On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said that Democrats failed to see that much of the Republican Party’s focus on immigration “was about telling Americans that they are not at the mercy of forces beyond their control, in this case, increased global migration, that we can control our borders.”
Murphy said, “I think people in this country are feeling powerless. They’re feeling impotent. And they want power. But they also know that power, to some extent, is a zero-sum equation. You have to take it to somebody to give it to them. I thought maybe the most important work that the Biden administration did was the work to revitalize anti-trust policy, the work they did to try to break up the big corporations. I wish the Harris campaign had talked more transparently about the way that Americans are getting screwed by billionaires and corporations and talked about a real populist agenda to return power to them. I think we misunderstood the Republicans’ focus on immigration. Yes, some of it was playing to nativism and racism. But a lot of it was about telling Americans that they are not at the mercy of forces beyond their control, in this case, increased global migration, that we can control our borders. And that speaks to Americans who are feeling out of control of their lives.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett