How to Lose the Immigration Fight

The right's gonna blow an easy win. Here's how.

The worst thing about the “stollen 2020 election” claim becoming canon on the right is that it's helped wash the soft-brains of MAGAs of any notion that there exists a political pendulum. The reality of that pendulum – the electorate swings right, then left, then right – has never been questioned, the same way cows giving milk has never been questioned. It's a reality. Only an idiot would “ask qwestchins” like “do we really get milk from cows? Or is BIG FARMA engaged in a nefarious satanic plot to create milk from the bodies of molested boys, then 'claim' it 'came' from ‘cows?’”

Sound stupid? MAGAMAGAMAGA! “There's no 'political pendulum.' The electorate went to the right in 2016, so that's where it will always stay! Voters never swing. Never. If voters appear to swing in an election, that election must’ve been STOLLEN!”

That MAGA minds having been cleansed of any fear of a pendulum, indeed, washed thoroughly of any knowledge that one exists, means that MAGAs are not looking at the actions of Trump with any concern that in the 2026 midterms or the 2018 presidential election voters might swing Dem.

See, this is the key difference between (some of) you and I. (Some of) you see Alex Jones and the MAGA conspiracists (Trump, Bannon, Beattie, Stone, Owens, Poso, Cerno, Rogan, etc.) as harmless.

I don't. Dumbing down any demographic never helps. Never. By convincing MAGAs that pendulums are fiction, the ooga-booga Bannons will end up sowing the seeds of a pendulum shift like we've never seen.

So let's specifically talk about immigration.

By way of the “War on Drugs.”

CRUEL TO BE KIND

In the 1980s and '90s, aggressive attempts to stop drug use among our precious young people (they ARE the future, haven't you heard?) were broadly popular with American voters. The nightly news was filled with stories about crack and coke and the diabolical reefer, and in popular culture, every marble-mouthed moron from Stallone to Schwarzenegger to Seagal received standing ovations for blowing away druggies.

Take THAT, guy who nasally inhaled a stimulant.

In 1988 a majority of American voters favored arresting drug dealers, but, more importantly, a plurality of voters favored arresting drug users.

So how'd we get from there to here, with half of all U.S. States having decriminalized pot (by ballot measure — i.e. via popular vote not legislative decree), and with the demon Soros and his hunchback lab assistant Gingrich having manipulated public sympathy for poor persecuted drug dealers and users to elect “progressive” DAs all across the nation who free rapists and murderers?

Excess, Cletus! Excess.

In the 1990s, pro-War on Druggers went too far. Lots of precious young people were being shot by cops in the name of keeping them sober. As then-L.A. Police Chief Daryl Gates openly stated in September 1990, “casual drug users ought to be taken out and shot.” When asked by the press two days later if he actually believed what he said or if he was just engaging in headline-grabbing hyperbole, he bluntly declared “yeah, I mean it.”

That attitude, the desire to kill people on drugs to prevent them from getting high, made voters question the mission.

“Why are we waging the war on drugs?”

“Because drugs scramble the minds of our precious young people. It's bad for their health!”

“So what's your solution?”

“Kill 'em.”

“But...isn't that even worse for their health? This policy doesn't seem to make sense.”

Sadly, in 1990 Cletuses had not yet learned the magic word, so they couldn't respond MAGAMAGAMAGA CUCKCUCKCUCK whenever cornered.

Primitive times indeed.

The point being, voters aren't deaf and blind. They can sense when something stops making sense. Yes, little Timmy shouldn't do pot. Also yes, shooting little Timmy to stop him from doing pot seems excessive.

By the 2000s, the excesses of the War on Drugs had led to a pendulum swing, away from “shoot 'em” and toward “decriminalize it” and “treatment not prison,” the latter view being exploited by Soros to lull voters into accepting much more expansive soft on crime measures...which themselves have created a pendulum swing, as seen in California with the San Francisco and Los Angeles Soros DAs booted and every county in the state voting to end the Soros/Gingrich soft-on-crime measures that had, in the name of “saving your TAX MONEY by not locking up precious young pot users,” led to a plague of property crime.

Also, and this is an important point, once the War on Drugs reached that excess of “shoot 'em!” it shoved a momentum-killing conflict in the face of voters, and for fuck's sake you never want to do that. In 1988 yes, most voters wanted a hardline on drugs. Also, at the same time, most of those voters knew a drug user. Let's not kid ourselves; we all know one. Yes, Cletus, even your beloved PATRIOTICAL AMERICANISTS have had substance abuse problems, from Rush Limbaugh to Kelsey Grammer.

