Always forgotten in all discussions is that the President is the Executive Branch. Congress writes the laws, and they originate in the House. There was a law I referenced in one of the articles I linked to. Originated and backed by Rs, and torpedoed by Rubio. Heaven forbid they do anything that involves working with Ds!
A smart party spokes person would explain to the American people that immigrants do nothing but contribute to society, are statistically significant in far less likelihood of committing crimes and contribute 12-20 state and federal treasury then they will ever receive.
Better yet, explain why you would change the policies so that hard-working asylum receivers become citizens in five years at the most. Not 17 to 20.
The statement by Jim Swift of "We are a uniquely welcoming country.." is grossly false and deceitful as to the reality of how European Settlers had actually rejected any welcome from Native American Nations, and later did welcome millions of western European only migrants while clashing violently with Mexicans who settled the south west long before.
The families of Chinese rail workers were prevented from emigrating and the wholesale push-back against most all brown skinned peoples from US South Pacific Islands and the Caribbean is duly records in Congressional journals.
The denial of these harsh facts therefore destroy the "uniqueness" of a welcoming land that has never lived up to the mantra perpetrated internationally of a nation whose credo is "Liberty, Freedom and Justice for All", rather than realistically just for a few, or the statement of Statue of Liberty outreach.
I clicked “like” but this article is pretty terrible and unfortunately typical of the Bulwark (and why I probably won’t resubscribe). First, Biden’s immigration policies are, except for caged children, more restrictive than Trump’s. He’s had actual buy-in from Mexico, not the lip service paid by Trump. And the wall is mostly useless except for rhetoric. But the media - not only Fox but everyone - won’t given Biden “credit”. Because it’s not theater and Biden doesn’t beat his chest every day.
And then the Bulwark referenced polls and the anti-Trump coalition, as usual lately, without a SINGLE suggestion on how to reverse it, assuming it’s real and nearly a year out it means something. And if that’s the coverage I’m getting from the Bulwark staff, I don’t actually need to subscribe.
"......deportations and camps for immigrants and asylum seekers......unilaterally detain and deport people who are not U.S. citizens and cutting off funding for transportation and shelter for people who lack legal status in the country."
I've got a question for those who are in favor of the above steps: Who the heck do you think are going to work in the fields, can your vegetables, package your meats, and clean your hotel rooms, jobs you wouldn't be caught doing, ever?
Good point! Yet we can't even get the federal minimum wage past $7.25. Many folks fainted when fast food workers asked for a living wage.
So what are chances of farm jobs or any other job that goes to immigrates, especially those with no papers, paying a wage that an non-immigrant Native born "American" would find enough to do what is truly back breaking working???
If Americans only want to do jobs that pay a living wage then that should be the rallying cry. Not complaining about those who, for whatever reason, have to settle for less. I am sure the immigrant would like more money as well.
Its not by mistake that domestic workers, farm workers, certain resturant workers or others under 50 employees arent covered be the minimum wage act or other similar acts. Those jobs, were in part, were initially done by Black people and the carve out was to keep Black people has staying as close to slave labor as one can get. Black people have moved on, so it's on to the next group.
Lastly, Farmers have tried to unionize and demand better conditions. are any of the "immigrants go home" folks backing that movement so they can replace the immigrants?
Imagine if a (hypothetical), Mexican terrorist organization, 3-million strong, invaded San Antonio TX and tortured, burned, beheaded, raped, and slaughtered over 45,000 innocent American citizens while streaming and posting their most horrific and sadistic atrocities on the internet. And imagine if their stated goal was to exterminate every living American. Would our response be measured and tempered? Would concern about the Mexican hospitals and churches housing those terrorists, and their missiles, weapons, and munitions stop us from acting? Would we fail to retaliate because the terrorists used their own populace as human shields? It would be a righteous, 9/11 response times 1,000 - without shame or guilt. And imagine if a segment of our population decried our response and supported the (hypothetical) Mexican terrorists. Not a perfect analogy, but hopefully close enough to make one sympathize with victims instead of the aggressors.
If you do election reform, or raise the number of legal immigrants, then you can’t use it as a political football anymore. But my guess is it wouldn’t phase them anyway. TFG probably thought getting Roe v Wade settled for them after 50 years of trying would solve everything and make them happy and grateful. They do not seem happy or grateful.
"The Trump administration made curbing illegal immigration the centerpiece of its policy agenda. Trump not only failed to reduce the number of illegal immigrants in the country, but, according to Census Bureau data, presided over the first increase in the population of illegal immigrants in more than a decade."
