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Political strategist Mike Murphy makes a long overdue return to the Ricochet Podcast to discuss what really happened in the Cantor-Brat race. Was it immigration or is all politics local? Our old friend Mickey Kaus has a point of view on that, and he joins to give his boots-on-the-ground analysis of what happened in VA-7. Spoiler alert: he and Mike disagree — but in a very entertaining and knowledgable way. Finally, the answer is “This Ricochet editor is currently the reigning champion on Jeopardy.” Remember to give your answer in the form of a question.
Music from this week’s’ episode:
America from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, West Side Story
The opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
EJHill is 100% legal.
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So would adding a dollar a month fee to support Hillary’s campaign. Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
Since when do borders and immigration control count as leftist lunacy? Since when do conservatives consider borders to be artificial constraints?
My claim is that the restriction on hiring people who came to this country illegally is an unfair manipulation of the market, yes. It raises the cost of labor because it makes it illegal to hire workers of a particular sort who would otherwise be able to work, increasing supply of labor and lowering the cost.
I would also say it’s not fair if you had to, e.g., be a union member to be permitted to work. Work is a contract between the employer and the employee. And you people are saying certain would-be employees must be made ineligible so that others may enjoy higher wages. That is as unfair as it gets.
It doesn’t artificially inflate the supply of labor. The real supply of labor is what it would be absent government-imposed restrictions or subsidies. This is really intellectually dishonest stuff…
The leftist lunacy bit is not the border and immigration control part. It is the part about “a fair market wage” (nonsense) and the subtly hinted-at notion that you can make everyone better off by artificially increasing the price of labor. That is the sort of economically illiterate bunk I’d expect from the Center for American Progress or something.
And frankly, I don’t see how one can argue that a government-controlled border and employment restriction is not an artificial constraint. There’s nothing natural about it! It’s not the Rio Grande that restricts the labor supply!
Correction: work is a contract between an employer and employee who are legal residents of a nation.
We’re not saying certain would-be employees must be made ineligible, we are saying they are already ineligible according to the laws our authorities are too spineless to enforce.
Intellectually dishonest? Really?
I’m praying that we never have to find out what “Shiny Pony” would decide about anything more than where to go for his next fab hairstyle.
So expecting everyone to abide by tax laws, licensing of doctors, countries having borders and any laws that prevent hiring are “leftist lunacy” in your mind.
Useful to know.
Then yes, this huge collection of far, far left lunatics known as “the right” do, indeed, like equal application of the laws, and in fact the existence of laws, and even believe that the existence of laws does not rule out the possibility of a fair market wage.
And frankly, I don’t see how one can argue that a government-controlled border and employment restriction is not an artificial constraint. There’s nothing natural about it! It’s not the Rio Grande that restricts the labor supply!
Okay, it is “artificial”, in the sense that any kind of societal/legal restraint is. What makes it wrong? You open-borders radicals really need to stop and consider the logical extensions of your assertions. What if one billion people hopped the border this year? You would have no logical reason to turn any of them away, and we would no longer have a nation.
Borders are essential to a nation and its sovereignty. To argue otherwise is leftist lunacy.
Murphy committed the worst stomping on a segue ever! He probably didn’t even realize that that’s what James was trying desperately to do.
I thought Peter’s point on immigration was devastating: as soon as we come to an agreement for a 10-year process, the Democrats start trying to lower the number and the Republicans are still the bad guys. There’s no way to win this by giving in.
Yes, I think your statement that “Illegal immigration artificially inflates the supply by allowing a group to be unconstrained by the agreed on laws” was an attempt at false equivalence. You and I both know that there’s nothing about illegal immigration that “artificially” inflates the supply of labor. It increases the supply of labor as a natural response to the demand of the market.
I find this definition of work very peculiar. Is that to say that a nonresident temporary guest worker is not actually engaged in work? But this is absurd.
I understand that, but my point is that these laws shouldn’t exist in the first place. Or do you think that every law is a good law by its very nature? I wonder whether you call for the enforcement of Obamacare with the same vim and vigor.
This is an important point and I would like to reply but the comment system is broken even on a real computer. ON an ipad it’s just impossibly slow. Incredibly frustrating, maybe I will be able to respond when I get home
Now We find out on Drudge that Rupert Murdoch and Valerie Jarrett are meeting to “figure out” immigration. Guess my $375 a year subscription to the WSJ/Barrons can be spent on something else.