So the notion of shooting drug users created what I call a “Posen Problem:” in 1944 Himmler complained during a speech in Posen that the eradication of the Jews is complicated by the fact that every German has their “one good Jew,” a friend, colleague, or neighbor. So Germans were like “sure, kill 'em, but not THIS one.”

Same with the drug war.

White mom: “Shoot DeAndreasfawlt the crackhead; he's a villain. But don't shoot my nephew Pansyfagh; he's got good genes! He deserves treatment, not punishment.”

Black mom: “Shoot Pansyfagh; white-ass muthafucka be a privileged oppressor anyway. But don't shoot DeAndreasfawlt; he a genius honors student!”

The war on drugs eventually petered out due to excess, not only in terms of enforcement, but over-the-top statements by its advocates, bluster (Daryl Gates giving out talking points at a press conference was the “tweeting” of its time) that cooled voters on the entire affair as it made them fearful that harm might come to someone they care about. That “cooling” was exploited by predators like Soros, who took advantage of it to enact soft-on-crime policies that would, themselves, eventually fall to excess.

IMMIGRATION

Americans want tight immigration enforcement. That's not even in question. American voters don't want open borders, period. And the Democrat refusal to bend on the issue of “invite the world” has, and will continue to, cost them.

It's a solid gold issue for rightists. So of course they'll find a way to fuck it up.

In theory, there should be no pendulum swing on immigration. Public opinion on tight borders vs. open has been consistent over the decades. In California, it's the issue Pete Wilson successfully rode to the governor’s mansion in 1990. Same with Schwarzenegger in 2003. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton was for tight borders. As was Biden prior to the brain-eating worms.

But there will be a pendulum swing, courtesy of MAGA and – what's the key word in this piece? Excess.

Of course, MAGA doesn't know the meaning of the word “excess.” Excess is, to MAGAs, the Moon landing or the Holocaust; it just doesn't exist.

RED, GREEN, YELLOW, BEAN

To properly make my war on drugs analogy, I'm going to cite a debate I recently had with a friend. I won't name the friend, because I don't get into spirited debates with friends in order to embarrass them. I will simply refer to this person as “Friend,” and leave it there.

The debate started when a former Trump Administration official, Joshua Steinman, tweeted a traffic map of L.A. that appeared to show all green during rush hour (you probably can figure this out, but in L.A. traffic maps, red means clogged freeway, yellow means slow-going, and green means free and clear). Traffic maps are hugely important to Angelenos, because we plan our lives around fighting traffic.

“Dear Lord. Monday evening rush hour…it’s just gone! Turns out the solution to LA traffic was mass deportations,” Steinman captioned the map.

Why must MAGAs always speak like astounded children? “Mommy, mommy, lookit this bullfrog. It’s NEATO! A bullfrog, mommy. A BULLFROG! Wooooooooow!”

Steinman's post was retweeted by Cernobiec and Posonovich (as if they're not the same fucking person), which sent it viral.

Yes, GOD-KING TRUMP had cured L.A. traffic!

By deporting 1,618 beans (the entire total of his L.A. deportations).

Okay, there were problems with Steinman’s bullfrog. First, the L.A. freeway system handles over a million drivers a day (the dreaded 405 alone handles 350,000). 1,618 less cars will not make a difference. Even if we assume that thousands more beans who were not deported were nevertheless scared into staying off the roads, that will not make a dent in the overall traffic.

Also, the illegal beans Trump's been targeting – day laborers, farm workers – are unlikely to arrive to work every day in individual cars.

“¡Ay yi yi, before I peeeeek theeee lettuce, let me valet my BeeeeeeeMW.” These laborers typically carpool. It's a running gag in the county, the beaner clown car – a van chased by the cops that crashes and 50 dudes pour out. Also, many of these beans ride the buses. As a non-driver I can attest that the rapid line buses at 2am are filled with beans getting off their restaurant shift. I rode those buses a thousand times in the pre-Uber days.

But most significantly, Steinman's “magic map” was from 7:34pm. Rush hour's over by then. L.A. rush hour is 4:30pm to 7pm. Barring a major crash or an event at Staples Center, it always clears by 7:30.

Show me an all-green map from 6pm. Oh, sorry MAGA, you can't. I've screen-shotted every 4:30pm to 6:30pm L.A. freeway traffic map since Steinman's post, and they're all red. Red, red, red. Red as always.