So anti-immigration sentiment goes down because the blowhard speaks while journalist fail to report the facts of what is actually happening. But then, our current media uses polls as news.
Regardless of the politics, we need, and have needed for decades, comprehensive immigration reform. Why President Biden doesn’t propose a package is beyond me. It’s reckless both substantively and politically.
Why are right wingers gaining power and influence in Europe? And why is the US heading in the same direction? It’s simple, immigration. Right or wrong, local populations have had enough, and elected officials and immigration advocates underestimate the grassroots anger at their own peril.
How do you know he hasn't? Problem is, the House is R, and it's their job (which they're not doing) to discuss immigration and every other law. And as someone mentioned below, there have been attempts by Obama and other Ds to do something, and every single time, it's been torpedoed by Rs. https://www.thirdway.org/memo/how-republicans-abdicated-on-immigration-reform. Their solution is more wall, presumably paid by Mexico.
The Republicans have absolutely no interest in solving the immigration problem. They only want to use it as a wedge issue against the Democrats. Which is why their only solution is a wall.
But I do think the Democrats are making a big mistake by not addressing the problem directly and putting forth a program of how to deal with it.
And also Biden is also following the law and extending that wall (still not paid for by Mexico) to the disappointment of some if his base. Proof that Biden can please "the right" even by continuing what they started
Scary stories are not going to help. We need expert community organization in all geographic locations in America. Local volunteers should be able to recite "Five Ways Joe Biden Has Helped Our Economy" or "How Democrats Insure Good Health Care For You." We need creative folks who can spread TRUTH and demonstrate kindness and cooperation! Lets not wait for somebody else to begin!
I agree with everything you write about our panic-moment, Charlie, but I need more than alarm and panic right now. To be honest, you do too.
Liberals need stoic, stalwart determination now, not constant reminders of how doomed we are.
Do you think Trump and his allies, even in their darkest moments and after the grimmest polls, acted publicly as Stoddard, Kristol, Chait, and Carville have of late? Have you seen them evince public lack of faith in their own ultimate victory for one second?
In a way, Trump Republicans demonstrate the advantages of being a party disproportionately populated by jocks and soldiers, salesmen and business hacks, macho men and evangelists. Those people, warts and all, are used to overcoming adversity, used to having to psych themselves up, used to risk, used to *competition*.
Liberals, pundits, politicos, and most nerds are not, and it shows.
My son is one month old now, and he is learning all the different things he can express unhappiness, sorrow, panic, or irritation about--mostly by screaming about them. He is a little unclear on how to actually solve those problems, or even attempt to solve them.
He is a baby. He has an excuse on that. We are grown men and women. We do not.
It's time we changed that, all of us. Nichols, Frum, and especially Rick Wilson are showing us the attitude to have.
I hope everyone here at the Bulwark and elsewhere starts now. Not just lamenting the state of things, but making realistic suggestions on *what to do to change it*.
P.S.: Note to Kristol and Stoddard: Replacing the president of the United States with someone you personally like is not a realistic suggestion. This is a constrained problem. Work it accordingly.
Kristol and Stoddard are working for a Haley nomination over trump. They don't really like her but will take her over any Democrat, even one that they have said is successful (but, you know, he's old).
Mreh. Stoddard has gone on at some length about how much she likes Josh Shapiro/Andy Beshear/Gretchen Whitmer/Raphael Warnock, and how "young and dynamic" they are and how thoroughly they "would" beat Trump, as has Kristol. In quite the panicked, strident, over-certain fashion.
Truth is, I think they are campaign junkies and bored AF, and conflating that with honest concern for the Republic. Too many people around like that nowadays. :/
In text, at least. One of those weird dichotomies.
When he burned his bridges with Trump Republicans after the crook got elected, "strident" more or less covered it. He was willing to lose his magazine and the vast majority of his friends, colleagues, and business partners to make sure he was on record decrying Trump as the American Pinochet. (Of course, I'm all for "strident" in that context.)
In person and on video, yeah, he seems more like a jolly, smiling, gladhanding old Harvard donor. Deceptive. The man has one of the biggest stubborn streaks in Washington and an iron, unbreakable will when he wants to. That has both pros and cons.
I think immigration is what got Trump elected in the "blue wall" states (at least as an actual policy issue - obviously for many it was combined with good old fashioned racism, xenophobia, Islamaphobia etc.); Anglos in those places had started to freak out about hearing Spanish in their stores and seeing women in hijab, given that many of those places had been some of the later parts of the country to have experienced foreign immigration at scale post-1965.
