"use illegal immigration for meat packing" isn't a broadly-held right-wing position, it's something certain unprincipled business owners do (and I'm not even sure that they're universally right-wing). In contrast, "increasing wages" and "increasing mass immigration" are broadly-held left-wing positions. Again, this doesn't suggest incoherence on the left.

I think your use of the word "mass" is causing a lot of confusion, but I'm not sure who's "fault" it is. According to your edit on your original post, you say you're using it to mean "less selective" immigration, which, to me, is a way different sentence - but it's completely possible this is a domain-specific use of the word "mass" that I am just not familiar with.

Fair enough. The idea was that the left wants to lower the barrier for "asylum seeking" or perhaps just admit more asylum seekers irrespective of their educational value or their ability to support themselves (i.e., minimal selection criteria). This isn't a criticism or value judgment.

Please. It’s deeply embedded in GOP power brokering. Principles are for the mass of idiots.

The only difference today is that after years of taking the votes of reactionaries and doing little, the populist blocs of reactionary voters are the tail wagging the dog.

So what's the idea? Republicans secretly favor the cheap labor that immigration provides, but they obstruct themselves at every turn by opposing said immigration? Anyway, we're talking about "right wing" people generally rather than GOP politicians specifically--these two groups often have somewhat different agendas (yes, even in a representative democracy).

“Unprincipled” business owners, farmers, and basically every other company that wants cheap labor in “rural America”.

Maybe, but that doesn't support the generalization that this is a broadly-held right-wing position, which is what we were debating. Note also that plenty of ostensibly left-wing companies want cheap labor as well.

> Note also that plenty of ostensibly left-wing companies want cheap labor as well.

There are (outside of small local cooperative enterprises) approximately zero left-wing companies in the US.

The things painted as “left-wing” companies by the far right are center-right neoliberal corporate capitalist enterprises that do some mix of opposing far-right culture war efforts as a drag on corporate capitalist exploitation and making PR gestures to the left side of culture war fights while remaining locked in the economic center-right.

Yeah, in the GOP’s current view of the world, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is considered radical leftists, but, that's not reflective of reality.

I think you and I have debated this before, and I think your definition for "left-wing" is pretty different from the general population (and you may think the same about my definition, all good, agree to disagree, etc). Anyway, I said "ostensibly left-wing companies" deliberately because I don't think any company actually adheres to an ideology irrespective of what their PR/marketing departments say or do, but rather they all comport themselves according to their individual profit motives.

> I said "ostensibly left-wing companies" deliberately because I don't think any company actually adheres to an ideology irrespective of what their PR/marketing departments say or do, but rather they all comport themselves according to their individual profit motives.

Where do you think ideologies come from? One of the most common places is some identifiable group's economic self-interest; neoliberalism is that for the owner class in capitalist society, which is why institutions controlled by that class (especially when they are controlled broadly by that class rather than by an individual member who may have personal quirks) tend to pursue it.

I don't think they come from corporations, although no doubt organizations may promote popular ideologies.

How is it not broadly held? What business is saying “we really wish we could spend more on labor, that would be great!” Politicians on the right have been playing lip service to “illegal immigration” for years. But they all knew just what would happen if they actually did it. Business interest and farmers would crucify them.

Even Trump supporting farmers were complaining about not being able to find anyone.

Just like they were all for the wall until the government started using eminent domain to take their land to build it.

> Politicians on the right have been playing lip service to “illegal immigration” for years. But they all knew just what would happen if they actually did it. Business interest and farmers would crucify them.

It's the same thing with climate change on the left (Democrat politicians never manage to pass any kind of carbon pricing because they know they'd get crucified by business interests), but I wouldn't say that the left-wing broadly opposes carbon pricing.

> I wouldn't say that the left-wing broadly opposes carbon pricing.

The left wing does not, and much of it actively supports it.

The Democratic Party-in-government, dominated by its center-right faction, does oppose it, or at least does not actively support it.