Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielson is besieged in her own home by screaming Leftists labeling her a “child snatcher”. [Protesters blast sounds of crying children outside home of DHS, by Morgan Gstalter, The Hill, June 22, 2018].Trump Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, and her family, are refused service in a Virginia restaurant [The owner of the Red Hen explains why she asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave, by Avi Selk and Sarah Murray, Washington Post, June 23, 2018]. Publicist Donny Deutch declared on “Morning Joe” that Trump voters who support immigration control are “like Nazis”—on MSNBC, the network that fired Pat Buchanan because his views weren’t “appropriate for the national dialogue” [MSNBC’s Deutch Compares Trump Voters Who Support Border Policy To Nazi Guards, by Aidan McLaughlin, Mediaite, June 22, 2018]. And Sex and the City actress Cynthia Nixon, a New York gubernatorial candidate who has been endorsed by a number of leading  Leftist organizations, has called Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) a “terrorist group” [Cynthia Nixon calls ICE a ‘Terrorist Organization’ Led by ‘Egomaniacal’ Donald Trump, by Alexandra Hutzler, Newsweek, June 22, 2018].'

In other words, the “Overton Window” has been abolished. The “Overton Window” is a political theory that attempted to explain what ideas are tolerated in public discourse. Ideas move from the fringe (“unthinkable”) towards the center, when they become “policy.” But now, on immigration, the Left is convinced that everything is permissible.

An example of an “unthinkable” issue being gradually pushed into the mainstream: explicit support for Open Borders. As Steve Sailer notes,  Masha Gessen wrote  "Trump’s Opponents Aren’t Arguing for 'Open Borders'—But Maybe They Should"in the New Yorker on June 22, in addition, Cato Institute columnist David S. D’Amato was making A case for open borders and how it can boost the world economy in The Hill on June 23.

The Economist magazine is trying to make this case with its #OpenFuture campaign, hosting various contributors arguing for abolishing nations. Unfortunately for the magazine, its readers seem to strongly disagree, as even The Economist admits glumly, “[A] clear majority of those of you who have pitched in do not believe that people should be free to choose where they live without any constraints”. [“Should people be free to choose the country in which they live?,” The Economist, June 18-June 25, 2018]

"It is time to deliver the final blow to the tolerance of birthright by allowing people to choose the countries where they will live," says Jackie Stevens of @NorthwesternU. What do you think? #OpenFuture https://t.co/d3xyxHdzmu pic.twitter.com/2CMWQJ4k9I

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) June 21, 2018

Yet on the ground, it’s actually existing policy that is “unthinkable” to both Republicans and Democrats. Few bother to claim that President Trump and the Department of Homeland Security are breaking the law. Instead, it is precisely because they are following the law that they are being so heavily criticized. '

Even fierce critics of President Trump concede it makes no sense to attack him for enforcing the laws that Congress has made. “There’s something deeply wrong… with expressing the view that what the government is doing is barbaric and yet allowing the underlying cause of it to continue for political reasons,” writes Andrew Sullivan [If We Want To End The Border Crisis, It’s Time To Give Trump His Wall, New York Magazine, June 22, 2018]. Sullivan argues Trump is exploiting the immigration issue for political gain--but then “Chuck Schumer is too.”

Kevin Williamson, who wrote an entire book condemning Trump during the campaign, argues “If the members of Congress don’t like the law, it is entirely within their power to change it and face the consequences at the next election rather than take the current cowardly path and act as though this is purely a matter of innovation on the part of the Trump administration”. [Enforce immigration law or change it, National Review, June 21, 2018]'

David Frum, another Trump critic, points out that the president’s immigration opponents are moving to an extraordinarily radical Open Borders position: “The spreading view that immigration is a civil right and that immigration enforcement is totalitarian is an attack on democratic legality,” he argues [Enforce The Border—Humanely, The Atlantic, June 20, 2018].

Frum says that the benevolent urge to help foreigners risks becoming “a foundation for yet more of the division and anger ripping apart this American community.”'