We can tut-tut such voters all we want, but there's a big underlying problem. Everyone except the tiniest minority of extreme leftists / anarchists (at least I hope it's a really tiny minority) acknowledges that control of our national borders and the movement of people across them is a basic function of the federal government. The current flows of people have clearly overwhelmed and/or gamed the existing system, at least at times, so one can get the impression (even without MAGA or general Republican braying) that the feds don't have as full control of things as they should. Thus, fixes are needed. Which is a perfectly reasonable position, even for those who want pretty generous amounts of immigration / worker permits (such as myself) and understand that some kind of asylum system should probably exist (if altered from what we have today).
So, shouldn't Biden and Democrats have a well-articulated and promoted position on what fixes they want, and what our immigration and foreign worker system should look like. Given that it's a basic function of the federal government (again, essentially everyone agrees that it is), is that too much to ask? Instead, the party has essentially abdicated the public discussion sphere to the (often racist and xenophobic, usually incoherent, always hyperbolic) MAGAs and Republicans (little difference between the two anymore). Saying that articulating a policy simply opens them up for criticism that complicates their electoral strategy and they're better off just sniping at Republican rhetorical (and in the case of Trump, actual) excesses on the topic strikes me as irresponsible and feckless, and just plain bad governance. They have a responsibility to communicate to the citizenry what they want to achieve regarding something that is, again, a basic function of the federal government. Other than an extremely brief moment at the very beginning of the Biden administration, they've not been doing that, which certainly allows MAGA to own the space.
Oh, and in articulating their policy position, they would do well to make sure that any (again hopefully tiny) faction in their ranks that feels that Latin American residents are "owed" residency / citizenship because of U.S. actions in the 1960s-1980s (I went to college in the 1980s, I remember all the protests) are disavowed - it's just not a legitimately credible policy position.
You can't beat something with nothing. I'm not as optimistic as you are that the Open Borders minority on the Left is "tiny", but I agree that it almost certainly is a minority, one that the Administration needs to confront and stop trying to placate. At this point, any comprehensive Biden Administration policy statement short of actual Open Borders would be an improvement on the silence we have now.
The Mayor of Chicago is putting up tent cities to house migrants this week, just in time for Winter. If that isn't a wakeup call to Democrats that this is a real crisis that needs to be addressed, then next year it's going to be Mourning in America, with a second Trump term on the way.
Always forgotten in all discussions is that the President is the Executive Branch. Congress writes the laws, and they originate in the House. There was a law I referenced in one of the articles I linked to. Originated and backed by Rs, and torpedoed by Rubio. Heaven forbid they do anything that involves working with Ds!
A smart party spokes person would explain to the American people that immigrants do nothing but contribute to society, are statistically significant in far less likelihood of committing crimes and contribute 12-20 state and federal treasury then they will ever receive.
Better yet, explain why you would change the policies so that hard-working asylum receivers become citizens in five years at the most. Not 17 to 20.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/11/26/biden-border-plan-caps-migrants-asylum-seekers/71659363007/
I feel like the polarization of our politics has moved from Democrat versus Republican to Liberalism versus fascism.
The statement by Jim Swift of "We are a uniquely welcoming country.." is grossly false and deceitful as to the reality of how European Settlers had actually rejected any welcome from Native American Nations, and later did welcome millions of western European only migrants while clashing violently with Mexicans who settled the south west long before.
The families of Chinese rail workers were prevented from emigrating and the wholesale push-back against most all brown skinned peoples from US South Pacific Islands and the Caribbean is duly records in Congressional journals.
The denial of these harsh facts therefore destroy the "uniqueness" of a welcoming land that has never lived up to the mantra perpetrated internationally of a nation whose credo is "Liberty, Freedom and Justice for All", rather than realistically just for a few, or the statement of Statue of Liberty outreach.
I clicked “like” but this article is pretty terrible and unfortunately typical of the Bulwark (and why I probably won’t resubscribe). First, Biden’s immigration policies are, except for caged children, more restrictive than Trump’s. He’s had actual buy-in from Mexico, not the lip service paid by Trump. And the wall is mostly useless except for rhetoric. But the media - not only Fox but everyone - won’t given Biden “credit”. Because it’s not theater and Biden doesn’t beat his chest every day.
And then the Bulwark referenced polls and the anti-Trump coalition, as usual lately, without a SINGLE suggestion on how to reverse it, assuming it’s real and nearly a year out it means something. And if that’s the coverage I’m getting from the Bulwark staff, I don’t actually need to subscribe.
