What's going on?

[bucknaway]

[stevenkesslar]

On 2/14/2026 at 7:53 AM, Suckrates said:

How do WE deal with this ?

In a word, compromise.

I actually only listened to the first few minutes, in honesty,  Sis.  You know me.  I have a  short attention span.

While I agree with most of what the host says,  he's also a good example of Democratic cluelessness.  And I include myself in that.  I live in California in a nice mostly Latino or mixed race area that is middle class.  I don't see homeless tents every day.  My house is not broken into.  I don't experience the rental housing crisis because I am a landlord who charges super cheap rent so I have tenants who stay forever.  Pretty much none of this shit effects me personally.

So when I was reading about immigration during the 2024 campaign I intellectually understood what the polls were telling me.  Lots of people, including immigrant Americans, were pissed.  Too many people cutting the line too quickly taking too many resources away from them.  But I definitely underestimated the extent of the anger.  Which definitely helped get Trump elected.

My hair stylist is a Mexican immigrant whose son voted for Trump, for pretty much all the reasons a lot of Latino men did.  Prices are too high.  A big ass truck costs too much.  I know his Mom agrees with the idea that there is a legal way to let people like her in.  And she feels some Mexicans who come in illegally are in fact criminals.  Trump understood that and played to it.   He did not get her vote, but he got her son's vote.  In places like Arizona that put him over the top.

So Democrats can partly blame this on ourselves.  In retrospect, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, Obama pretty much got it right.  He was hard ass on immigration.  Deporter In Chief.  And it worked.  He got re-elected.

Now Trump is the one who has gone way too far, and there is a huge backlash.  Is it too much to hope that Democrats, if we take the House and - one can at least hope - the Senate in 2026 could actually create a compromise law Obama tried and failed to win?

To this day many Democrats and Republicans in Congress in 2013 say that bipartisan compromise immigration law that passed the Senate 2 to 1 would have solved lots of problems.  And that it was a fair enough rules-based way to have what most people want:  an open and welcoming country that also plays by rules and establishes order.

The GOP House Freedom Caucus killed it.  You can look at that as a key moment in the rise of Trump.  We won't compromise and make shit work.  We'll play divide and conquer and build resentments.

In South Texas, the GOP immigration hard line is now political kryptonite

Quote

“President Trump made a promise, and he’s kept that promise by securing the border. That was stage one,” Republican US Rep. De La Cruz said in an interview. “Now we’re at stage two, which is having a conversation of true immigration reform.”

 

That is music to my ears.

I don't think Republicans can or will do shit on their own.  They fear Trump too much.  And I hope a few of the moderate Hispanic Republicans lose their House seats over this issue.  You can be cruel to immigrants.  But you are cutting your own heads off.  Die, fuckers.  Die.  Ha ha. Dead pieces of shit.  See how cruelty feels, you dead fuckers?  Ha, ha, Republicans.  You killed yourselves.  Stupid dumb fucks.

Granted, no one in the polite halls of Congress is that blunt.  But the Republican survivors will get  the memo.  Maybe.  And if Democrats are in charge, maybe something can happen.  Schumer and Jeffries are good at compromise.

If Democrats win the House or Senate or both I hope they pick one or two things they can mostly agree on with Trump, and make it happen.  Immigration reform would be near the top of my list.  John Boehner could not get a Republican House to go along.  Trump could.  And if Democrats run the House they don't need to, anyway.   The Senate is where compromise would be the winning ticket.

The question is whether Trump wants to be the President who got compromise immigration reform done.  He has a big ego.  It's not Mount Rushmore or a Nobel Peace Prize.  But it's not out of the question.

Recall that Biden wised up and tried to get a compromise bill passed in 2024, which Trump killed for political reasons.  Democrats should not do the same.  They should force Trump to either compromise, or bring his party down for being fanatics that always go too far.

Then again, when is the last time Democrats saw a great political opportunity and took it?

[Suckrates]

26 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

In a word, compromise.

I actually only listened to the first few minutes, in honesty,  Sis.  You know me.  I have a  short attention span.

While I agree with most of what the host says,  he's also a good example of Democratic cluelessness.  And I include myself in that.  I live in California in a nice mostly Latino or mixed race area that is middle class.  I don't see homeless tents every day.  My house is not broken into.  I don't experience the rental housing crisis because I am a landlord who charges super cheap rent so I have tenants who stay forever.  Pretty much none of this shit effects me personally.

So when I was reading about immigration during the 2024 campaign I intellectually understood what the polls were telling me.  Lots of people, including immigrant Americans, were pissed.  Too many people cutting the line too quickly taking too many resources away from them.  But I definitely underestimated the extent of the anger.  Which definitely helped get Trump elected.

My hair stylist is a Mexican immigrant whose son voted for Trump, for pretty much all the reasons a lot of Latino men did.  Prices are too high.  A big ass truck costs too much.  I know his Mom agrees with the idea that there is a legal way to let people like her in.  And she feels some Mexicans who come in illegally are in fact criminals.  Trump understood that and played to it.   He did not get her vote, but he got her son's vote.  In places like Arizona that put him over the top.

So Democrats can partly blame this on ourselves.  In retrospect, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, Obama pretty much got it right.  He was hard ass on immigration.  Deporter In Chief.  And it worked.  He got re-elected.

Now Trump is the one who has gone way too far, and there is a huge backlash.  Is it too much to hope that Democrats, if we take the House and - one can at least hope - the Senate in 2026 could actually create a compromise law Obama tried and failed to win?

