As senators work on a compromise deal to address border security and immigration, at least one Republican is suggesting politics is a key motivator for him.

“Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating,” Republican Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas told CNN this week. “I will not help the Democrats try to improve this man’s dismal approval ratings. I’m not going to do it. Why would I?”

Nehls indicated he’d accept only a proposal similar to HR 2, a hardline immigration bill that got zero Democratic votes when it passed the House last year.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      And yet people vote for them. They are just admitting they aren’t interested in helping people and the country and they still get voted for.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          Maybe in their limited thinking catered by Fox News, but a lot of them are working class and they’re the ones getting hurt the most by Republicans. They don’t even know it.

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            If it owns the libs, then it’s good. If they suffer any consequences, it’s the libs fault for making Republicans do it. It’s simple circular logic, but you’ll find it’s quite unbreakable.

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            Our great challenge has been showing this to them, and it remains incredibly difficult. To highlight how much of a problem it is, you still have white collar knowledge workers who think that they’ll have to pay more money in taxes if they get a raise vs before. They don’t understand tax brackets.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      Trump over donors, donors over religion, religion over party, party over family, family over so-called conservative principles (oxymoron)and country several steps lower than that.

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    You mean to tell me that Republicans are operating in bad faith, and that Democrats fell for it?

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          simply by going forward and having yahoos like him admit they don’t actually want to solve the problem. Calling out or calling a bluff is just going ahead with the thing.

          • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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            That’s not what he said and not what anyone sympathetic to his dumbass viewpoint is going to hear. He said the House solved “the problem” back when they passed HR2, that if Senate Democrats actually wanted to solve “the problem” they would just pass that, and that the bipartisan deal moderate Dems are seeking is only for the purposes of improving Biden’s poll numbers, which is why he has no interest in passing it.

            You and I know HR1 is a psychotic pile of xenophobic trash that should never get passed, but the fact that Dems are making a big show out of working with the political party that produced it muddies the waters for anyone that doesn’t follow politics closely. The fact that they’ve gotten Democratic lawmakers to concede that “securing the border” is a problem (as opposed to staying focused on how our immigration system can’t process people in a timely manner and our social care systems are all too underfunded to deal with climate refugees) has been a massive win for them (makes it very easy for them to just say “securing the border” is “the (only) problem”), as is the fact that we’re talking about the border at all right now instead of Ukraine aid.

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              yeah which is him admiting they don’t want to work with anyone to solve it. its their way or the highway. so they are responsible for the highway status. its not a win. it makes them look even worse and makes anything biden does look better. Im still blown away but what he has been able to do sans congress for his term.

    • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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      Democrats fell for what exactly, doing their job in a lame duck government so people can see what Republicans are really about yet still somehow being blamed by fake Democrats?

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    I never thought I would, but I kinda miss the time when Republicans would lie about their motivations for being awful.

    This whole “mask off but still no consequences” bullshit is even more frustrating than when everyone knew but most people refused to acknowledge it 😮‍💨

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    If it improves the President’s approval rating, doesn’t that suggest that it’s something Americans need or want?

    “[…] I’m not going to do it. Why would I?”

    Indeed. Why help the American people, Congressman?

  • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    i mean that’s pretty much the same story about immigration for the last 40 years and it’s why nothing has gotten done. they’d rather use immigrants as wedge issues then do something about the problem.

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      They also like to use them as cheap labor. The American system can’t function without them. But hush, hush, we don’t like to talk about that part.

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    It is high time we treat the republican traitor swine with the same contempt that they show the American people.

  • paddirn@lemmy.world
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    If it’s such a big deal, how come when Trump was in the White House and they held both chambers of Congress (~2017–2019), why didn’t they solve the issue then?

    • PRUSSIA_x86@lemmy.world
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      Wrong, they’re there to represent their constituents, who seem quite content with all the fuckery the GOP has been pulling.

      • dtc@lemmy.world
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        We need to replace oaths on books with legally binding contracts. I want to be able to sue the fuckers who lie their way into places of power.

        • Signtist@lemm.ee
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          Sure, why don’t you write to your representative to get that changed - oh, wait…

  • Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world
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    This is standard, decades-long GOP mantra, championed by Mitch McConnell. It’s also quite effective. Give a man a boogeyman to blame for all of his problems, and he’ll follow you anywhere.

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      It’s worse than that now. Democrats rolled their eyes, started setting up a deal to address their boogeyman, and now there’s Republicans saying they refuse because it might help the other side.

      The GOP has nothing useful to say or do.

    • TurtleJoe@lemmy.world
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      1. Enact policies that create pain in your own supporters.

      2. Create an “enemy.”

      3. Blame the pain on the “enemies.”

      4. Present themselves as strongmen who can defeat the “enemies.”

    • samus12345@lemmy.world
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      If he’s an idiot who believes that there’s a boogeyman to blame for all his problems, anyway.

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    They’re going to blame a government shut down, due to their inability to govern, on the “border crisis”.