"......deportations and camps for immigrants and asylum seekers......unilaterally detain and deport people who are not U.S. citizens and cutting off funding for transportation and shelter for people who lack legal status in the country."
I've got a question for those who are in favor of the above steps: Who the heck do you think are going to work in the fields, can your vegetables, package your meats, and clean your hotel rooms, jobs you wouldn't be caught doing, ever?
Good point! Yet we can't even get the federal minimum wage past $7.25. Many folks fainted when fast food workers asked for a living wage.
So what are chances of farm jobs or any other job that goes to immigrates, especially those with no papers, paying a wage that an non-immigrant Native born "American" would find enough to do what is truly back breaking working???
If Americans only want to do jobs that pay a living wage then that should be the rallying cry. Not complaining about those who, for whatever reason, have to settle for less. I am sure the immigrant would like more money as well.
Its not by mistake that domestic workers, farm workers, certain resturant workers or others under 50 employees arent covered be the minimum wage act or other similar acts. Those jobs, were in part, were initially done by Black people and the carve out was to keep Black people has staying as close to slave labor as one can get. Black people have moved on, so it's on to the next group.
Lastly, Farmers have tried to unionize and demand better conditions. are any of the "immigrants go home" folks backing that movement so they can replace the immigrants?
Imagine if a (hypothetical), Mexican terrorist organization, 3-million strong, invaded San Antonio TX and tortured, burned, beheaded, raped, and slaughtered over 45,000 innocent American citizens while streaming and posting their most horrific and sadistic atrocities on the internet. And imagine if their stated goal was to exterminate every living American. Would our response be measured and tempered? Would concern about the Mexican hospitals and churches housing those terrorists, and their missiles, weapons, and munitions stop us from acting? Would we fail to retaliate because the terrorists used their own populace as human shields? It would be a righteous, 9/11 response times 1,000 - without shame or guilt. And imagine if a segment of our population decried our response and supported the (hypothetical) Mexican terrorists. Not a perfect analogy, but hopefully close enough to make one sympathize with victims instead of the aggressors.
My brother in Christ, no one is siding with Hamas. We are urging compassion towards the million kids that live in Gaza.
If you do election reform, or raise the number of legal immigrants, then you can’t use it as a political football anymore. But my guess is it wouldn’t phase them anyway. TFG probably thought getting Roe v Wade settled for them after 50 years of trying would solve everything and make them happy and grateful. They do not seem happy or grateful.
read in a Dispatch newsletter today:
"The Trump administration made curbing illegal immigration the centerpiece of its policy agenda. Trump not only failed to reduce the number of illegal immigrants in the country, but, according to Census Bureau data, presided over the first increase in the population of illegal immigrants in more than a decade."
So anti-immigration sentiment goes down because the blowhard speaks while journalist fail to report the facts of what is actually happening. But then, our current media uses polls as news.
I learned, long ago, by having to deal with people in congress, the only way to make them do their jobs is to
stay on them.
Immigration reform has to take place. So does voting
rights legislation. And more.
If we're lucky enough to keep
our democratic republic, Biden as president, a Blue House and Senate, We, The
People, need to do our jobs
too. They don't end at the
ballot box.
Every congressperson and senator has an email address and phone number. Use them. Stay on them.
The same applies for all the
Mainstream News and reporters; their sponsors too.
There are more of us then there are of them. 😉
Regardless of the politics, we need, and have needed for decades, comprehensive immigration reform. Why President Biden doesn’t propose a package is beyond me. It’s reckless both substantively and politically.
Why are right wingers gaining power and influence in Europe? And why is the US heading in the same direction? It’s simple, immigration. Right or wrong, local populations have had enough, and elected officials and immigration advocates underestimate the grassroots anger at their own peril.
How do you know he hasn't? Problem is, the House is R, and it's their job (which they're not doing) to discuss immigration and every other law. And as someone mentioned below, there have been attempts by Obama and other Ds to do something, and every single time, it's been torpedoed by Rs. https://www.thirdway.org/memo/how-republicans-abdicated-on-immigration-reform. Their solution is more wall, presumably paid by Mexico.
The Republicans have absolutely no interest in solving the immigration problem. They only want to use it as a wedge issue against the Democrats. Which is why their only solution is a wall.
But I do think the Democrats are making a big mistake by not addressing the problem directly and putting forth a program of how to deal with it.
And also Biden is also following the law and extending that wall (still not paid for by Mexico) to the disappointment of some if his base. Proof that Biden can please "the right" even by continuing what they started
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/06/us/border-wall-biden.html
And ticking off the far left because of it. The poor man can't catch a break no matter what he does.
