I agree with most of this, but the parts that are odd to me sound like the results of a fairly typical sort of leftist bubble.
Gun control, for instance, is actually popular with the public at large. If the gun lobby weren’t so wealthy, this would probably be a nothing-burger, something we tackled years ago. Here’s some gallup data in some nice tables and graphs, going back years: news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx
Similar with immigration, though, if you address a problem, you can’t campaign on it any more. Since conservatives don’t really want a whole lot to change, ever really, they generally can’t campaign on accomplishments and solutions. So, they campaign on the problems they refuse to fix instead. And occasionally coming up with some weird new one to get people riled up over. But guns are a pretty consistent one for them. Remember how Obama was going to take all their guns away?