The immigration debate shows progressives have abandoned the working class

The truth is, the Brahmin Left doesn't want redistribution; it wants culture wars over identity. It wants environmentalism, open borders, and student loan forgiveness. Open borders was once the calling card of the libertarian-infused Right. Now, it's a humanitarian cri de coeur that flatters the vanity of highly educated liberals while working class Americans of all races bear the burden—and are then smeared as racists for being afraid they might lose their jobs due to an influx of labor. "The history of Citizenship in the US is deeply woven with the history of racism," tweeted Ocasio-Cortez back in 2019. "It has been used as the legal enforcer of racism for most of US history." She got it exactly backwards: Protections from racism, like all civil rights, depend on a national border and on the compact a sovereign citizenry makes with its own government. A Left that was invested in the working class wouldn't have forgotten this, wouldn't have had the luxury of smearing people afraid of losing their jobs—people of all races—as racists. But instead of listening to the concerns of our multiracial working class, the Democrats are listening to the Squad—the patron saints of the Brahmin Left.