Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
How did illegal immigration become so polarizing? The last two Democratic presidents prior to Biden, Clinton and Obama, both talked about maintaining strong borders and deported millions of illegal aliens. Suddenly in the last few years, Democrats act like it's always been our cultural policy to allow whoever wants in, to live here. Is this really just a crass strategy to build a larger blue voting base, or is it something more?
In my perception it’s not so much that the Democrats have gone crazy it’s more that Republicans won the messaging war and also, tactically, tricked many Democrats into knee jerk reactions. Dems have always been praising the virtues of model minority immigrants and at times Reps too, that’s important background. Dems had a long history of wanting more “charitable” treatment for the poor or oppressed (whether you think this is a weakness or a strength is partly a values disagreement). We can’t act like this isn’t a recurrent historical position - see for example the Statue of Liberty poem about bringing America the poor and hungry and persecuted. (Immigration sentiment also historically has come in waves for and against)
So when Trump says some overtly racist things or does a Muslim bad etc., plus the college educated lens of viewing Trump pronouncements as facially and literally accurate rather than the directional pronouncements most voters actually hear, I think there was an overreaction. Dems operate partly on guilt and border security plays on that guilt. But again, although some politicians got tricked into saying and supporting poorly considered things in Trump backlash (hate to admit he could be right about anything) extending even to the Biden years still in the shadow of Trump, I’d view this as mostly organic rather than some actual pro-immigrant plot.
To be sure, there IS a subset of Democrats who legitimately feel greater allegiance to the globe and humanity as a whole than they do to the US, they are loud but this is often a minority and they don’t always get into authority positions.
I should also add that at least 3 times in the last 15 years we got extremely close to compromise with immigration bills, but they all failed to pass so in a very real way the problem got worse than normal. In that way, of course the rhetoric gets most extreme, because the problem is more extreme
I do wish people would not truncate the stanza:
(Emphasis mine) Sometimes people even truncate the poem mid line "Your huddled masses." There's not even a comma breaking the sentence there! Critically she doesn't say send me all. Her command for who to send does not require nobility, but does require carrying an essential notion of liberty with you. It is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty after all, not the Statue of Unlimited Open Boarders.
There's not an entirely negligible portion of the population that is fine with even fairly generous immigration policy. They might prefer, though, if the plan is to vote for the same shit policies that you are fleeing from that you do not come to the US.
That’s a great point and I was just trying to be brief with my allusion. I actually think that you could get bipartisan support for limiting the type of immigration that leads to large amount of remittances vs those who genuinely want to raise families and establish themselves. Thus my point about how the current split is partially a result of the stalled bipartisan efforts (like really we were only a vote or two shy several times)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link