1) Immigration policy is important, but other policy areas are even more important (Immigration Does Not Dwarf Other Issues)
2) Democrats are clearly better on these other issues.
3) Democrats need to move significantly rightward on immigration to win
4) Because these other issues are more important, Democrats should give up immigration to win.
If you had asked me before 2020 what my most important policy area was, I would have said immigration (skilled immigration in particular). The moral case for allowing others to achieve an American standard of living is obvious and powerful, and the global economic returns to immigration are absolutely enormous. Take one example, economist love free trade; most think that removing trade barriers would significantly improve living standards. Most estimates of the (one time) global growth gains to removing all trade barriers are on the order of 10% of GDP. The global growth gains to open borders are an order of magnitude larger; they have been estimated at >100% of GDP.
This might not make immigration the number one issue; animal welfare and pandemic prevention still seem more important. But there isn't always that much daylight between Democrats and Republicans on animal welfare and pandemics anyways, and we shouldn't give up on such an important issue just because it isn't the absolute most important issue.
Another argument goes like this: Due to competitive pressures and thermostatic public opinion, each party is going to win a similar number of elections. From this perspective, giving up on significant moral commitments to achieve power 10-20% more of the time is unacceptable. We should instead keep to our main commitments and only moderate on issues where the stakes are much lower.
So I hope this makes it clear why I came in skeptical of your argument.
However, I do think you have some things right. Your list of other important issues was quite good, although I do not think that the difference between democrats and republicans on all of them is that large.
In particular, Democrats are significantly better than Republicans on supporting PEPFAR, Ukraine, and fundamental and essential government institutions (elections, rule of law, basic science funding), in a way that really was not true until this election. I also think that with Donald Trump, we are in an electoral emergency that makes Democrats winning much more important than normal; future Republicans (hopefully) will be much more normal on most of these issues. This makes winning at any cost much more important.
That being said, I still think that it is really hard to overstate the costs of giving up on immigration. The benefits (to current Americans and to immigrants) of increased immigration, especially skilled immigration, are enormous. I also don't think it is easy for a political party to capitulate on a policy area and then pick it back up in the next election. If we give up on immigration, we might be kissing it goodbye for a decade or more.
As an aside, skilled legal immigration polls well (I think) and is much more beneficial per immigrant on a global QALY basis than unskilled immigration. It feels like Democrats could moderate on immigration while still supporting particular policies that poll well and have particularly large benefits.
I am fine with democrats moderating on border security, the language we use, possibly even deportation levels, but not the entire issue. Beyond that, I think there are many better issues to moderate on or give up on entirely.
Finally, and this is more unrelated to the urgency of the current moment, a fight over the centrality of immigration in the Democratic party feels somewhat existential to me. It feels like a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party.
It is not obvious to me that the Democratic party is unequivocally good, or that it will continue by default in a positive direction. Democrats generally have instincts and a self-identity based around helping the less fortunate. That is good, but it does not guarantee that their policies are always beneficial or that they always govern correctly. For example, YIMBYs, Ezra Klein, and Abundance liberals have made the case quite well that despite good intentions Democratic policies/governance includes many bad things, and more broadly Democrats are in a coalition with many people who are inclined to distrust markets, discount the benefits of technology, and demonize their political enemies in ways that are politically and socially destructive. And maybe you are better Democrats than I am, but there are plenty of important things I disagree with the Democratic Party about (e.g. permitting, medical innovation).
Therefore I see my main role as a Democrat is to fight to move (or keep) the party in my direction on the issues I care most about, not to do whatever it takes to help the Democrats win, and then hope that the Democrats in power prioritize my issues over different Democratic priorities I don't like as much. (This is especially true since many issues I care about most, like existential risk and animal welfare, are first to get cut when elected Democrats have to prioritize.)
As an analogy, was it good for the deficit hawks, or the foreign policy hawks, or even the pro-lifers that Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2024. Their party won the election, but is it good for the causes they support? One takeaway from the Tea Party movement and from Trump is that making a bargain with the populist portion of your base can be a very bad idea. Republicans have now committed to protecting social security, Trump's foreign policy is unrecognizable to Republicans a decade ago, and being pro-life is no longer a litmus test inside the Republican Party. On any of these issues, it's not clear to me that the Republicans are ever coming back.
When I look at old school Republicans who still support the party under Trump, I sometimes think "why even bother being a Republican?" Similarly, I feel like if the Democratic Party is not going to support immigration, even when it becomes unpopular, why even bother being a Democrat?
It’s coherent to disagree on the utilitarian calculus of immigration vs. other issues, but I still don’t think it’s right. Even if you think immigration is the single biggest issue, it’s also the single biggest electoral liability for democrats - I do feel pretty confident that you’ll see real, substantial electoral gains from abandoning immigration, and I’m not sure I can say that about any other issues. And I do think the other issues I brought up rival immigration on their own. You can argue me out of a few of them, but I don’t think you can argue me out of all of them. Certainly *together* I think it’s pretty hard to argue that they don’t dominate immigration.
The rest of your comment if I understand it is trying to argue that if Democrats give up on immigration they might give up on a bunch of other important issues on which the utilitarian calculus is bad. I guess I can’t totally discount this possibility, but I find it unlikely that would happen on too many other issues. All of the things I brought up are things that don’t seem to be in much conflict with populism if Democrats go down that route. Caring about evidence-based policy and democracy is also in my view so fundamental to Democrats that I can’t imagine Democrats straying too far from that. And the situation is so dire right now - both with Trump trying to destroy the Republic and with Republicans having a near-lock on the Senate - that I’m willing to risk it.