Um. Kevin McCarthy is the director of Jeopardy. A different being than the House Majority Leader. Also a different being than the actor in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, who died in 2010 after a long life of fulfilling every actor’s dream: working. Also getting an Academy award best supporting actor nomination for the 1951 film version of Death of a Salesman. But mostly: working. And making out with Montgomery Clift. But mostly: working. This is news to me since I’ve been using that (Jeopardy director/Invasion actor, same guy) as what now can be seen as a plainly and astonishly bogus trivia question for years. Oh well, back to Cosmo Topper’s dog’s name ( TV series with Leo G. Carroll): Neil. A Saint Bernard. Absolutely true.
Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Yep. I’m skipping this one. The last time he was on, I came to the same conclusion as you: “My blood pressure will be a lot better if I just avoid this guy next time”. After I saw his “Stupid wing wins big” tweet from Cantor’s loss, I knew he hadn’t changed any.
Mike Murphy is a blatant liar. First of all, he claims that there is a closing window on solving the pathway to legalization aspect of immigration. He claims that there will be a backlash in 2016 which will lead to a “50 year Leftist majority” if the GOP doesn’t enact some sort of pathway legislation. Well, Mr. Murphy, if they are illegal, then it would stand to reason that they aren’t registered voters and can’t be counted in a census. So how on earth can they influence electoral politics?
Also, when, oh when, will you scumbags in the GOP establishment address the results of a study done by Heather MacDonald that shows Hispanics voting for Democrats because they WANT bigger government? Murphy, and the rest of the GOP immigrant-mongers, are either willfully blind or they are sinister scumbags who do NOT like the Conservative base of the GOP. I am leaning very close to the latter.
I don’t think that when Majestyk says “fair market wage” he means anything close to “living wage” or “fair wage”. He’s saying that when some people are playing by the rules and others are not then that is neither a fair nor a free market. I also don’t think he’s saying that artificially increasing the price of labor would have the effect of making everyone better off; instead he’s suggesting that US citizens would be better off if everyone in the market were playing according to the same rulebook.
So geography is the only natural constraint? Nothing of culture, language, common interests? Nations are merely a collection of labor resources flowing to the demand, wherever it may be?
I’d say it’s anarchist lunacy more than leftist lunacy. This contingent has representatives on both left and right.
Why shouldn’t they exist? What do you think is the ostensible purpose of immigration regulation? Of distinguishing between citizen and non-citizen?
No, not every law is good. However, if a law is legitimate – even if I oppose it – then yes it should be enforced. Rule of law cannot stand otherwise.
Here’s the error in Murphy’s thinking and behavior:
Murphy belittled Kaus’s conclusion that Cantor lost due to an anti-amnesty backlash. Paraphrasing, Murphy questioned Kaus’s conclusion since it was based on meeting 600 activists. Meanwhile, Murphy likely expected a Cantor win and was as wrong as all Republican consultants and pundits because he had relied in part on Republican Polling studies of 600 to 1000 voters. As Murphy must know, all polling results come with a disclaimer for statistical outliers, “accurate 19 times out of 20”. Speaking as an Engineer, the one time out of 20 where the statistical study doesn’t accurately predict must be explained, and often requires direct observation of the kind made by Kaus. That Murphy would not even allow Kaus the common courtesy to complete his sentences with respect to his observations might explain how Murphy missed predicting the Cantor loss. I would not be surprised to find that Murphy expected a 2012 Romney win, andwas wrong for the same reason.
Kaus-Murphy could be a great regular podcast, would require a Senik-type moderator since Kaus is too much of a gentlemen and Murphy too much of an a….
With regard to Mr. Murphy, while I sympathize with those who can’t stand to listen to him (after a few minutes, I’ve heard enough and must skip to the end of his segment), I do think his input is helpful, and not in the way he thinks. His display of condescension, bad faith, and professional corruption reminds everyone here what brings a country down. He’s the best advertisement against his arguments. Free speech is good. Let’s do hear him with David Limbaugh.
With regard to Mr. Rives libertarian open-borders arguments, he’s simplistically arguing that any restraint on voluntary cooperation distorts the free market. Fair enough, from an economic standpoint. But it is essentially arguing that any border enforcement whatsoever is impermissible. The foolishness of this position requires little refutation; suffice it to say that we have a welfare state (which I assume Mr. Rives also opposes, and if not, he’s hopeless). The implications of this, I’m sorry to have discovered, often escape open-borders absolutists.
