In this episode of Zooming In, The UnPopulist's editor-in-chief, Shikha Dalmia, talks with Greg Sargent of The New Republic about whether America has truly turned against immigration—or whether Trump's 2024 victory has been badly misread. Sargent argues that the election reflected a thermostatic, economy-driven backlash rather than a durable cultural shift, and that the past year and a half of mass deportations, ethnic purges, and high-profile cases like Kilmar Abrego Garcia's has snapped majorities back toward a consensus favoring legal pathways, humane treatment, and border security—but not Stephen Miller's vision of ethnic homogeneity. Along the way, Dalmia and Sargent dig into the thwarted history of comprehensive immigration reform, why a radical minority in the GOP has repeatedly blocked it, and the split among Democrats between the "salience bros" who counsel silence on immigration and those who see an opening to win the argument on favorable terms. They examine how figures like Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Texas Senate candidate James Talarico make the connection between immigration and authoritarianism in different registers, take apart David Frum's "if liberals won't enforce borders, fascists will" thesis, and close on why both believe the country's pro-immigrant, "shining city on a hill" ethos runs deeper than the populist rage of the last decade.
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