On Immigration, Jeb Bush Still Just Doesn’t Get It

You’d think we accidentally found ourselves in a time warp. Suddenly former allies Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are at each others’ throats about the future of the Republican Party’s immigration stance as though jockeying for the nomination. Guys, guys. You both lost! It’s over! Extra exclamation point for Jeb!!

This week, apparently frustrated with his former apprentice’s failure to lead the party into the Land of Amnesty, Bush told USA Today – essentially – that Rubio was spineless.

“God forbid you actually took on something that was controversial and paid a political price,” Bush said. “That’s the attitude in D.C. right now. Certainly Sen. Rubio is no different.”

While we can appreciate politicians who don’t let the shifting winds of every new public opinion poll change their position on key issues, it seems that Jeb (!) is completely lost in the wilderness on this one. Newsflash, dude: Republican voters have made their feelings about immigration abundantly clear over the past four years. Starting with the groundswell of outrage that met President Obama’s DAPA order in late 2014 and continuing through Trump’s steamroll victory in the 2016 primaries, there could no longer be any doubt about where conservative America stands on illegal immigration. It’s one thing to pay “a political price” for doing something “controversial.” It’s quite another to arrogantly ignore the will of the people and vote in the interests of the donor class.

Not that it comes as any surprise, but at least we now know how Jeb would have “led” had he become the president of the United States. Sheesh, sometimes he sounds completely indistinguishable from a Democrat on immigration.

For his part, Rubio wasn’t about to be dressed down by his old mentor. He defended his stance on immigration by explaining to Bush that the old “Gang of Eight” ways simply did not mesh with the reality of 2018.

Jeb, he said, “feels passionately about an approach. That approach is well-represented by Lindsey Graham and others who agree with him wholeheartedly. They just don’t happen to be the majority of the party that’s in the majority. And they don’t happen to be the views of the president of the United States. You can’t pass legislation unless the majority agrees with it and, in the case of the Senate, unless a supermajority agrees with it.”

Exactly. And there’s a very good reason for that: The American people voted those weak-willed amnesty guys out of Washington and replaced them with people who would protect this nation’s sovereignty. We’re not even slightly confused about Rubio’s true feelings on immigration – he’s every bit the open-borders lambchop that Jeb is. But he at least understands which way the wind is blowing. That’s more than we can say for the former Florida governor.