Of course, if Steinman could show a “first Monday after July 4^th weekend” 7:34pm traffic map from 2024 or 2023, and if those maps were red, that would certainly be proof that something is different this year.

So I asked Josh if he had any maps for comparison. Any traffic maps to demonstrate that his 7:34pm Monday traffic map was different from the same date & time during the Biden years.

His response?

Hey, sorry, I don’t.

Good luck!

To MAGAs, data only matters on race and crime. Anything else? Screw Steve Sailer. The fact is, without a Biden-era map for comparison, the Steinman map is meaningless. What we can know is that actual rush hour times in L.A. are still just as bad as always.

Ryan James Girdusky, a young gentleman I very much like, retweeted the Steinman map.

I asked him…

The question, Ryan, is what are you comparing it to? This new MAGA mania of posting L.A. freeway maps to "prove" that Trump deporting 1,618 L.A. illegals (and certainly scaring thousands more into the shadows) is affecting freeways (TRUMP SOLVED TRAFFIC! MAGA MAGA Hallelujah!) is meaningless without any base of comparison. Where's the map from the exact same date and time in 2024? 2023? Without those, this "data" is meaningless. If you want to convince me that deporting 1,618 and scaring away thousands of others (who likely use buses not cars anyway) has "greened" the freeways, I'd need to see comparison maps.

His reply?

David, I’m just trying to show what it looks like since everyone is posting the same green lines. I have no idea what it means.

This is what I hate about MAGA — It dumbs down even the smartest of minds. “I just posted it, I have no idea what it means” is a terrible take. And if you're a smart guy, as Ryan is, and you find yourself adopting that terrible take, stop it. Just stop it. It’s beneath you.

You know my tactic for never appearing ludicrous? I don't defend bullshit. Not for any cause, no matter how dear it may be. These childish exercises in “WOO-HOO! TRUMP GOT RID OF TRAFFIC! MAGAMAGAMAGA!” are so fucking stupid. Worse still, deep down you guys know that there's a better n' average chance Trump will eventually let you down on this issue and you'll regret posting about his godlike powers.

So please...just don't. You gain nothing from participating in this nonsense. If whites really are the high-IQ Übermenschen, and if the facts and data are on the side of immigration restriction, there should be no need for childish GOLLY GOSH TRAFFIC'S GONE! fakery.

BRING BACK BLACK!

“Friend,” who initially brought Steinman's tweet to my attention, found my lack of faith disturbing.

And that led to a back-and-forth, which I'll run in its entirety.

FRIEND: American citizens are fleeing California. Perhaps actual Americans would be willing to move back there if enough illegals are deported & kept out so that the price of housing comes down.

ME: I'm unclear on the principle you're describing. Why would illegals being deported lead to LOWER housing prices overall? It's gentrification - the displacement of the impoverished as land is grabbed up by wealthy developers - that leads to higher housing costs. When Palms/Mar Vista was heavily black, you could get an apartment there, a nice two bedroom, for $750. Today? Nothing below $3,500, as the blacks were long ago driven out. That ridiculous "Danish L.A." you seem to pine for (beans deported, and for some unexplained reason Scandinavians move in) would bring higher housing costs.

So please explain the dynamic. You can't kick blacks out of Carson and South Central - they ain't illegals. Only gentrification - the rising of costs - drives them out. And in East L.A. there are far and away enough legals that those neighborhoods would remain bean even after deportations. Hence, again, only gentrification would displace them. And West L.A., where prices are the worst? How would deportations lower THOSE prices? Your Powerpoint seems to be lacking a few key pages.

FRIEND: The median home price in Florida in 2018 was $254,505. Then in 2019 Florida passed laws cracking down on illegal aliens. The median home price fell to $240,000 in only that year. Then COVID hit and tons of people moved to Florida for freedom reasons, driving up prices. So we see after cracking down on aliens the prices went down. Then they shot up during COVID because Florida became very popular. But now Florida just passed more anti-illegal alien acts early this year, and prices for homes are down 2% already compared to last year.

ME: My friend, you're speaking of an entire state, and a very populous one at that. To get to the heart of the issue, let's talk neighborhoods, not states.

