The effects of this insular isolationism can only be explained by simplicity that doesn't hold up in reality: things will be more prosperous for us if we keep what we have to ourselves. But in truth growth is growth. To build prosperity, we need more production, which means more people. Perhaps your share gets bigger, but the pot gets smaller.
You are thinking of a tide that lifts all boats.
The people supporting these policies don't want all boats to be lifted - they want prosperity for themselves and subjugation for anyone else.
The power imbalance is the point. Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
> it's the fundamental idea that people coming here is bad
Too many people coming here that don't integrate and don't assimilate is bad. A nation cannot thrive with too many conflicting demographics. Multiculturalism working to the degree people want it to these days is a total fantasy. People coming here and extracting value from the economy to send home is also a problem.
> We can't even allow things from other countries to come here.
We don't want to be reliant on other nations. So we incentivize internal production, and disincentivize importing. You can argue that the way that the administration went about it was ineffective at accomplishing that, and that'd be another conversation.
> To build prosperity, we need more production, which means more people.
So incentivize the native population to have more kids. Incentivize technological innovation that doesn't require mass importation of foreigners.
Absolute howler.
It's a (pretty white supremacist-coded) fantasy to say that immigrants don't assimilate. They typically assimilate better than native-born citizens! Meanwhile the most economically dominant states are extremely ethnically diverse, and have been for the past century.
> People coming here and extracting value from the economy to send home is also a problem.
Another example of what would be a knee-slapper if it were a joke, but it is actually white supremacist dog whistle. Immigrants are an absolute boon. For example, per the Congressional Budget Office[1]:
> CBO estimates that the immigration surge will add $1.2 trillion in federal revenues over the 2024–2034 period.
This nativist dreck that has infected the country through algorithmic social media is going to wreck the future of the country, and the sad part is that the declining fortunes it causes will still be wrongfully blamed on immigrants.
Trump got a higher percentage of the Black vote than any Republican since Gerald Ford. He nearly won an outright majority of Latino voters. How did a white supremacist candidate manage to do that? False consciousness? Marc Maron: "Progressives have really got to figure out how to deal with this buzzkill problem. You do realize we annoyed the average American into fascism."
I...wasn't replying to you?
Anyway I wasn't trying to change anyone's mind. I'm just pointing out facts, not trying to make a conversion from what's obviously someone's religion.
Although I know that being politically correct is not in vogue at the moment, I do care and empathize, and try to be accommodating with my language.
What is the preferred way to refer to people who support the transition of the USA into a fascist christian ethnostate?
Our most prosperous times came in the wake of great immigration waves. I think the expectation is that "assimilation" is:
- a one-way street and - immediate
Neither is true, of course. German assimilation from the mid 19th century took several generations. Same with Italian assimilation in the late 19th/early 20th century.
What about the American rich extracting wealth overseas? Vacations, real estate, yachts constructed in foreign countries, investing in companies in other countries, etc.
I think you're asserting more money leaves the US economy because an average person comes to the US (legally or illegally) and sends a portion of their paycheck back home, but I'd bet American born citizens spend/send far more money out of the country...
> Too many people coming here that don't integrate and don't assimilate is bad.
But ... why? This is stated as a matter of fact without any real qualification. Why is different "bad." We have far too many examples in our very own country of different - sometimes dissonant - cultures in the same space and still enjoying success as a society and a nation.
> A nation cannot thrive with too many conflicting demographics.
Again ... why not? NYC is our prime example of this working and the city succeeding despite some very, very different cultures side-by-side. There are also monoculture countries that have fallen far behind us to use as counterexamples.
> People coming here and extracting value from the economy to send home is also a problem.
This is my biggest issue. If you work here, you're producing something for this country. What you do with your money is frankly, your business. In either event, you're also spending money on housing, food, etc. You're both producing in this country and contributing to our economy. If you want to send the rest back to Mexico, why is that my business? Why does that hurt me?
The ability to reject someone before they come in, or force them to go away, is usually never an option you have control over - except for immigration policy in a democratic republic. If we weaken the ability to enforce immigration laws, then we're losing one of the strongest tools for maintaining a cohesive community.
