Are Trump-supporting republicans still insisting they're not anti-immigrant?

Apollo_T said:



PVW- there IS, in fact, a difference between being against ILLEGAL immigration and legal immigration.  It’s like the difference between ILLEGAL drug sales and a local pharmacy.  Which “card” are you going to play...pharmacies are good so let’s look the other way about drug wars?  BTW, I’m also against the illegal sale of drugs.  Am I a ‘nativist’?  Or are you going to call me another name just because I’m opposed to illegal activities?

The solution to the problem of illegal drugs is to legalize them subject to certain minimal restrictions. The solution to the problem of illegal immigration is an increase in legal immigration subject to certain restrictions.

Do I think it's possible?  Sure.  But I also know that the progressives have a tendency to write off any opposition to their preferred policies as racist.   It's the tried and true end road to their identity politics.  This is done even when there are well reasoned arguments against their policies.  

And I also know that many of the progressives that welcome immigration don't live in communities that may feel the brunt of the issues that may come with immigration.  So, they can virtue signal confident in the fact that it won't affect their lives very much.  

This is the sort of tribalism that is the problem in today's political sphere.  There is no effort to understand. There is only the effort to view our team as morally superior and to paint the other side as one that shouldn't even be considered.  And make no mistake: painting people as racist, etc is an effort to do exactly that. 

drummerboy said:

do you think it's at all possible that drawing rules around immigration policy can be racist?


Knowing what we know about the Republican party in general (it's historical dependence on racism) and it's more extreme wing, (who tried to explain away the s!ithole comment, e.g.) don't you think it's reasonable to consider the fact that their immigration views are driven by racism?

terp said:

What I'm trying to say is that you would also like to limit immigration.  You just disagree with where other people draw the line. You then go on to draw conclusions about those who would draw that line in a different place.  I'm not sure what kind of canvassing you've done on this, but I'm willing to bet its pretty close to zero. 

...

terp said:

Do I think it's possible?  Sure.  But I also know that the progressives have a tendency to write off any opposition to their preferred policies as racist.   It's the tried and true end road to their identity politics.  This is done even when there are well reasoned arguments against their policies.  

And I also know that many of the progressives that welcome immigration don't live in communities that may feel the brunt of the issues that may come with immigration.  So, they can virtue signal confident in the fact that it won't affect their lives very much.  

This is the sort of tribalism that is the problem in today's political sphere.  There is no effort to understand. There is only the effort to view our team as morally superior and to paint the other side as one that shouldn't even be considered.  And make no mistake: painting people as racist, etc is an effort to do exactly that. 

There's a bit of "moral superiority" in that comment, imho, with your diagnoses that "progressives have a tendency, etc." and "many of the progressives, etc." generalities.

yeah, or maybe progressives see racism's effects more clearly than you do?

It couldn't be that.

Regardless, you have not made the case that the current proposals on the table are not racist. You've simply complained about people using the term more often than your sensibilities can stand.

terp said:

Do I think it's possible?  Sure.  But I also know that the progressives have a tendency to write off any opposition to their preferred policies as racist.   It's the tried and true end road to their identity politics.  This is done even when there are well reasoned arguments against their policies.  

And I also know that many of the progressives that welcome immigration don't live in communities that may feel the brunt of the issues that may come with immigration.  So, they can virtue signal confident in the fact that it won't affect their lives very much.  

This is the sort of tribalism that is the problem in today's political sphere.  There is no effort to understand. There is only the effort to view our team as morally superior and to paint the other side as one that shouldn't even be considered.  And make no mistake: painting people as racist, etc is an effort to do exactly that. 

drummerboy said:

do you think it's at all possible that drawing rules around immigration policy can be racist?


Knowing what we know about the Republican party in general (it's historical dependence on racism) and it's more extreme wing, (who tried to explain away the s!ithole comment, e.g.) don't you think it's reasonable to consider the fact that their immigration views are driven by racism?

terp said:

What I'm trying to say is that you would also like to limit immigration.  You just disagree with where other people draw the line. You then go on to draw conclusions about those who would draw that line in a different place.  I'm not sure what kind of canvassing you've done on this, but I'm willing to bet its pretty close to zero. 

...

I like the circling of the wagons.  This is what I'm talking about. You are as tribal as they are.  You will defend your tribe no matter how untenable your position is.   

It's kind of silly that you make an accusation about a swath of people being racist, but the burden of proof is on them(or I suppose for some reason me) to prove they're not racist.  Calling people racist is a conversation ender, not a conversation starter. 

No, this is a conversation ender: “Some of the ***** I have to respond to around here is incredibly stupid. What schools did some here attend? Did they teach reading comprehension?”

a lot of the people shaping the discussion on immigration are overt white supremacists. So it's not like anyone has to do much interpretation to conclude that many of their policy ideas are being driven by bigotry.

ml1 said:

a lot of the people shaping the discussion on immigration are overt white supremacists. So it's not like anyone has to do much interpretation to conclude that many of their policy ideas are being driven by bigotry.