To this day many Democrats and Republicans in Congress in 2013 say that bipartisan compromise immigration law that passed the Senate 2 to 1 would have solved lots of problems.  And that it was a fair enough rules-based way to have what most people want:  an open and welcoming country that also plays by rules and establishes order.

The GOP House Freedom Caucus killed it.  You can look at that as a key moment in the rise of Trump.  We won't compromise and make shit work.  We'll play divide and conquer and build resentments.

In South Texas, the GOP immigration hard line is now political kryptonite

 

That is music to my ears.

I don't think Republicans can or will do shit on their own.  They fear Trump too much.  And I hope a few of the moderate Hispanic Republicans lose their House seats over this issue.  You can be cruel to immigrants.  But you are cutting your own heads off.  Die, fuckers.  Die.  Ha ha. Dead pieces of shit.  See how cruelty feels, you dead fuckers?  Ha, ha, Republicans.  You killed yourselves.  Stupid dumb fucks.

Granted, no one in the polite halls of Congress is that blunt.  But the Republican survivors will get  the memo.  Maybe.  And if Democrats are in charge, maybe something can happen.  Schumer and Jeffries are good at compromise.

If Democrats win the House or Senate or both I hope they pick one or two things they can mostly agree on with Trump, and make it happen.  Immigration reform would be near the top of my list.  John Boehner could not get a Republican House to go along.  Trump could.  And if Democrats run the House they don't need to, anyway.   The Senate is where compromise would be the winning ticket.

The question is whether Trump wants to be the President who got compromise immigration reform done.  He has a big ego.  It's not Mount Rushmore or a Nobel Peace Prize.  But it's not out of the question.

Recall that Biden wised up and tried to get a compromise bill passed in 2024, which Trump killed for political reasons.  Democrats should not do the same.  They should force Trump to either compromise, or bring his party down for being fanatics that always go too far.

Then again, when is the last time Democrats saw a great political opportunity and took it?

 

Like you. many Dems live in their little bubbles, but are still VERY much aware of whats going on with immigration and Trumps attacks on it.....   Lets be honest,  its really NOT an immigration issue,   its a COLOR issue.....   You dont see them running after WHITE folk,  although they are not adverse to KILLING white folk that try to aid the people of color..... So while you may live a privileged life, the lives of others are not lost on you.....

YES, things will be a lot better if Dems can win the House and perhaps Senate,  but when you speak of compromise,  there will still be NONE with the Trump administration or the GOP.   Its a word they dont know or accept....eventhough we have seen Trump do the TACO when it gets too hot in the kitchen.  

Trump has no problem bringing his whole party down....its never been about his party....its always just about Trump and he will NEVER allow himself to look weak or powerless, at least to himself.   

Trump is deluding himself into believing that after he's gone, all the buildings and monuments that carry his name will remain,   the Grand ballroom, and the Golden arch, the authoritarian rose garden....will all be torn down or stripped on the defining Trump stench.....   That day cant come fast enough......

But as far as your "fantasy" of compromise from the right......  take an Ambien and sleep it off.....aint EVER happening.  

There obviously will HAVE TO BE another way !   

*** And this might be a radical thought, but I would LOVE to see Maxwell Frost become speaker of the House. 

[stevenkesslar]

1 hour ago, Suckrates said:

YES, things will be a lot better if Dems can win the House and perhaps Senate,  but when you speak of compromise,  there will still be NONE with the Trump administration or the GOP.

First, I don't live a privileged life.  But you know that, Sis.  I have always aspired to your level of elegance.  I have just never been able to achieve it.  But, please.  Don't feel sorry for me.  😉

I do live a middle class life and it is full of middle class Mexican Americans where I live.  A few of them were telling me back in Trump 1.0, in the days of "rapists," that Trump is no worse than Obama in their eyes.  Who was Deporter In Chief, as I said above.  The people who are NOT in my life really are the working class White people who see this stuff or, more likely, just read the stuff about raping Mexicans who eats cats and dogs and get enraged.  There is no question a lot of Democrats, not just Whites, were not happy with Biden's immigration policies. 

We may disagree on this one, Sis.  But my point is that, with the benefit of hindsight, Democrats fucked themselves by pandering to left-wing groups that simple do not represent middle America.  Including middle American Hispanics, like the Tejanos down at the border.  A lot of them voted for Trump because they felt Biden went too far.  And now they clearly feel Trump has gone too far.

Will Trump compromise?  Who the fuck knows. 

My main point is that if all Democrats can do for two years running up to 2028 is confront Trump and impeach him again, it's just more bullshit that turns off the moderates and Independents Democrats need.  I hope the strategy is to show Democrats can get shit done.  And from 2026 to 2028 that has to mean they can get shit done with Trump.  He's a lame duck anyway at that point.  

I feel the same way about the Presidency.  It will be interesting to see.  I have an almost knee jerk fear that Democrats will nominate Gavin Newsom.  I like him, and I vote for him.  But there is this whole thing about how other people feel about liberals from California.  Why not nominate the moderate pretty country boy from Kentucky instead?  Or the moderate Jew from Pennsylvania? 

That said, Newsom can be all things to all people.  And being able to say he lives in an immigrant state and "I can get shit done" may be a winning ticket in 2028.  He lives in a state that, for all its warts, is a prosperous melting pot.  If Trump can't or won't deal with Democrats on immigration, it opens the door for Newsom to say, "I can do that.  Let me. We know how to build a middle class and working class immigrant economy in California." 

Hell, even JD Vance liked it here.  His Indian American wife grew up in the burbs of San Diego.