If allowing diversity in your community is so great, then why is the blue city Austin, Texas seeing a simultaneous rise in homelessness and drop in property prices?
If allowing immigrants in without any control is so great, then why would rich metropolises like New York and Chicago react so badly to the busses of immigrants sent to them from Texas during the Biden regime?
If your political party refuses to acknowledge that there are immigrants who believe their first loyalty is Sharia Law, the Chinese Communist Party, or whatever else, then why would law-abiding U.S. citizens take your position seriously?
If your vision of the future presents a better world for non-citizens vs. the citizens who have a right to be here, then why would you expect fascism to loose the next election?
Additionally...
If lecturing the largest bloc of US citizens about why they're inherently privileged and guilty is so great, then why did the political party pushing this loose the presidency in 2016 and 2020?
What are the conflicting demographics ?
US is so big and diverse from its founding - it seems to have worked out pretty well
That is an idea. Although we murdered 9/10 of them and relegated the rest to stinking refugee camps (oh, sorry, "reservations") for eight or nine generations. And even today we have a huge problem with murder/kidnapping/disappearance of young women of those groups, which we're apparently unwilling to address.
Any other bright ideas?
"People coming here" is not inherently good or bad. Some people would be good for the country, and some people would be bad. I'm speaking of individuals here, not groups. The issue is that the electorate at large feels like it has been given a choice between two extremes: "Effectively allow ANYONE to come here and stay as long as they want" and "Don't let ANYONE come here". If you give a people a choice of two extremes, don't be surprised if they choose the extremism you don't like.
Reconceptualize MAGA as voting AGAINST what the Democrats are offering, instead of FOR what Trump is offering, and it might make more sense.
The issue is trust. Why should voters trust that Kamala Harris will implement immigration policies they want? Why should they expect her not to yield to the most extreme elements in her party, which believe that borders are a fiction and should not exist? Look at Barack Obama's "evolution" on gay marriage over the course of his political career. Now take an issue that is far more important than gay marriage - how is she going to stop unlimited unskilled immigration? How is she going to stop fraudulent claims of refugee status? How is the whole immigration problem itself going to be solved, if you posit that every one of the 10 million "unauthorized immigrants", and every one of the refugee claimants, needs multiple appearances in court to resolve their situation?
It seems to me that many US people want their cake and also eat it. Cheap workers are good, but also illegal immigration is bad. You kinda need to pick one.
Every job (as an employee) I've ever had has required me to submit IRS form W-9[0] on my first day of employment (or before). It's a standard part of the on-boarding process. To clarify, the W-9 form is to provide your "Taxpayer Identification number" (TIN) to those who will be handling payroll/tax withholding (that is, your employer).
If you cannot provide a TIN, you are not allowed to begin working. If you don't have a TIN, presumably you don't have the right to work. Or is there something about the UK's processes I'm missing?
People apparently feel that the Dems are pro 'letting everyone in' -- an understanding created not just by what the Dems say and do on the topic (and others) but what their opponents say too.
If they don't want people to think they aren't pro-immigration then the Dems have dropped the ball on their messaging and actions.
For a similar and reasonably concrete example, the 'Harris is for they/them' ads and their impact is a worthy case study.
This is expected behavior, but not to be taken seriously as a moral argument. Preserving liberty and rule of law vs preserving money, so hard to choose...
It’s a little more complicated than what you wrote, but basically: yes.
[edit] Example study construction: pick some issue where there’s been a heavy propaganda push against it from one party, but a law they opposed passed anyway. Ideally, something like a tax increase, that can directly affect voters in a way they might reasonably be expected to understand and know about. Observe that the (say) tax hike affects not more than 2% of the population you’re studying. Survey. Observe that 35% or 40% of people say the new tax law increased their taxes, and very nearly all of them favor the party that opposed the hike and was claiming or implying it would affect more people than it did.
Repeat similar studies over a period of decades, always with familiar outcomes. Draw conclusions.
Separately, you can probe basic understanding of how our government & various policies or laws work. You’ll find half of everyone not knowing how marginal income tax rates work, that almost all the people who think our foreign aid spending is way too high believe it’s 10x, 20x, 30x higher than it actually is, et c. Generally speaking, voters hardly know how anything works, so of course they buy lies about it. That’s not me being shitty, it’s what the evidence overwhelmingly says is true. And this is far from an exhaustive treatment of alarming traits & behaviors of the electorate.
