services.

Canada selects for immigrants of means with higher-end skills. Meanwhile, the US is more the safety valve for the excess poor population of Mexico and the rest of Central America, which elites in that country are happy to see go (and send back remittances). In fact, the Mexican government strongly supports the movement of migrants north, while at the same time heavily restricting access to Mexico from poor immigrants from further south. Surely if their mere presence is an economic boon, the Mexican elite would be interested in stemming the flow north, not encouraging it.

You add to the labor pool, wages go down. Do it at at a time of relatively high unemployment, such as now, and it just makes the situation worse. It's pretty simple. That's not to mention the strain that a higher population places on the infrastructure, health care, education, and criminal justice systems.

I really don't think that the economic arguments account for left-wing and union support for higher immigration. That support is mainly for political and cultural reasons.

But there is. So wages can't go below a floor....unless the employee is an undocumented immigrant, and thus can not enforce the minimum wage law.

The minimum wage law actually means workers will likely get paid more after immigration reform, because a large number of "$2/hour" workers would be getting a raise. Assuming you count currently undocumented immigrants as "workers".

I said to expect it; the less-radical Republicans will want to join the Democrats and the Third-Way will welcome them. If that happens, the Democratic Party is going to start moving to the right again, which is just what some people have been wanting for a long time.

And the message is spot on, too! Wow.

You had me going there for a minute. Then you told us who was moving in and, aaaack.

Yes, they already have infiltrated via the DLC and the so-called "Reagan democrats."

And as we've seen from the waves of threads on the inevitablility of Hillary Clinton, not to mention the nauseating "Ready for Hillary" ads they are bombarding us with daily, they've already determined who our next president will be. A former Republican, armchair warrior, corporatist to the core.

more on DU the last month than I ever have in my entire life.

Just had to point that out...


that said, im happy they are having this rift too...

im kinda hoping itll lead to a couple elections of democratic dominance that later leads to a split within our own party...

coalition governments seem to work pretty good elsewhere in the world..

Hit delete America!

There are ways to stop a movement, usually by discrediting its leaders. Matt Kibbe, the Koch Brothers, this guy Needham, James O'Keefe etc, all look suspect to me. When they campaign for guys who say a child by rape is God's will, I know they are suspect as leaders. When they lead the country to a shut down, I know their judgment is suspect. We will see if the leaders of the movement can't withstand the spotlight of notoriety as they build power.


Great writing, excellent post.

into the party for the rich is buying into our paradigm of government--the government looks after the poor, provides health care for all, protects the environment etc.

The negative will be the lessened likelihood that the Democrats will do everything they can on those issues. The positive is that the Republicans won't have the ability to roll any of it back.

because we all know what will happen eventually that is the destruction of our party through greed
just as they have done with the GOP.

... congress did not pass the American Jobs Act because they did not want the economy to improve before the election.

But it was endorsed by both the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce.

If Dems control everything and big business and labor can agree on a job creation plan things just might be looking up.

Like when a bunch of easterners move to the desert southwest and then start complaining about the food, planting water-intensive lawns, and acting like hispanics are a minority group.

------------------

With precious few exceptions, the rich are not our friends. Hell I don't think they truly have friends, just business associates, boot lickers, and sycophants, but I digress and that's a matter for psychologists to puzzle over. The truth in your piece Ian is that the rich will not stay with a loser for long, and by all accounts the GOP is in a tailspin. There is no immediate viable third party for the rich to invest in so that leaves us.

Money is never free, and when, not if, the money starts pouring in we will see a further movement away from the core Democratic principles that have been the core of our Party. It won't take too long to start hearing "reasonable" proposals about Social Security privatization and other social safety net tweeks.

The self inflicted wounds that the GOP are suffering now are certainly justified and we are enjoying the schadenfreude, but I'm not too sure we're going to enjoy the aftermath.

Thanks for the OP Ian, definitely food for thought.

The wealthy can offer lots of career opportunities to government officials and their families. What's being projected has already largely happened.

The rank and file get populist rhetoric during the election season, then get kicked to the corner afterwards. This is nothing new.

That would be akin to converting a right brained person into a left brained person or vice versa. Or transforming your sexual orientation. There is just no roadmap where that can happen. None.

I'm expecting it will fracture. The "left" side will find a new home elsewhere, while the wealthy consolidate power over the "right" side.

Which will attempt to drag the party right.

Which will lead to another party fracture: The left end of the Democratic party will not find this acceptable. And so just like the wealthy, we'll move elsewhere - either elevating a "minor" party to "major" party, or starting a new "major" party. Meanwhile the Republican party will wither away like the Whigs.

Result? In about 20 years, the Democratic party will be where the Republicans were in the 1960's, the new left party will be about where the Democrats were in the 1960s. And the Republican party will be gone. And it will have only taken us about 70 years to get back to where we already were.

It's going to be an interesting few decades.

they would wreck themselves after 1 election cycle.

I've said for some time that what we need is for the old Rockefeller republicans, and other moderate republicans, to "take back" their own party, an leave ours. Then we can have a real debate in this country between a left and a right. Lately, all we get is an argument between the right and the more right.

Heck, even around here we get the "can't argue that because they're both democrats and we have to support democrats".

Corporations are not people, and money is not 'free speech.'

We need to go back to of, by, and for the people. Not just the rich.

We accept everybody.

This said, I am not sure there are many more to come. There are no more moderate Republicans.

When Peter King and Charlie Dent are called moderate just because they want to do something, we know there is a problem.

The pro-business Republicans often don't care as much about social conservatism.

On our side look at the Kennedys, Kerry, Buffett, and many politicians are rich because its expensive to run for office so rich people can afford to do it and they are well connected and often well known.

There are more than 2 ideologies out there. The tea party (taxed enough already) is primarily focused on taxes and spending. There is some overlap with the religious right but they are not always allies since they care about different things.

Tea party obsessively resents their feeling that some people are getting something they don't deserve. Many liberals feel the same way about companies getting more profit than they deserve. Resentment will make anyone unhappy no matter what your ideology.

Full disclosure, I don't think businesses are necessarily bad, and the most important goal in my life right now is to get a stable fulltime job somewhere and a stable living situation. One of the things I want with a bit more urgency than other issues is economic stability and job growth. These assholes in the tea party deliberately wreck or block everything with a manufactured crisis every few months to discourage companies from hiring. Fuck people like this. However anti-business anti-profit punishment from the left isn't going to help me get a job either.