Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper

Kaus claims that the GOP has papered over their immigration differences, and now it’s the Dems who are split over the issue:

What’s changed? Well, President Bush–the main politician doing the GOP-splitting–is leaving the scene. The Republican electorate seems to have decisively turned against his illegal-immigrant semi-amnesty. Result: No more split! But the powerful GOP anti-legalization sentiment was obviously latent even in 2006. The MSM just chose not to notice.

While Kaus is certainly right that the main politician in the GOP’s pro-immigrant faction – Bush – is fading from the scene, the institutional forces behind comprehensive immigration reform aren’t going away.  After Bush leaves, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the money-cons they represent will still be the driving force, as they always are, of the GOP.  Of course, this is all academic if the GOP is out of power for the 2-8 years following Bush, but the underlying dynamics of cultural and national security conservatives supporting restrictionist immigration polices and economic conservatives supporting more liberal ones don’t appear to be changing.  And while Kaus seems to be vainly hoping for there to be an insurgent Democratic movement against immigration, he’ll probably be hoping in vain for a while.  Unlike welfare reform, which had the support of a wide range of Democratic and liberal intelligentsia despite little interest group backing, immigration restriction — as of now –  has zero pundit/intelligentsia support of note and next to zero interest group backing.  Kaus will remain in the wilderness for a few more years, it seems.