Bensman: To me, the objections to the wall.. For example, if you don’t like the border wall, and you want mass migration – and the wall really doesn’t work, like if you know the wall really doesn’t work, you’re just going to shut up and smirk and go away saying ‘yeah build your wall.’ I mean, why would you say anything at all if it doesn’t work? So to me, the level of shriek is inversely proportional to the effectiveness that [wall opponents] know – deep in their hearts – that it has. Because, if that wall really doesn’t work, I’m shutting up. I mean, all of a sudden they’re fiscal conservatives? You know, worried about the money. All of a sudden these super liberals are all worried about $25 billion!
Meanwhile:
Dakkak: Funny that you mention DC because one of my questions was, now that the Republicans have the gavel are you hearing any friendlier voices up there? Are people a little bit more sympathetic about what’s happening on the southern border?
Bensman: What I’m hearing is a little bit disturbing in that the Republicans have the majority but it’s by such a slim margin that the border hawks, the people that have been talking the most vociferously about things like impeachment and closing the border and holding the budget hostage and the debt ceiling and all that sort of stuff… those people are saying like, ‘we don’t really have the support to do any of that stuff. So, I’m thinking they may not… I mean, they’re having some hearings but, uh, they’re not really getting at the things they really need to get at. They’re talking about things that are kind of intractable and in a way irrelevant to closing the border. So far… we’ll see what happens. You know, [Texas Rep.] Chip Roy was out there this week… really, really angry that he can’t get any support for his tough bills and proposals.
Dakkak: He’s a firebrand.
Bensman: He’s a firebrand. And he’s saying, ‘hey, you guys all promised you were going to go hard on the border. Where are you? And then I’m hearing things like, ‘welllll, we really like the cheap labor.’
Dakkak: Agghhh! That’s the last thing I wanted to hear!
Bensman: Yeah, that’s what I was picking up when I was there meeting with a bunch of Republican staffers. I don’t know if they’re going to go hard at all on this.
Dakkak: That’s incredible.
Bensman: One hill staffer who’s like in the middle of all this told me that this looks and feels like George W. Bush Republicans who really… like ag[riculture], big ranchers, big chicken farmers… they like the cheap labor. They’re making money. That was the George W. Bush era when, remember he was pushing comprehensive immigration reform and he was trying to get cheap labor in. And of course those efforts all failed. In 2007, the last one, but I was told yeah there’s a lot of those George W types in here now.