Palms. A neighborhood in West L.A. adjoining some of the priciest real estate in the region. But Palms had been black since WWII, when Grandpa Odom dun moved out hee-yah to woik at da docks. By the 1980s Palms was a cancer. Massive crime, cheap dilapidated houses and apartments (all accepting Section 8). In the 1990s, the developers went to work. They bought up all the old apartments and houses. They paid well because they knew how much they'd earn from the new apartments and houses they'd erect. By the 2000s, Palms was fully gentrified. High-end apartments, new expensive houses, no Section 8. The blacks had either been paid off (the homeowners) or evicted when the old apts were sold. And now they couldn't afford the area anymore. A trade-off to be sure. In 1988 a young white could totally afford an apartment in Palms, because the blacks and the crime kept prices down. Sure, your beloved white would have to be on-guard against being mugged, killed, or having a break-in, but at least he had AFFORDABLE RENT!!!!!! Today? Palms is safe, but also pricey.

This dynamic happened. I'm not speaking theoretically. It happened. In my lifetime. I saw it. Same dynamic occurred in a neighborhood called “Beverlywood adjacent.” In the 1980s? Crack dens, police barricades. Then? Developers bought the houses, offering buyouts Grandma Odom couldn't refuse. And today? Mainly Orthodox Jewish and Persian residents. Safe, no crime, no blacks, and pricey. Again, a trade-off. In 1988 a beginner homeowner could afford a place there, because it was crack central. Today? The houses are expensive, but there's no crime. This dynamic happened. I'm not speaking theoretically. It happened. In my lifetime. I saw it.

Okay, let's move to the present: Boyle Heights, a 95% Mexi neighborhood in East L.A. Mexis can afford to live there, and boy, do they ever. But developers have their eyes on the place. However, when they make any kind of move, like offering Mexi homeowners above-market prices to sell, buying dilapidated storefronts and putting in Starbucks or art galleries, the locals kill the deal with protests and sometimes outright violence. I wrote about this at Takimag for years. The locals know that gentrification will make the cost of housing go up. And the nature of the neighborhood will change. Fewer Mexis and more whites, Jews, Persians, Asians, Indians, etc. You know, the folks who can afford the new housing.

Now, let's assume that (picking a random number) 50% of Boyle Heights residents are illegal. And let's say that they're all deported by the god-king, leaving many residences for the taking. You seem to be saying that this will lead to the cost of housing in Boyle Heights going DOWN. Please explain that dynamic. Because I can't for the life of me understand it. Developers are trying to get their hands on Boyle Heights to gentrify it. So if half the neighborhood vanished overnight, why wouldn't the developers do what they've been wanting to do all along? It makes NO fucking sense. Your entire thesis is based on some bizarre notion that developers will stop acting like developers because....why? I don't see your vision. Explain it to me. The only way I can see physical removal of illegals from Boyle Heights leading to lower cost housing and rent is if the developers don't gentrify but rather create only Section 8 housing, and lure back the blacks who've fled L.A. proper to the outskirts of the county (like Lancaster, our Section 8 capital). So sure, you'll keep housing costs low that way, but you sure as hell won't get your desired “Danish L.A.” You'll just dial things back to the 1980s, and give us back the blacks and crime we chased out.

Hooray.

Look, if you have some angle that I'm just too dim to see, lay it on me.

FRIEND: Okay, I'm sure you are right in this case. Thank you for explaining it to me. It makes sense. That being said, I would rather those homes go to Americans of any color instead of illegals, regardless if the prices go up or down. I totally understand why people don't want lots of blacks to move into neighborhoods due to the crime & dysfunction they often cause, but they are Americans & they have to live somewhere.

Ahhh, and there we have it, the War on Drugs analogy: “I'd rather white people get raped and murdered by a black than live next door to a Mexican without papers.”

If a few hundred, or thousand, whites have to be raped and murdered, so be it. As long as they're murdered by AMURRRICANS!

Steve Sailer's had a lifetime of quotable quotes, but here's the one that needs to be tattooed on the ass of every immigration restrictionist: “If blacks could get their homicide rate down to twice the Hispanic rate, that would cut their homicide deaths in half.”

That's a striking fact. And I'll tell you, “I'd rather your daughter be murdered by a black than live next to an illegal” is exactly the “kill the teens to keep 'em off drugs” extremism that ended up souring Americans on the War on Drugs.

Voters just don't share THAT level of hatred for illegal beans. Yes, voters want the border closed. But the minute you take your winning hand – “we must deport any criminally-prone illegals for our own safety” – and replace it with “fuck your safety! I hate illegals so damn much that if your daughter has to be raped in order to get rid of ‘em, so be it. Sorry, bitch!” - you’ve lost.

