The left's immigration problem

Vox’s Dylan Matthews recently made precisely this all-but-open-borders case in terms of a support for “egalitarianism” that cuts across national boundaries, arguing that “any center-left party worth its salt has to be deeply committed to egalitarianism, not just for people born in the U.S. but for everyone.” Such sentiments are pervasive in the neoliberal leadership of the European Union as well.

This is a politically untenable position. I mean that both in the sense that it’s bound to prove politically unpopular and in the sense that it’s incompatible with a recognition of the moral legitimacy of politics as such.

Politics in all times and places involves a bounded community defining itself, and its citizens ruling themselves, in contradistinction to other bounded communities.