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Can we just deport him? And no I am not talking about a Somalian, but Alexander Ovechkin. He just appeared in a Russian political ad. When asked why he did that he replied, “I’m Russian, I support my country”. But here’s the thing the west and to a lesser extent the US is at war with Russia. Undeclared and without ground troops, but we are contributing financing, seized Russian assets, and have and probably still provide intelligence to the Ukrainian side. I think supporting a foreign government at war with America is perfectly fine grounds to deport someone.
The counter argument and I think a reasonable opinion for letting him stay is that cultural exchange makes peace easier. So there are solid grounds for letting him stay. I probably take the opinion that letting him play hockey in the US is better for US foreign policy than deportation.
From a cultural war perspective I would love Trump to deport him and make the lefties who “support Ukraine” make arguments for why Ovechkin in ICE shackles is a bad thing. Meh “free speech”. I did the AI thing and it sounds like he doesn’t have US citizenship but if he did he would make a perfect test case for denaturalization. Declaring yourself to have loyalties to a foreign government at war with the US seems absolutely perfect for denaturalization.
Also, nice culture war on Trump is a Russian agent by deporting a Russian. And it fits with the meme “we need them for the sports ball team”.
He’s just a perfect test case for deportation since his politics are against the US left instead of their Hamas adjacent friends who a broad swath of the left supports.
No,
Unfortunately the "native" people who tirelessly attempt to destroy the country are far worse and far greater in number than a few foreign celebrities running their mouths. And taking a side in a proxy conflict that the US is mostly phoning it in on is the least of our worries.
Yes we need mass deportations and the destruction of foreign tribal blocs. Even more we need the death of all native traitors and enemies. But going after a foreigner who supports his own country, that we are not even technically at war with, who is here on temporary work visa and doesn't show any intention to immigrate, is really not it. We should celebrate foreigners loving their own country, especially if they love their own country enough to go back.
If you remove the foreigners who support foreign interests then they wouldn’t be campaigning for things some silly natives fall for.
Lefty(Bryan Caplan): We should have open borders and let in infinite migrants.
me: many of them support interests against American interests or loyalty to their home country. They will cause problems in domestic US politics
Lefty: our magic dirt will solve this problem. We can give them full political rights.
Bryan Caplan is not a lefty. He is for open borders. He would be happy to get rid of the welfare state as well.
Immigration and population replacement is what defines leftism in 2026. He is a blank slatist who believes in magic soil. So it makes him a leftist.
The fact that other leftists would happily line him up against the wall for his heretical beliefs? Well, that's leftism for you.
I do agree that unlike Bernie Sanders, who pivoted hard on immigration to stay relevant, Caplan is a principled leftist. Put him in the useful idiot category.
No, it's not. It's what defines the obsession of extremely online white supremacists.
Leftists - actual leftists - in American politics are people like Zohran Mamdani, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, or Bernie Sanders. While they're generally pro-immigration, that doesn't really set them apart from left-of-center people more broadly. The definitive aspects of leftist politics:
Federal jobs guarantee for people with Master's DegreesTo speak in broad terms, their political core is an ethnically diverse, college-educated cohort with a history of underemployment. This is why, for example, despite a fairly radical agenda overall, their most prominent political goals tend to revolve around shoring up the economic security and political influence of college grads.
Bryan Caplan is a libertarian. He's just... actually a libertarian, not "I hate taxes and love guns" libertarian or an embarrassed conservative.
You can believe all sorts of things and be accepted in leftist discourse and among leftists. There are only a couple topics which will get you ostracized and excluded from leftist discourse and politics.
You can believe in increasing business/capital-owning class influence, e.g., the behavior of the Democrat Party for decades across a large number of topics from financial regulatory schemes to the mega corps organizations they give government contracts to. You can be for bailouts benefitting the filthy rich in the early Obama years or the bailouts round 2 for the filthy rich during the Covid hysteria. Did they get kicked out of the club by Leftists, actual Leftists? No.
You can be against the "massive expansion of the welfare and administrative state." The lefty libertarians don't struggle to get along with "leftists." You can be in favor or against vast surveillance.
You can be frothing at the mouth neolibs who want to establish the liberal world order in Ukraine and put Russia in its place.
You can be an explicit antiwhite bigot and not only be welcomed but excel in leftist discourse and politics. You pick 3 people you think represent Leftists - actual Leftsits - except every one of them proves the rule. Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani are engaging in racial solidarity and racial resentment politics targeted at the native population. Bernie Sanders famously got the memo about the above and completely changed his opinion on a dime to the exact opposite on this topic.
What you cannot be is against replacement migration of whites in the countries they created. And so that's what leftism is.
Rightwingers can and do exist and in large numbers in every category you claim to represent as "leftist politics." Your attempted description of what "Leftists - actual leftists" believe isn't a description of leftists, it's just disjointed, flavored current-thingism. And it's disjointed because, again, these things switch on a dime depending on the current-thing because they're not what leftism actually is anymore.
The 'only racists notice or care what we're doing' tactic isn't going to work anymore.
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This isn't going to convince anyone in 2026.
"Why do you even care bro. Immigration is no big deal. You don't want to be (gasp) racist, do you?"
Everyone now realizes that mass immigration means permanent electoral dominance for the left, which is why every leftist wants it. Immigration in itself isn't the end goal, but it is such an important instrumental goal that it dominates everything else.
Put it another way, find me a leftist who is against immigration. You can't. Remember when Bernie Sanders got the memo and did a total 180?
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Sounds like the extremely online white supremacists were correct all along.
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