Ross Douthat offers an NYT column that reads like an indoor voice mashup of my last couple of Taki’s Magazine columns on immigration policy, Democratic Trump and Immigration and the Deep State:

The Necessity of Stephen Miller

Ross Douthat JAN. 27, 2018

After 12 years of failed attempts at immigration reform, the current round of negotiations are turning on a strangely personalized question: When a deal is being made, should Stephen Miller be at the table?

Miller is the White House’s point man for immigration policy (and for strange and strident encounters with the press). He is also an immigration restrictionist: He wants a policy that favors skills-based recruitment over extended families, and he wants a lower immigration rate overall. He says he’s concerned about assimilation and crime and native wages; his critics say he just wants to keep America as white as possible, and that by even bringing him to meetings Trump is making a deal impossible to reach.

The critics are right about this much: Having someone like Miller involved is a change from the way prior immigration negotiations have proceeded. As Jim Antle points out in a column for The Week, those negotiations have been consistently bipartisan, bringing together John McCain and Ted Kennedy, Marco Rubio and Chuck Schumer, now Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin — but “they have mostly taken place between people who are fundamentally in agreement on immigration,” who favor both amnesty for illegal immigrants and reforms that would probably increase immigration rates.

The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t represent the actual divisions in the country.

Well, you can’t get much more moderate than that, right? But lots of people are outraged at Douthat, that notorious racist, for suggesting that Miller, that renegade Jew, should be allowed to advise his boss, the President, a reprllent filth. For example, here’s the most popular comment in response to Ross on the NYT:

gemli is a trusted commenter Boston 1 day ago

A meaningful dialog on immigration would be more plausible if the president hadn’t welcomed skinheads, neo-Nazis and white supremacists to his rallies, as well as including some alt-right ruffians in his inner circle.

Likewise, sitting at the table with Stephen Miller is like having a nuanced dialogue with your drunk uncle at Thanksgiving when he insists that Hillary ran a sex ring from a pizza parlor. Search for Google for “outrageous Stephen Miller comments” if you think that’s an exaggeration. The man is a conservative clown, occupying one ring of this political circus. Considering the state of the G.O.P., it’s no wonder Ringling got rid of the elephants.

Miller, whose great-grandfather was a poor, unskilled Jewish immigrant, has a short memory. You’d think that someone who is driving the discussion on immigration reform would not be proposing policies that would have kept his own family out of this country.

The problem isn’t Stephen Miller. It’s the attitude of the sneering alt-white fake-news contingent that has risen to power, driven by a large minority of undiscerning voters who resent being left behind and marginalized because they don’t have the skills to compete with unskilled immigrants.

Let’s not forge any lasting deals with this administration. But we might hold on to one policy that has been set by this president: let’s wipe out his legacy the moment that a Democrat once again holds the office. I’ll enthusiastically support her decision to do so.

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