Yet Frum’s eloquent argument for liberal patriotism, while no doubt made in good faith, assumes too much. There is no “American community.” Leftists support mass immigration not out of a feeling of goodwill towards foreigners, but out of a desire to hurt and punish American citizens who are their political opponents.

After all, the whole reason many Democrats support mass immigration is precisely because it allows them to import a new majority that will permanently outvote the existing Historic American Nation. '

Consider the overt threats of violence made against members of the First Family by actor Peter Fonda, who used his (verified) account on Twitter to call for Barron Trump to be “thrown into a cage with pedophiles” [Peter Fonda committed a crime and should be arrested: Mike Huckabee, by Julia Limitone, Fox Business, June 22, 2018]. Note that, unlike American Renaissance Editor Jared Taylor, who has never made any threats against anyone, Fonda still enjoys an account on the social networking site. '

Or consider how law enforcement agents of ICE, who are at constant risk of attack from drug cartels and other criminal enterprises, have been had their private information put on the Internet. The individual responsible is reportedly a professor at New York University, Sam Lavigne, [The Person Doxxing Ice Employees Is A Professor At NYU, by Kyle Perisic, Daily Caller, June 20, 2018]. A group of Antifa stepped up the campaign by publishing the home addresses of several ICE employees [Antifa Escalates doxxing ICE employees by publishing home addresses, by Julia Cohen, Daily Caller, June 21, 2018].Thus, those whose job it is to enforce existing American law are now akin to “Nazis” in the eyes of a large part of the American Left. '

Another reason the Overton Window has been rendered moot: the concept of “public discourse” presupposes the possibility of rational discussion. But this has been abandoned. The most spectacular evidence: the most recent cover for Time magazine, which showed a crying child taken from a viral photograph facing President Trump. The story originally accompanying the famous photo originally claimed the girl had been taken screaming from her mother. This blatant attempt at emotional blackmail was based on something that never actually happened: the girl and her mother were never separated, and the child was in fact comforted by Border Patrol officers [Time Magazine: Cover Image Of Crying Honduran Girl Is Fake But Accurate, by Joshua Caplan, Breitbart, June 22, 2018]. Still, the image managed to help raise more than $18 million for various causes to assist illegal immigrants, much of it seemingly motivated out of spite against the president and American law [‘Rage giving’ fuels record fundraising for immigrant children, by Jessica Guynn, USA Today, June 20, 2018]'

The game of the Legacy Media and its pet Democrats is one of bait and switch. Few admit that what they actually want is Open Borders. Instead, Democrats and reporters (but I repeat myself) claim the issue is about taking care of “the children,” ameliorating local abuses, or creating special exceptions for constituencies the MSM portray as sympathetic (such as the “Dreamers.”) '

President Trump, in his naivete, has sincerely tried to meet many of these objections in good faith. However, not one Democrat in either the House or Senate has shown any indication of working with the White House, despite the president’s repeated pleas. '

The brutal truth—Democrats and the MSM know time is on their side. If they can keep mass immigration going long enough, Americans will be outvoted and oppressed in the nation their forefathers built.

Democrats have no incentive to “solve the problem,” as naïve Republicans repeatedly urge. As for transnational capitalists like those at The Economist, they have no attachment to this country at all, and no stake in its survival or success. '

Of course, to an extent that many of them clearly do not realize even after Trump’s 2016 victory, Democrats are courting political disaster in the short term with their extremist Open Borders positions. [The immigration trap, by Damon Linker, The Week, June 22, 2018]. '

Yet in the long run, they may be the ones making the smart play. They are counting on President Trump and the GOP Congress to fail to take strong action to stop mass immigration while they can.

If President Trump either cannot or will not take strong action now, real border security will remain forever “unthinkable,” whatever the laws actually say.

More importantly, whatever the lines on a map, preserving this country will be similarly impossible.

And naïve Americans can’t say they weren’t warned.

James Kirkpatrick [Email him] is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from Conservatism Inc.