How stupid political narratives form.

It’s fucking Long Island, the election of a Democrat doesn’t mean anything.

Democrat Tom Suozzi won George Santos’s, er, vacated seat in Congress, representing New York’s Third Congressional District.

And every pundit in America is drawing the wrong conclusion from the victory. Morally and politically. The consensus is that Suozzi won because he called for tougher policies at the border and more deportations. A dash of fearmongering about crime sealed the deal. Joe Biden, we are told, should do the same: buck the progressive wing of his party on immigration and take a tougher stance on the border.

As usual The Atlantic showcases the vile consensus:

The election became a test case for the political salience of the GOP’s attacks on President Joe Biden’s handling of immigration and the influx of migrants over the southern border. Suozzi’s opponent, Mazi Pilip, used nearly all her campaign ads to tie him to Biden’s border policies. Suozzi, meanwhile, took a firmer stance on the border than many Democrats and assailed Mazi for opposing the bipartisan deal that Senate Republicans killed last week.

Suozzi’s message prevailed, and his victory could offer Democrats, including the beleaguered president, a road map for rebutting Republicans on immigration in battleground states and suburban districts this fall. Notably, Suozzi broke with Democrats who have waved off voter concerns about the border as a GOP-manufactured crisis; he called for higher spending to fortify the border and urged the deportation of migrants accused of assaulting New York City police officers.

There’s an identical op-ed in the Times.

The Hill:

Not only did Suozzi move towards the center on those key issues and embrace bipartisanship while Pilip criticized it, Suozzi took the progressive wing of his party to task for their unpopular ideas on the border and crime, publicly accusing the “progressive left wing of the Democratic Party” of “hurting Democrats throughout the country” with their approach to crime.  

Specifically on immigration — which has become a substantial political vulnerability for Biden and Democrats — Suozzi preempted any attempts to link him to the left flank of the Democratic Party by calling on Biden to shut down the border and even pushing for the deportation of migrants who assaulted NYPD officers.  

Specifically, we called on Biden to take action to freeze immigration at the southern border, tighten asylum rules, cap the number of border crossings and end “sanctuary city” laws, which have saddled cities like New York with unmanageable burdens on local finances and law enforcement, and which prevent local law enforcement from working with federal agencies to deport migrants who commit crimes such as opening fire and shooting at NYPD officers. 

God talk about plagiarism.