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Notes -
I’m not saying it’s derived from pragmatic analysis, politics is always emotional. I’m saying that “we must have mass immigration to European countries even if it makes them much, much worse” is a poor way to frame the liberal position because broadly speaking mainstream liberals like Smith do not believe it is going to make these countries much worse. Elite American liberals are not unaware of tribal conflicts. They created Kosovo, they beat themselves up about not intervening more in Rwanda, they deal with countless tribal and religious conflicts in the State Department that they attempt to varying degrees of success to influence and where they regularly pick winners. They just believe in American exceptionalism. That it couldn’t happen here, in part because they’re in charge.
The people who believe we must accept the whole third world no matter what out of power and privilege even if it makes everyone’s life much more difficult tend to be on the radical left, de-growth types, ban new construction types, the oppressed are always right types, black and brown bodies types, Palestine flag / watermelon emoji types, people who hate Matt Yglesias (who again supports mass immigration out of a misguided belief in assimilation) as much as the right types. They are also almost always anti-zionist leftists of the kind you discuss, too.
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