“Who shall be admitted to citizenship is the question. Next to that, who we let in to do what looms small. Citizenship determines who shall rule, to what ends, and what life among us will be. Such decisions are quintessential to popular sovereignty.” —Angelo Codevilla

“I’ve already talked to Thom Tillis in person and he looked me in my face and told me that we have until March 5. He told me to my face that undocumented youth are not immigrants, are not a priority. I’m not a priority. F—k this conservative! F—k this person!” —an unidentified illegal alien who was part of group of activists that stormed the office of Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), one of the most pro-amnesty Republicans in Congress

If there is one redeeming feature of progressives, it is the almost congenital determination to overplay their hand. Nothing made that clearer than the Democrats’ reflexive rejection of President Donald Trump’s offer to legalize 1.8 million “Dreamers” — nearly triple the number protected by Barack Obama — and grant them full citizenship after 12 years. In exchange, Trump wants a $25 billion trust fund for border security, an end to the “catch-and-release” of illegals caught at the border, faster deportations for visa over-stayers, strict limits on “chain migration” and an end to the Diversity Visa Lottery. E-Verify, arguably the most effective tool for preventing employers from hiring illegals, didn’t even make the cut.

How did Democrats react? “The White House is using Dreamers to mask their underlying xenophobic, isolationist, and un-American policies,” said Congressional Hispanic Caucus chairwoman Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM). House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) insisted the proposal is “an act of staggering cowardice which attempts to hold the #DREAMers hostage to an unmistakable campaign to make America white again.” Immigration activist group UnitedWeDream called it a “white supremacist proposal.”

That these potential recipients of amnesty are overwhelmingly non-white is apparently irrelevant to Democrats. Why? Because Democrats are “not all that interested in the ‘Dreamers’ as people,” explains columnist Roger Simon. “They just want to make the Republicans look, well, racist and lose elections.”

No doubt, but wouldn’t Democrats accepting Trump’s proposal as it stands alienate a substantial portion of his base and accomplish the same thing? National Review’s Mark Krikorian called it a “preemptive surrender on several issues.” Townhall’s Scott Morefield insisted Republicans and Trump “could very well be signing their own political death warrants.” And Bob Dane, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), warned that the Republican base “will inflict a scorched-earth policy” on the party in the midterm elections.

So why would Democrats look a proverbial gift horse in the mouth? Because Democrats don’t want to solve America’s immigration problem. They want to “solve” America’s “white supremacist” problem.

“If the border were closed and the melting pot allowed to work, the façade of identity politics would vanish in a generation,” explains Victor Davis Hanson.

That is exactly why Democrats would never abide any solution that ends illegal immigration.

And identity politics is only part of the equation. More important, Democrats and their open border allies need a continuing influx of illegals to reduce the value of American citizenship to zero. That’s because debasing what columnist Rachel Bovard rightly describes as “the heart of our republic” in turn advances the debasement of America’s traditions, customs, culture and language.

Codevilla warns, “We obfuscate reality if we pretend that today’s influx is a mere continuation of the hallowed heritage of American immigration; if we ignore that people who want to come to America differ in their motivation, character, and above all in relevance to our constitutional republic.”

Democrats are more than willing to obfuscate reality if doing so abets their efforts to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.”

“In the past, immigrants accepted that they had left Ireland, Italy, or Poland because habits, customs, and government in their home countries were deemed wanting and unworkable, and therefore it was necessary to embrace their antitheses in the United States,” Hanson declares. “It would have made no sense to flee from Italy and expect to live life in America on the premises that an Italian lived in Italy. Immigration, again brutally or not, is a complex two-step hard bargain that succeeds only when one accepts his chosen country — and de facto rejects the collective protocols of his birthplace.”

Not when Democrats insist “melting pot” assimilation amounts to bigoted nativism, Mr. Hanson.

Are Trump and his fellow Republicans oblivious to these realities? Radio host Bill Mitchell believes Trump’s offer is a clever ploy. “Remember, Trump’s broader stated goal is ‘merit-based’ immigration,” he tweets. “His new ‘DACA deal’ is just that. He brings the illegals out of the shadows by registering them. They screw up once, they’re gone. He just added a ‘merit-based’ filter to illegal immigration. Smart.”

Columnist Monica Showalter believes Trump’s 10-12 year window for citizenship will weed out all the underachieving Dreamers, leaving the nation with people “who would actually like being Americans and succeed at it.”

Americans themselves will ultimately have to decide if Trump is selling out his base, genuinely trying to forge a compromise, or if he’s a clever “Art of the Deal” tactician who understands Democrats are so invested in “The Resistance” that they must avoid any deal on immigration — even one where they get more than 1.8 million Dreamers put on a pathway to citizenship.

Are Democrats really that cynical? Imagine what would happen if they did make a deal. A “racist” Republican party and its president would get at least partial credit for solving a problem Democrats refused to solve, even when they had the Oval Office, the House and a filibuster-proof Senate majority during Obama’s first term.

Moreover, a largely distractive issue would be taken off the table for the 2018 election — and a Trump-revived economy might become the central focus instead. If that happens, Democrats, who currently believe they are riding a tidal wave of anti-Trump sentiment to victory in November, might not win a majority in either the House or the Senate. In turn, that makes their dream of impeaching Trump impossible to achieve.

Thus, both Democrats and dreamers are doubling down. During his state of the Union speech Tuesday, Donald Trump stated something blindingly obvious: “Americans are dreamers, too.”

The following day, DACA recipients in California “said they were disgusted with Trump’s rhetoric,” the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Democrats? They “were infuriated” by Trump’s speech and insisted he “put an immigration deal even further out of reach with what they called bigoted remarks,” according to Politico.

According to a CBS poll, 75% of Americans approved of Trump’s speech. Even worse, a January 2018 Monmouth University poll reveals the 15 point edge Democrats held on generic congressional ballots in December has cratered to only a two-point edge. Thus, it appears an increasing number of Americans are beginning to realize a Democrat Party “platform” that consists of reflexive support for illegals — and reflexive hatred for the president and his supporters — isn’t one they wish to support in next November’s midterm elections.