Krystal Ball

is an aspirational positive vision that's not, you know, the traditional right-of-center message has just been like, well, we'll just get government out of the way and everyone will flourish.

That's obviously not sufficient.

You know, the message from the left-of-center tends to be more, you know, well, here are the things that are lacking that we will therefore give you.

I don't think that's sufficient either.

And so we're trying to figure out, you know, what is the message that will actually acknowledge and speak to the very real problems, but in a way that actually

reclaims some of what we've lost.

No, I think it's a great point.

I think so much of what we're seeing in our struggles with illegal immigration now are really way downstream of, okay, but what is citizenship in the first place?

Because I don't think it would be controversial to say on the left of center there has been much more a view that anybody has a right to come here.

And the reality is that for citizenship to work, for that sense of solidarity to exist, it's actually incredibly important, both in theory and in practice, that the people who are the citizens of the nation have the right to decide who becomes a citizen.

If you're telling me I'm supposed to have some relationship to the other people,

but also I have no say in who those people are going to be, that breaks down very quickly.

And so that's not necessarily an argument for or against any level of immigration, right?

You could have a very well-functioning system that has many immigrants coming in, but it needs to be happening in a way that

Citizens who are already here feel like and in fact do have control over.

And then it has to be happening in a way that actually imposes obligations on those people as well.

That says if you want to come and be a part of this community, you know, it is not simply having that piece of paper.

There are obviously enormous benefits and privileges that come with being here, with being a citizen, and that also then comes with obligations that we have to be willing to uphold.

And so when I see the Hasan Piker protest, to me it's just a perfect illustration of, look, if the approach you're going to have is, well, all of these people are entitled to their freedom,

I think it's safe to say also, you know, anybody who's concerned whether they can speak English, anyone who's willing to embrace and share a culture, these are somehow, you know, racist or uncouth things to demand.