At the end of the 2002 film “Gangs of New York,” there is a cheesy yet affecting montage of the city’s ever-changing skyline. The message: Battles are waged, won and lost, but change is the only constant. Today’s immigrants are tomorrow’s natives. Thus, ideational nativism, however potent, never trumps the material self-interest and individual ambition that still drives people to these shores.

The Republicans would do well to offer free pizza and host a nationwide screening of that Scorsese feature before their delusional and self-pitying nativism helps to sink more moderate candidates, both Democrat and Republican.

Maybe they should even host a double feature with Stephen Spielberg’s 2021 remake of “West Side Story,” which is explicit about the perennial reality that newcomers become Am

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