As we watch Republican senators being danced around the floor by their gleeful Democrat squires, we shouldn't allow this spectacle to cause us to lose sight of a simple truth.  Despite the whispered promises and pledges of fidelity, immigration reform is and has always been about increasing the number of Democrat voters, especially through the use of illegal immigrants. 

There are some things that are so demonstrably true that you can never go wrong relying upon them: whenever a Democrat seeks bipartisanship, the Democrat intends to win all he seeks while conceding nothing of value.  Similarly, whenever a Democrat quashes something as logical and obvious as proof of a right to vote legally, the Democrat does so in recognition of the threat posed by proceeding lawfully.

Those two realities, among others, collide in the charade that is immigration reform.  As played out at federal and state levels, Democrats act uniformly to enable illegals to vote, both by shouting down voter ID laws as "racist" and by rushing to bestow the trappings of citizenship on illegals in the form of driver's licenses and other official government ID consistently accepted at polling places.  Combined with motor-voter registration at departments of motor vehicles around the country, granting driver's licenses to illegals is a dream come true for the Democrats in those seemingly few places where the requirement of an ID has not been struck by an activist in a robe.

While voting is a right of citizenship, it is a right limited by proof of entitlement.  Unlike other constitutional rights, which do not come with express qualifications for entitlement, the right to vote is expressly contingent upon proof of the elements of citizenship.  If voter ID laws were enforced from the point of issuance to the polling place, they would serve as a form of gatekeeper at the polls to prevent those who cannot prove the elements of the right to vote from doing so falsely.  The left understands this risk and has mobilized accordingly, particularly from the bench.  We are loudly scolded that blacks and Hispanics, who need and obtain ID for everything else they do in our society, are situationally disabled when it comes to obtaining ID.

For the time being, liberal mock horror at the concept of voter ID laws has succeeded.  It may continue to do so as long as the left is permitted to pretend that blacks and Hispanics are simpletons, incapable of obtaining ID they either already have or would otherwise need for almost any governmental service, utility, residence, employment, bank account, etc.  Somehow, the racism implicit in this belief escapes notice or comment among those to whom it pertains.

Of course, Democrats recognize that it would be vastly easier if those estimated 10 million to 12 million people illegally present within our borders were simply treated as if they belong here, as nascent citizens.  If that becomes the new reality, and it is underway, one need only look to the states that have more fully implemented illegal-immigration utopia.  Those here illegally have already been granted quasi-citizenship by some states, secure in the knowledge that this administration has no intention of enforcing immigration violations which, we and Arizona have been told, are exclusively the province of the federal government.  In sanctuary states, they have been given driver's licenses, or any other form of ID necessary for them to apply for and obtain all of the goodies already flowing to or certain to be granted them by the left.  And what is the only thing that most voters must show to cast a vote as if they were citizens?  Why, their driver's license or government-issued ID, of course.

Numerically, the left understands that this is the death-blow to the right they have long sought.  Assuming 10 million such new voters (the number could be significantly higher), one need only apply the distribution of Hispanic votes in the last presidential election to grasp the endgame.  Approximately 71% of Hispanic votes went to Obama, while only 28% went to Romney.  While it is unlikely that every new quasi-citizen would get to the polls with his fresh license and ID, those who do will provide a 7-to-3 advantage for the left.  There is no similar new bloc of voters to which the right can turn to rebalance that scale.  A significant numerical advantage to the left lies in granting amnesty -- enough so that they will dominate for the foreseeable future.  And they know it.

Meanwhile, the Republicans fail to understand simple math.  They have deluded themselves into thinking that if they are just nicer to illegals, and empower them to crush Republicans at the polls to ensure endless favors and political power, all will be unicorns and leprechauns.  This is foolishness writ large, making it all the more disappointing that Senator Rubio appears to be guzzling the Kool-Aid.  He appeared to be sharper than that, and hopefully he can still extract himself before the damage to his reputation is irreparable.  No good can come to a Republican who consorts with Senator Schumer, or any Democrat senator.  To be played by them so completely demonstrates gullibility rather than pragmatism.

The left has been at this successfully for decades.  They are the Harlem Globetrotters, and the Republicans are the team they travel with -- the one that always loses these games.  The Democrats even tricked Reagan into believing they would fulfill their part of the bargain on amnesty, and scornfully reneged.  Indeed, every single interaction between the political parties involving the left living up to its end of a deal for the last 30 years or more has been a farce.  The preceding four years alone have been full of slaps in the face to Republicans, who seem destined to repeat their impressive pattern of cluelessness when it comes to sizing up their suitors.

As the Republicans are waltzed closer to the Democrats' bed, surrendering their conservative principles along the way, we stand on the edge of something very bad, indeed.  We are about to say "Adiós" to any shot at political parity for a very long time.  Once they have given it up, they won't get it back.  Rather than sleep with the enemy, perhaps it is time to go home alone until the right one comes along.