The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency

by John Dickerson

The Republican Party’s reversal on immigration policy offers the starkest shift. After the 2012 election, the Republican Party commissioned an “autopsy” to explain why it had lost the popular vote in five of the last six elections. Most of the report was vague, but that vagueness was pierced by one clear policy recommendation: “We must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform,” wrote the autopsy’s authors. “If we do not, our Party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only.”13 The Fox commentator Sean Hannity had a public revelation and supported comprehensive immigration reform. “You create a pathway for those people that are here—you don’t say you’ve got to go home,” he said. “And that is a position that I’ve evolved on. Because, you know what, it’s got to be resolved. The majority of people here, if some people have criminal records you can send them home, but if people are here, law-abiding, participating for years, their kids are born here, you know, it’s first secure the border, pathway to citizenship, done.”14