All most all the replies to your comment have nothing to do with the substance of what you said. The reality is that the us system is predominantly run by bureaucrats which make sweeping changes hard. This is a feature of the system.
This means that whatever party is in charge will have a harder time enacting the crazy.
I never understood the “my side”/“us vs them” from people. There is only one side and we are all on it.
Projected by whom, by what means, and to what end?
Consider that both sides may have legitimate reasons to be concerned with this term that didn't apply to Trump's first term, and that what you see isn't simply some form of mass-manipulation or "projection onto the voter base."
The 2nd term is making fundamental changes to our economy that carry a promise of bearing fruit. Not only are those promises generally contested by economic experts, the short-term results have been unsurprisingly poor.
1. If a democrat is elected, they will take all their guns (their campaign rhetoric keeps saying this will happen, but it continues being no part of democratic presidential campaign messaging, and hasn’t happened the times they warned it definitely would—this one’s fake)
2. Election security. But republicans keep getting into positions to investigate this and either not doing it (because they know it’s BS) or doing it and finding only a handful of mostly-accidental cases that don’t favor either party. Also fake.
3. Leftward shift around acceptance of non-standard sexual and social norms. This one’s real. Whether it’s a problem or just… fine and not worth worrying about? That’s another matter.
4. A bunch of totally wacky shit like litter boxes in classrooms. Fake.
5. Healthcare prices. Real! Democrats also worry about this.
6. Socialism. LOL we’re not remotely near it, very nearly nobody elected in the Democratic Party is left of center-right in most of the rest of our peer states, on economic issues and social safety nets and such. Fake issue.
7. Illegal immigrants increasing the crime rate (fake) and taking our jobs or driving down wages (true, with an asterisk that the effects are complicated, but sure, true) and bringing in drugs (you want citizen drug mules, they cross the border easier, or to just use shipping containers or cargo trucks entering the ordinary way with some greased palms as you can do crazy volume that way, this is fake)
8. Crime being out of control. Broadly, fake. (“But police stats could be…” yeah we have victimization surveys too, people study this and already thought of your objection. Again, fake)
9. Colleges being too liberal. Look at all that “fake” stuff above. Yeah gee I wonder why, dude. Real, but wholly self-inflicted.
10. Rampant fraud in social programs, by the people receiving the aid. This is extremely well-studied. Fake.
11. The budget deficit. Except Republicans are even worse for the budget than democrats, over the last 40 years. By, like, quite a bit. Mostly because they think tax cuts magically pay for themselves, plus Bush’s wars. They mocked the shit out of Gore for talking sense on this topic, and elected cut-taxes-and-spend Dubya. So. Real issue but they are extremely confused about who to vote for to improve it.
There are more but you get the idea. Yes, Fox News and Mark Levin and all them have convinced republicans the world is going to end if democrats win elections. But it’s largely based on completely made-up shit.
Left as an exercise for the reader to make a list for Democrats’ side. Nb how much of its worry about Republicans causing harm by trying to address the fake issues above. Probably most of it. And that’s a real thing that happens, to be worried about.
The key missing piece here is the guns will be taken from law abiding citizens while criminals will be undeterred. Add to this a concern over team blue's rhetoric about replacing police with social workers and mental health advocates.
It was a part of a few Democrat presidential campaigns, like Beto O'Rourke.
> 2. Election security. But republicans keep getting into positions to investigate this and either not doing it (because they know it’s BS) or doing it and finding only a handful of mostly-accidental cases that don’t favor either party. Also fake.
Due to a consent decree from the 80s, Republicans weren't allowed to do anything in this area until a judge finally refused to renew it in the late 2010s.
what'd we bounce into? what did we bounce back from? what effects are you talking about specifically.
I work in aerospace and the sentiment was exactly opposite. People cheered both Trump elections and were dead terrified of a blue win ruining contracts and business.
I don't ask because I am overtly political, I ask because I think it's fascinating that both sides seem to think we're a stone's throw from the apocalypse.. which very much seems to be projected onto the voter base on purpose..