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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   35837 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025

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PLEASE try lowering the temperature, Dems.

I agree, but let us also remember to pin some blame on Trump for doing the ICE raids as flamboyantly as possible.

Obama deported 410,000 people in 2012 and managed to avoid cameras far better.

I am convinced Trump wants liberals to overreact because it's the best campaign ad and the mobs are happy to take the bait.

Yes, black bag the illegals in the dead of night and try to suppress news coverage of the "dissappearances."

Quiet, stealthy operation.

Do you believe the left would sit quietly by for such tactics?

There's a huge gulf between that and what Trump is doing currently. Trump is making these raids as much a spectacle as possible.

Did we forget the Studio Ghibli rendition of the crying handcuffed deportee tweeted by the White House? What about videos captioned "ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight"?

He even has fucking Dr Phil accompanying raids now.

And I'm suggesting that it wouldn't really matter.

The riots in 2020 were triggered by one guy dying under sketchy circumstances.

If Trump didn't give them am impetus, I think they'd find one.

It's not particularly surprising for Trump to run on a mass deportation platform... then make a big deal about fulfilling that promise.

The riots in 2020 were triggered by one guy dying under sketchy circumstances.

This seems like a spectacular failure to grasp the deep, unresolved tension in the US over how law enforcement conducts itself. There were anti-police protests in 2014 under Obama as well. You can't attribute these things to a single police murder.

then make a big deal about fulfilling that promise.

This is not making a big deal out of enforcement. It is ostentatious cruelty (one might even say the cruelty is the point :v).

You've also got things like ICE going after valid visa holders, calling immigrants "invaders", and the DHS declaring intent to "liberate" LA from the socialists.

So what's the deep, unresolved tension surrounding keeping noncitizens in the country?

Is there any reason other than "it helps us win elections?"

So what's the deep, unresolved tension surrounding keeping noncitizens in the country?

The competing interests and preferences of nativists, anti-nativists, employers, consumers, etc... combined with a deadlocked political system that effectively leaves immigration policy up to the caprices of executive discretion.

Is there any reason other than "it helps us win elections?"

What is that supposed to mean? Illegal immigrants can't vote, so the "importing voters" theory doesn't hold up so well, and their mere existence alienates the xenophobe vote, so it's hard to call it a winning electoral strategy. Even if you think they're wrong, you should probably take immigration advocates at their word when they offer humanitarian and economic justifications for supporting immigration.

At a bare minimum, they can use it as a wedge issue, as with abortion or gun control.

Like they're doing now.

If there was minimal illegal immigration to speak of, what would be their case for increasing it.

At a bare minimum, they can use it as a wedge issue, as with abortion or gun control.

That would make vastly more sense coming from the right, where we've repeatedly seen conservative elites push back on certain kinds of immigration enforcement while also avoiding comprehensive immigration reform. YMMV if this is because they want it as a wedge or because it would it would implicate them and hurt their economic interests.

Like, who are the Dems wedging with immigration?

If there was minimal illegal immigration to speak of, what would be their case for increasing it.

That would depend a great deal on the counterfactual. A scenario where there's minimal illegal immigration because there's de facto open borders, not much. Illegal immigration is not a first preference for immigration advocates (hence, for example, efforts to route immigrants through the asylum system). In "death penalty for illegal entry" scenario, you're back to the humanitarian appeal. Not that either of those scenarios are likely, but I hope it illustrates the point.

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