Along those lines - if we can all agree that Geert Wilders is a bigot, we can look at which American policy makers refer to him with approval.

[Edited to add] On the other hand, if people can't even agree that Geert Wilders is a bigot, there's no sense continuing the conversation.

That's an excellent example of how a jackass ends a conversation. Thanks!

DaveSchmidt said:

No, this is a conversation ender: “Some of the ***** I have to respond to around here is incredibly stupid. What schools did some here attend? Did they teach reading comprehension?”

Who exactly?  The OP muses that it's "Republicans".

ml1 said:

a lot of the people shaping the discussion on immigration are overt white supremacists. So it's not like anyone has to do much interpretation to conclude that many of their policy ideas are being driven by bigotry.

For one, Stephen Miller appears to have Trump's ear on immigration. He has a history of bigotry toward Hispanic Americans going back to when he was in high school. Probably not a coincidence that he wants to reduce even legal immigration.  

So a HS video that nobody really has other than snippets(that I've seen) is enough to label Stephen Miller an therefore"Republicans" racist and "white supremacists"?  

Is that it? 

ml1 said:

For one, Stephen Miller appears to have Trump's ear on immigration. He has a history of bigotry toward Hispanic Americans going back to when he was in high school. Probably not a coincidence that he wants to reduce even legal immigration.  

I liked the time he tried to redefine the meaning of the Statue of Liberty.

That was choice.

terp said:

So a HS video that nobody really has other than snippets(that I've seen) is enough to label Stephen Miller an therefore"Republicans" racist and "white supremacists"?  

Is that it? 

ml1 said:

For one, Stephen Miller appears to have Trump's ear on immigration. He has a history of bigotry toward Hispanic Americans going back to when he was in high school. Probably not a coincidence that he wants to reduce even legal immigration.  

You’re welcome, terp. You know what a stickler I am for accurate quotations.

terp said:

What I'm trying to say is that you would also like to limit immigration.  You just disagree with where other people draw the line. You then go on to draw conclusions about those who would draw that line in a different place.  I'm not sure what kind of canvassing you've done on this, but I'm willing to bet its pretty close to zero. 

I don't know if this is just some hostile variation of virtue signalling.  I don't get what good is going to come from painting a large group of people with a broad brush.   

Perhaps you have little regard for anyone who disagrees with you, or you just lack the imagination or the inclination to understand reasons for why others may disagree.  So, you make a sweeping generalization asserting that a bunch of other people are making a sweeping generalization.  Of course, your sweeping generalization is erudite, while theirs is racist. 

It's a fair point on the danger of making sweeping generalizations. I'll amend the thread title to "Republicans who support Trump" to be more specific. 

As far as my characterization of Trump and his supporter's position as nativist and racist, I'd argue that it's accurate, not sweeping. You do, correctly, note that I reject where they draw the line on immigration restriction, but don't reject there being a line in the first place. I'd argue that how you draw the line is pretty important and not at all incidental.

Trump and his fellow restrictionist draw those lines on the basis of identity. They have done so with the travel ban -- based on religious and national identities -- and they are doing so with their proposal to curtail family-based immigration and immigration visas in general. And of course, we have Trump's own words -- he began his campaign denouncing Mexican immigrants, attacked a judge for being of Mexican origin, complained about immigrants from s*hole countries, etc.

I have no qualms calling such expressions of animus racism. 

It's true that I"m not a libertarian, and so accept the existence of a state, with borders, and accept a state's interests in effecting some control over that border. So yes, I do believe in drawing a line. But I absolutely reject drawing it to exclude people based on identity.

As for "what good is going to come from painting a large group of people with a broad brush" -- some posts I do hope to accomplish some good, as in provoking thought or discussion. This was not one of those posts. I have family, friends, and colleagues who come from "s*hole" countries. I get tired of conservatives on this board crying that they are not anti-immigrant, just anti illegal-immigrant, when their bad faith is plain for all to see. The proposal by the man they voted for to cut legal immigration puts lie to this claim that they are not anti-immigrant.  They're telling me, and people I love and care for, that we don't belong in this country -- and you're worried I'm going to hurt their feeling by calling out their bigotry. Excuse me if I'm unmoved.

terp said:

Cool.  So, anyone who'd like to come should be welcome.  Is that right?

sac said:

I'm a "getting old" white person and I think we should have much less restrictive immigration policies.  Pretty much all of us have ancestors who came here in ways that would now be considered illegal.  Why should we be privileged but the current wave of people wanting to come here not?

