By all accounts, incoming Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is batshit. He believes in conspiracy theories about U.N. Agenda 21 and that Sharia Law is a real threat. But there is at least one thing he has right; Republicans are on the verge of total isolation.
“In not too many years, Texas could switch from being all Republican to all Democrat,” he said. “If that happens, no Republican will ever again win the White House. New York and California are for the foreseeable future unalterably Democrat. If Texas turns bright blue, the Electoral College math is simple. We won’t be talking about Ohio, we won’t be talking about Florida or Virginia, because it won’t matter. If Texas is bright blue, you can’t get to two-seventy electoral votes. The Republican Party would cease to exist. We would become like the Whig Party. Our kids and grandkids would study how this used to be a national political party. ‘They had Conventions, they nominated Presidential candidates. They don’t exist anymore.’"
It's one thing to state the obvious problem. It's another thing entirely to actually fix it.
Even if you were to assume that congressional Republicans will go along with immigration reform under President Obama after killing it under George W. Bush (and let's be honest, that was a far less radical congress) there is no guarantee that it would be accepted at the state level.
The Republicans may decide that they must pass immigration reform if they want to limit the margin Democrats are winning Latino voters by in Midwestern and eastern battlegrounds, but in states where this is less of a direct concern they may face stiff opposition from their own base of support.
It would be a sight to behold if the next session of congress actually did give in and pass comprehensive immigration reform, but then faced a long slog in state courts in a manner similar to the drawn-out process that eventually found Obamacare being debated at the Supreme Court.
And that's assuming a lot. That's assuming immigration reform can even make it out of the House of Representatives which is still controlled by the Tea Party. Northeastern and western Republicans may vote for it, but will representatives from the south and Midwest? Will Republican representatives who may be facing a primary challenger next year vote for it?
I don't ascribe to the belief that immigration reform alone is enough. Dismissing half the country as moochers and leaches, which carries with it a certain amount of racial overtone, and continued attempts to dismantle the safety net do not play well with voters a majority of whom have experienced living in poverty at some point in their lives.