The issue is the narrative that immigration is fine and desirable as if that was an universal truth and if immigration should therefore be encouraged as a matter of course. I think this is a big mistake of some of "the left" to go down that route because it is not fact and people are increasingly pushing back against that narrative (judging by election results throughout Europe and US)

The topic does not have to be partisan as it touches on core aspects of society and national culture, which ought to be discussed and debatable in a non-partisan way.

My theory is that this an evolution over time of anti-racism movements that started (in Europe) mostly after WWII: immigration -> anti-racism -> accept diversity -> diversity is good -> promote diversity -> immigration is good -> promote immigration.

I was really disappointed of the article. This is obviously mental gymnastics to make immigration look better.

They should have done a report about the living situations in Syria (or insert bad country of your choice) and that would have created more acceptance for the people from there moving here.

> You want people to be fine with immigration? Tell them why it is desirable for them personally

This is also problematic. Quite often surveys get results that on average people feel their life is improving and the average is sinking in an alarming way. I doubt Musk feels his income is threatened by an insufficiently Aryan immigrant in Germany.

(If I have to go "give onto him' on X to use facts like Musk is associated with German neo Nazis while he can make up whatever false narrative to power he likes then it seems to me like we have found his real goal. Look up his friend's meeting in Austria.)

>To the people this is trying to convince, this will - rightfully - look like smartassery and dissembling.

If you assume they're trying to convince adults, sure. But instead, I think they're trying to convince low-level policy-makers. Educational professionals, mid-level bureaucrats, etc. And convincing those people are easy, they're already sold on this. Why do they want to convince them? Because those are the people who can indoctrinate. Not just school teachers... the bureaucracy is astounding in how well it works towards this end. Someone will need to navigate red tape, and they will be given very obvious hints that to fail to pay lip service to this narrative risks that which they want most from the bureaucracy.

From there, then people who hold contradictory opinions will start shutting up in all government offices, lest HR do its thing. And the final part is where the private sector starts imitating government because it knows which way the wind blows.

>You want people to be fine with immigration? Tell them why it is desirable for them personally instead of

But how can you do that when personally, for them as individuals (or probably even collectively), immigration isn't good for them? Sometimes the only way to win is to cheat, and I don't know if winners know that, but the cheaters certainly do.

>This article directly reinforces about five different right-wing narratives.

I didn't see that. Which ones?

Here's a selection:

- "The left" will try to deceive and deny reality even in the face of hard numbers. Obviously way more people migrate nowadays than historically. Most of the historic migration was also between geographically close, similar cultures.

- "The left" is elitist, paternalizing, and kind of cringe. Academic sounding writing and quoting philosophers that have been dead for over 2000 years will not exactly endear you.

- "The left" is out of touch and will talk about anything rather than address the problems people actually face. People struggle to afford rent, struggle to maintain their standard of living, and are worried about their income and crime. This article is comically far removed from addressing that.

> Obviously way more people migrate nowadays than historically.

The peak for population movement globally was probably after WW II. Partition of India alone is like 20 million people migrating in 1947. Europe was almost as bad with tens of millions of people suddenly on the wrong side of redrawn borders.

Similarly here in Canada our immigration levels per capita which are very high - maybe too high - are still at a rate similar to that of most of the late 19th century.

So I am not actually sure that assertion is true.

> Similarly here in Canada our immigration levels per capita which are very high - maybe too high - are still at a rate similar to that of most of the late 19th century

Per capita is often a really dishonest framing

Especially compared to dates 100+ years ago, when we probably didn't have super accurate census numbers. Especially since Canadian census at the time probably didn't even really include Native Americans.

It's also very different to be welcoming large amounts of immigrants of very similar cultures, versus large amounts of immigrants with very different cultures

In my lifetime Canada is going to see enough of a demographic shift that people sharing the culture I grew up with are going to be the minority. I've already seen that many neighborhoods in Calgary do not really participate in Halloween anymore, for instance. Every parent in my neighborhood says they take their kids elsewhere for Halloween to go door to door because our neighborhood doesn't have many houses that participate

Is that a big problem? No probably not, but it kinda sucks to see

People don't freak out about the numbers of immigration, they freak out about what kind of immigration is happening. Me moving on the other side of the continent and a different branch of PIE language family is non-event. The person from the country next after mine and the one after are rising all the eyebrows.

On the time scales the article uses (going back all the way to the neolithic age), all of the examples you used are essentially the present.

Also the first thing that comes to mind for many people when they think "migrant" will partly be those post-WW2 migrants you are speaking of (even if now in second or third generation). The migration events you mention are very fresh, especially in people's minds.

Until very recently, the first thing that came to any German's mind when migration was mentioned would have likely been a Turk (migrating here after WW2). Only recently Syrians and Ukrainians started warring for that headspace.

Then you have both the left and right being in love with cheap labor. Elon Musk might have been making a fool out of himself over his desire to globalize the labor market even further to his own benefit but there's no shortage of people across the political spectrum that love having cheap lawncare, food service, and agricultural workers. It's an addiction that western society seems completely unable to even recognize as a problem, much less able to kick the addiction.

> because it goes directly against most people's first-hand observed reality

Most places in the US are relatively untouched by immigration, or put another way, southern border issues are irrelevant to Americans unless they live in a State on the US/Mexico border. Immigration is a classic right wing demagogue issue. Arguing in favor of it isn't going against people's "observed reality", it's contradicting what they heard on talk radio and Fox News.

> You want people to be fine with immigration? Tell them why it is desirable for them personally

If you get Social Security it will likely be due to millions of immigrants paying into it while not eligible for it. You probably eat stuff grown on a farm, you probably use stuff made in a factory, all heavily immigrant labor because Americans do not want to do it no matter the compensation.