I think it's also possible for the party to maintain marginally unpopular positions to support their principles --- that's what the GOP does on reproductive health care --- but when you do that you have to be cognizant that you're paying a price and you have to make that cost up somewhere else. And then, you have some control over how painful that cost is.
I don't think there's a set of policies that puts our shared principles on immigration "into the black" (so to speak) with the median US voter. Immigration is unpopular worldwide right now, and some of that unpopularity is just human nature, some of the same forces that drive NIMBYism. But you can minimize the costs by changing up how you communicate on these issues, and I think the best way to do that is to empathize (even as you disagree) with the beliefs of the people who disagree with you.
There are lots of places where conservatives disagree with me where I have zero empathy and zero fucks to give about how they feel. But when we're on the wrong side of an issue electorally, when the margins are as slim as they are, and when the issue is as salient as it is (it was the 2nd highest polled issue in weighted exits in 2024), it behooves us to be more careful.
I don't think there's a set of policies that puts our shared principles on immigration "into the black" (so to speak) with the median US voter. Immigration is unpopular worldwide right now, and some of that unpopularity is just human nature, some of the same forces that drive NIMBYism. But you can minimize the costs by changing up how you communicate on these issues, and I think the best way to do that is to empathize (even as you disagree) with the beliefs of the people who disagree with you.
There are lots of places where conservatives disagree with me where I have zero empathy and zero fucks to give about how they feel. But when we're on the wrong side of an issue electorally, when the margins are as slim as they are, and when the issue is as salient as it is (it was the 2nd highest polled issue in weighted exits in 2024), it behooves us to be more careful.