So, because I’m not an Anarcho-Capitalist I am automatically a leftist? You’ve discovered my secret.
In any fair analysis of what I actually said you should detect at least a little bit of irritated Ethno-Nationalism; a healthy sense of alarm at the fact that our nation is being overrun by foreigners who have foreign values – un-American values – which we (because of the left’s wrist-slitting insistence upon multiculturalism) are not insisting they jettison in favor of assimilation with our culture before we allow them power over us in the political arena.
Unlike navel-gazing, utopian-minded libertarians I subscribe to the notion of American exceptionalism, and the idea that there are legitimate functions for the state, and that one of those functions is border security. If you don’t have that, you basically don’t have a nation anymore – you have a loose confederation of people who come and go at their convenience, lacking any appreciation of the values that actually built the physical or moral infrastructure which these usurpers would now like to purloin.
[Cross-posted from http://ricochet.com/mike-murphy-on-the-podcast/%5D:
It is interesting that Murphy was much more cordial to Dana Gould on “The Dana Gould Hour”, than he was on the latest “The Ricochet Podcast.” That’s somewhat understandable, as Dana is pretty liberal, and Murphy clearly wanted to make a good impression (and TDGH is a comedy podcast, after all.) But part of the impression he was clearly trying to make was that he was not crazy like conservative voters–he was a “sane Republican.” Again, I understand that to a degree, but it is still off-putting.
As to his latest appearance, it was interesting that no one brought up that immigration reform isn’t that high of a priority with voters. And if that’s the case, why does Murphy assert that not preferring his desired action on it will doom the Republican party? AFAICT, “comprehensive immigration reform” is a big issue for elites (who are for it), opposed strongly by a good chunk of the base, but not much cared about by anyone else, including its “target demographic.” So why the doom-mongering? And also, if we pass what he wants, why should we expect better results for the Republican party than were seen after the 1986 amnesty? In fact, what were the results of that?
And I am really tired of all of the behavior that others have noted here; the set-up and demolition of straw men, the “reverse pejorative” (nice coinage, Franco), the imputation of views to opponents that he knows they don’t hold, condescension, arrogance, cheap mockery, and glibness. When he next appears, I would also like it if the hosts would relentlessly interject the word “illegal” whenever he tries to conflate “immigration reform” with “illegal immigration reform”, since the latter is the hot-button issue, not the former. Oh, and drill him on what his principles are, and how he ranks them in order of importance. Yes, majorities matter, but for what ends do you need those majorities? What is the trade-off between principles and practicality? Make him explain himself for a change, rather than just criticize others. (He actually did some of that on TDGH. So just make him pretend that “The Ricochet Podcast” is a comedy podcast with liberal leanings, and we should be golden.)
Hypothetical 2016 scenario:
Ted Cruz (who speaks Spanish, albeit not proficiently) runs against Hillary, his platform including strong enforcement for e-verify, predictable annual immigration and work-visa quotas, and a pathway to citizenship taking no fewer than 5 years.
We could reel in a lot of those 11 million potential new voters that way. Cubans are seen as leaders in the hispanic community, and Cubans are overwhelmingly Republican. They could lead a ton of Mexican and Central American immigrants to our side.
I think that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the global economy works. Every country artificially constrains the supple of labor. French, Canadians, Mexicans all do the same thing. Your economic policy leads to hurting American workers, then paying the unemployed generous benefits. (welfare, Medicaid, Food Stamps) And you call someone else a leftist?
There is no evidence whatsoever that any of this will work to get hispanic votes. There is no evidence that ANYTHING we do will get Hispanic votes.
Also, Cubans are not overwhelmingly Republican anymore (younger Cubans now trend Democratic). Why do you think they are “regarded as leaders” in the Hispanic community?
I’m not sure Mickey could pull of a Brat-style upset against McCarthy (which I realize was a joke.) I live in the district and McCarthy has been in our schools, on the Navy Base, and in town quite a bit – certainly he isn’t perceived as out of touch with his district. Of course, the Cantor loss showed anything can happen.
Also, Mickey needs to not let others talk over him. If memory serves, he had a hard time getting a word in against Jennifer Rubin, too.
Mike Murphy is talented. I am distressed that he can earn a living with those talents doing something other than selling Sham-Wows or Thighmasters.