For me, your main argument can be summarized as:
1) Immigration policy is important, but other policy areas are even more important (Immigration Does Not Dwarf Other Issues)
2) Democrats are clearly better on these other issues.
3) Democrats need to move significantly rightward on immigration to win
4) Because these other issues are more important, Democrats should give up immigration to win.
If you had asked me before 2020 what my most important policy area was, I would have said immigration (skilled immigration in particular). The moral case for allowing others to achieve an American standard of living is obvious and powerful, and the global economic returns to immigration are absolutely enormous. Take one example, economist love free trade; most think that removing trade barriers would significantly improve living standards. Most estimates of the (one time) global growth gains to removing all trade barriers are on the order of 10% of GDP. The global growth gains to open borders are an order of magnitude larger; they have been estimated at >100% of GDP.
(This fact was off the top of my head, but a quick search gave this paper https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18307/w18307.pdf which estimates 116%)
This might not make immigration the number one issue; animal welfare and pandemic prevention still seem more important. But there isn't always that much daylight between Democrats and Republicans on animal welfare and pandemics anyways, and we shouldn't give up on such an important issue just because it isn't the absolute most important issue.
Another argument goes like this: Due to competitive pressures and thermostatic public opinion, each party is going to win a similar number of elections. From this perspective, giving up on significant moral commitments to achieve power 10-20% more of the time is unacceptable. We should instead keep to our main commitments and only moderate on issues where the stakes are much lower.
So I hope this makes it clear why I came in skeptical of your argument.
However, I do think you have some things right. Your list of other important issues was quite good, although I do not think that the difference between democrats and republicans on all of them is that large.
In particular, Democrats are significantly better than Republicans on supporting PEPFAR, Ukraine, and fundamental and essential government institutions (elections, rule of law, basic science funding), in a way that really was not true until this election. I also think that with Donald Trump, we are in an electoral emergency that makes Democrats winning much more important than normal; future Republicans (hopefully) will be much more normal on most of these issues. This makes winning at any cost much more important.
That being said, I still think that it is really hard to overstate the costs of giving up on immigration. The benefits (to current Americans and to immigrants) of increased immigration, especially skilled immigration, are enormous. I also don't think it is easy for a political party to capitulate on a policy area and then pick it back up in the next election. If we give up on immigration, we might be kissing it goodbye for a decade or more.
As an aside, skilled legal immigration polls well (I think) and is much more beneficial per immigrant on a global QALY basis than unskilled immigration. It feels like Democrats could moderate on immigration while still supporting particular policies that poll well and have particularly large benefits.
I am fine with democrats moderating on border security, the language we use, possibly even deportation levels, but not the entire issue. Beyond that, I think there are many better issues to moderate on or give up on entirely.
Finally, and this is more unrelated to the urgency of the current moment, a fight over the centrality of immigration in the Democratic party feels somewhat existential to me. It feels like a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party.
It is not obvious to me that the Democratic party is unequivocally good, or that it will continue by default in a positive direction. Democrats generally have instincts and a self-identity based around helping the less fortunate. That is good, but it does not guarantee that their policies are always beneficial or that they always govern correctly. For example, YIMBYs, Ezra Klein, and Abundance liberals have made the case quite well that despite good intentions Democratic policies/governance includes many bad things, and more broadly Democrats are in a coalition with many people who are inclined to distrust markets, discount the benefits of technology, and demonize their political enemies in ways that are politically and socially destructive. And maybe you are better Democrats than I am, but there are plenty of important things I disagree with the Democratic Party about (e.g. permitting, medical innovation).
Therefore I see my main role as a Democrat is to fight to move (or keep) the party in my direction on the issues I care most about, not to do whatever it takes to help the Democrats win, and then hope that the Democrats in power prioritize my issues over different Democratic priorities I don't like as much. (This is especially true since many issues I care about most, like existential risk and animal welfare, are first to get cut when elected Democrats have to prioritize.)
As an analogy, was it good for the deficit hawks, or the foreign policy hawks, or even the pro-lifers that Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2024. Their party won the election, but is it good for the causes they support? One takeaway from the Tea Party movement and from Trump is that making a bargain with the populist portion of your base can be a very bad idea. Republicans have now committed to protecting social security, Trump's foreign policy is unrecognizable to Republicans a decade ago, and being pro-life is no longer a litmus test inside the Republican Party. On any of these issues, it's not clear to me that the Republicans are ever coming back.
When I look at old school Republicans who still support the party under Trump, I sometimes think "why even bother being a Republican?" Similarly, I feel like if the Democratic Party is not going to support immigration, even when it becomes unpopular, why even bother being a Democrat?
It’s coherent to disagree on the utilitarian calculus of immigration vs. other issues, but I still don’t think it’s right. Even if you think immigration is the single biggest issue, it’s also the single biggest electoral liability for democrats - I do feel pretty confident that you’ll see real, substantial electoral gains from abandoning immigration, and I’m not sure I can say that about any other issues. And I do think the other issues I brought up rival immigration on their own. You can argue me out of a few of them, but I don’t think you can argue me out of all of them. Certainly *together* I think it’s pretty hard to argue that they don’t dominate immigration.
The rest of your comment if I understand it is trying to argue that if Democrats give up on immigration they might give up on a bunch of other important issues on which the utilitarian calculus is bad. I guess I can’t totally discount this possibility, but I find it unlikely that would happen on too many other issues. All of the things I brought up are things that don’t seem to be in much conflict with populism if Democrats go down that route. Caring about evidence-based policy and democracy is also in my view so fundamental to Democrats that I can’t imagine Democrats straying too far from that. And the situation is so dire right now - both with Trump trying to destroy the Republic and with Republicans having a near-lock on the Senate - that I’m willing to risk it.