As I have mentioned elsewhere my espousal of conservatism at Moving Secularism Forward went well. Interestingly several people came up to me afterward and admitted a sympathy for the "conservative" position on immigration (i.e., restrictionism). The rationales were both environmentalist (population control types) and law & order. Just out of curiosity I wanted to see any possible changes in attitudes toward immigration for non-Hispanic whites by ideology and education since 2004, when the issue has become more polarized.
I suspect what we are seeing here is an inverse of the situation with free trade. On immigration and trade there is less of a Left/Right difference than an Outsider/Insider or Populist/Elite distinction. The Right elites tend to focus on trade to the point where they muffle or suppress much mobilization against this by their own grassroots (e.g., Pat Buchanan). Similarly, Left elites have come to a consensus that populist mobilization by ...