“I'd rather my children die than live next to them” is something an Armenian would say about Turks, or a Croat of Serbs, or an Indian Hindu of Paki Muslims (or vice-versa). But it’s not a take white Americans will adopt about Jose the gardener.

Indeed, it will push white voters away from your cause.

Because – sticking with the War on Drugs analogy – too many Americans know a bean they like. Indeed, in cities like L.A., we all get along rather well. Just as recreational drug use was close enough to the average American that the notion of gunning down recreational users was distasteful, too many Americans are either friends with beans, or employee them, or merely benefit from the services provided by gardeners, busboys, maids, etc., to think “I'm willing to risk my child's life to get rid of these monsters!”

Since I started living in hotels, I’ve been struck by the endless energy and work ethic of the tiny brown ladies who haul massive housekeeping carts twice their size up and down the floors all day. I genuinely admire these women. They spend their time cleaning poop and semen and they always have a smile.

I don't hate these people, certainly not to the extent of bringing back 1980s black crime and saying “that’s a worthwhile trade-off.”

If you really care about “white America,” tell Trump to deport from places like Omaha or other cities where whites are still a majority. But L.A.? Those nightly news clips of field workers being roughed up by Special Ops ICE agents with military gear only serve to sow sympathy for the illegals while accomplishing nothing positive big-picture (hence the need for fairy tales like “traffic is gone!”).

Think I'm kidding?

From Gallup last week:

The share of Americans who thought immigration should decrease – 55% – reached a 5-year high point in 2024. This year, it has dropped to 30%, and positive views of immigration have hit a record high of 79%, according to poll results released July 11.

Trump's immigration policies are broadly unpopular, with just 35% approving of his handling of the issue, according to the poll.

Even among Republicans, views on immigration have grown significantly rosier – 64% of Republicans now believe immigration is a good thing, a 25-point jump from June of 2024. The fraction of Republicans who think immigration should decrease has fallen from 88% to 48% in that time span.

You “I'd rather my daughter be raped and murdered than live near an undocumented bean” extremists are fucking up the entire issue, losing the winning hand, because you won't accept that most voters are with you on the matter but only to an extent. They’re with you on the basics (“close the border”) but not on the pathological hatred. There are 4.8 million beans in L.A. County. Trump is creating all those ghastly photo ops to please the extremists. Taking 1,618 illegal beans from L.A. is like taking a Dixie cup of water from the ocean. It will make no difference. L.A. can only be tackled “top-down,” going after major employers of illegals, but Trump won’t do that. He'll never cross his big business pals, as he recently made clear by exempting agribusiness and hospitality from his ICE raids. Plus, going after wealthy employers won’t produce the unrest he’s going to need the next time he finds himself with headlines that MAGAs need to be distracted from.

Like the Epstein mess. His best way out of that is to throw rightist “influencers” more red meat of little brown manual laborers being roughed up at their workplace.

Enjoy the sadistic thrill. But know that voters aren’t sharing it.

Curb your bloodlust. The lesson of the War on Drugs is that it's very easy to take an issue with broad agreement among voters (“drugs are bad”) and implode it with Daryl Gates-style extremism.

Of course, you won't listen to me. You never do.

But at least I'm on record making the call. See you at the midterms.

RESERVATIONS? DAMN RIGHT

Oh, and regarding Friend's point about blacks needing to live somewhere, as I stated a dozen times in my Takimag columns, “dance with the ones who brung ya.” Sorry Atlanta, Memphis, Birmingham, Mobile, Montgomery, New Orleans, and Jackson, but you handle the mess. Yes, blacks are “foundational Americans,” and you're the “foundational importers” of those “foundational Americans.”

Another point I always made in my column: it's inevitable that some cities will become “reservations for unsalvageables.”

The notion of spreading blacks around the U.S. to lower housing costs is no less wacky than the leftist plan to import blacks to peaceful suburbs to “let them live their best life” away from inner-city crime (Sailer's written many times about how blacks bring the crime with them to the suburbs).

At least the immigration restriction extremists are more honest.

“Yep, you WILL get more crime. But hey, at least the person murdering you will be foundational!”

Short circuiting the right's two best issues – closed borders and law & order – in one fell swoop.

That takes skill.

MAGAMAGAMAGA!!!!!!!!!!!

I used to get paid to write these things. Buy ol’ Dave A BEER or visit my GiveSendGo so it’ll seem like old times.