For the most part, yes. If they are law-abiding people (as individuals, NOT as profiled by race, religion, origin, etc), then by what moral principle should they not be just as welcome as your ancestors and mine? (I’m not talking about current immigration law, which is obviously more restrictive and now ‘they’ want to make it MORE restrictive by discriminating in ways that are incompatible with my understanding of American values.)

This discussion is an example of the moving of the "Overton Window".

The discussion starts with the issue of illegal immigration.  Then topic slowly creeps over to cover the limiting of some types of legal immigration.  We're going from "How do we deal with something unacceptable (illegal immigration)" to "How to we declare something that's currently acceptable (legal immigration) to now be unacceptable (as in, limit it)".

there do seem to be two tracks in this conversation, one is about the curtailment of legal immigration, and another about illegal immigration. And in the case of the curtailment of legal immigration, it's more specifically about reducing what has typically been called "family reunification", but is now disparaged as "chain migration."

I'm not one to try to read minds and call people out for racism indiscriminately.  But in this case, I can't really see any other motivation for someone trying to end this LEGAL form of immigration. It's not as though communities are being overrun and services being stressed by this form of immigration.  It's people who are already here and have become citizens sponsoring a sibling or parent to come over and become a legal resident.  This is a program which does bring in more people from Latin America, Asia, and Africa.  What can it be about people from those countries emigrating to the U.S. that bothers white people so much?  People who come over with the promise of family to support them, and jobs.  When people like Steve King are on the record as being worried about preserving our "civilization," it's hard not to believe that the resistance to these immigrant is the color of their skin, their language, or their religion.

at a time when the country's economic growth isn't projected to be terribly robust over the foreseeable future, largely because the population is aging, and population growth has slowed, why would we not want to preserve family reunification immigration? 

here's an ad for a guy running for guv of Florida.

Racist/not racist?

The case the ad talks about resulted in a Not Guilty verdict. Since this guy is running in Florida I wonder if he has a position position on the killing of Treyvon Martin.

the case he's referencing involved an immigrant who accidentally shot a woman with a gun that he found.  Maybe he should be running on a platform of making gun owners more responsible about how they secure their firearms.  

PVW, I don’t know what tribe you’re in, but it sounds like a strong one.

drummerboy said:

here's an ad for a guy running for guv of Florida.

Racist/not racist?

No surprise. Standard Republican filth.

Their usual of be afraid, be very afraid. Be afraid of immigrants, Muslims, LBGT, people of color, etc. Whatever can be made to work. Parasites preying on the insecure and the fearful.

Good Post.  In an ideal(free) world there would be open/no borders.  However, if we are going to set up complex systems to govern our society we have to ensure that our systems don't get overburdened.

I would agree that a merit system would be better.  There are skills that would improve our society's well being.  I like that approach better than country quotas.  

I do think the primary motivation for the travel ban is fear. That being said, I do not deny that there is an element of racism present.  

PVW said:

terp said: So, you are for having immigration restrictions, but you are upset because a different level of restrictions is being proposed.  Are you just a bit less "nativist"?  

Part of the issue is I don't actually know what you mean by "open borders." My own position is that immigration should be based on behavior, not on where you are from. Someone who has a history of violence and is likely to pose a danger to others should be excluded from entry, for instance. I note this as a general principle -- certainly deciding who is "likely to pose a danger" can be less than clear cut, but I hope the overall thrust of my position is clear. So in practice, I'm in favor of far more open immigration than we currently have. I wouldn't define it as "open borders," but don't know whether you would define it as such. The current administration, otoh, has been quite explicit in wanting to drastically reduce all immigration, and in their preference for people of a certain ethno-geographical profile (eg "Norway") over others (as the POTUS so delicately termed them, s*hole countries). So I suppose we can debate whether or not I'm in favor of "open borders," but there's not much debating the racial, nativist animus driving Republican immigration policies.

It's embarrassing. 

drummerboy said:

here's an ad for a guy running for guv of Florida.

Racist/not racist?

Embarrassing? Why? Poor production values?

terp said:

It's embarrassing. 

drummerboy said:

here's an ad for a guy running for guv of Florida.

Racist/not racist?

It's just the typical scare mongering. 

ok.

scare mongering based on what?

c'mon, you can do it.

terp said:

It's just the typical scare mongering. 

terp said:


 
I would agree that a merit system would be better.  There are skills that would improve our society's well being.  I like that approach better than country quotas.  

I hope those skills include operating dry cleaners and convenience stores because I do not know how we would get along without them.

and I'd be very interested to hear from terp what those skills are and who decides on them.

Doesn't sound very libertarian to me, but we'll see...

Also, terp, do you think our current, non merit-based system has somehow failed us?

LOST said:

terp said:


 
I would agree that a merit system would be better.  There are skills that would improve our society's well being.  I like that approach better than country quotas.  

I hope those skills include operating dry cleaners and convenience stores because I do not know how we would get along without them.