Scary stories are not going to help. We need expert community organization in all geographic locations in America. Local volunteers should be able to recite "Five Ways Joe Biden Has Helped Our Economy" or "How Democrats Insure Good Health Care For You." We need creative folks who can spread TRUTH and demonstrate kindness and cooperation! Lets not wait for somebody else to begin!
Somehow I doubt that the New York Times Magazine will have much trouble finding a talented poetry editor who isn't a terrorism fan or just nuts.
I presume that Ms. Boyer's moral clarity will not prevent her from requesting food stamps.
I agree with everything you write about our panic-moment, Charlie, but I need more than alarm and panic right now. To be honest, you do too.
Liberals need stoic, stalwart determination now, not constant reminders of how doomed we are.
Do you think Trump and his allies, even in their darkest moments and after the grimmest polls, acted publicly as Stoddard, Kristol, Chait, and Carville have of late? Have you seen them evince public lack of faith in their own ultimate victory for one second?
In a way, Trump Republicans demonstrate the advantages of being a party disproportionately populated by jocks and soldiers, salesmen and business hacks, macho men and evangelists. Those people, warts and all, are used to overcoming adversity, used to having to psych themselves up, used to risk, used to *competition*.
Liberals, pundits, politicos, and most nerds are not, and it shows.
My son is one month old now, and he is learning all the different things he can express unhappiness, sorrow, panic, or irritation about--mostly by screaming about them. He is a little unclear on how to actually solve those problems, or even attempt to solve them.
He is a baby. He has an excuse on that. We are grown men and women. We do not.
It's time we changed that, all of us. Nichols, Frum, and especially Rick Wilson are showing us the attitude to have.
I hope everyone here at the Bulwark and elsewhere starts now. Not just lamenting the state of things, but making realistic suggestions on *what to do to change it*.
P.S.: Note to Kristol and Stoddard: Replacing the president of the United States with someone you personally like is not a realistic suggestion. This is a constrained problem. Work it accordingly.
Kristol and Stoddard are working for a Haley nomination over trump. They don't really like her but will take her over any Democrat, even one that they have said is successful (but, you know, he's old).
Mreh. Stoddard has gone on at some length about how much she likes Josh Shapiro/Andy Beshear/Gretchen Whitmer/Raphael Warnock, and how "young and dynamic" they are and how thoroughly they "would" beat Trump, as has Kristol. In quite the panicked, strident, over-certain fashion.
Truth is, I think they are campaign junkies and bored AF, and conflating that with honest concern for the Republic. Too many people around like that nowadays. :/
Wait Bill Kristol strident?
In text, at least. One of those weird dichotomies.
When he burned his bridges with Trump Republicans after the crook got elected, "strident" more or less covered it. He was willing to lose his magazine and the vast majority of his friends, colleagues, and business partners to make sure he was on record decrying Trump as the American Pinochet. (Of course, I'm all for "strident" in that context.)
In person and on video, yeah, he seems more like a jolly, smiling, gladhanding old Harvard donor. Deceptive. The man has one of the biggest stubborn streaks in Washington and an iron, unbreakable will when he wants to. That has both pros and cons.
I think immigration is what got Trump elected in the "blue wall" states (at least as an actual policy issue - obviously for many it was combined with good old fashioned racism, xenophobia, Islamaphobia etc.); Anglos in those places had started to freak out about hearing Spanish in their stores and seeing women in hijab, given that many of those places had been some of the later parts of the country to have experienced foreign immigration at scale post-1965.
We can tut-tut such voters all we want, but there's a big underlying problem. Everyone except the tiniest minority of extreme leftists / anarchists (at least I hope it's a really tiny minority) acknowledges that control of our national borders and the movement of people across them is a basic function of the federal government. The current flows of people have clearly overwhelmed and/or gamed the existing system, at least at times, so one can get the impression (even without MAGA or general Republican braying) that the feds don't have as full control of things as they should. Thus, fixes are needed. Which is a perfectly reasonable position, even for those who want pretty generous amounts of immigration / worker permits (such as myself) and understand that some kind of asylum system should probably exist (if altered from what we have today).
So, shouldn't Biden and Democrats have a well-articulated and promoted position on what fixes they want, and what our immigration and foreign worker system should look like. Given that it's a basic function of the federal government (again, essentially everyone agrees that it is), is that too much to ask? Instead, the party has essentially abdicated the public discussion sphere to the (often racist and xenophobic, usually incoherent, always hyperbolic) MAGAs and Republicans (little difference between the two anymore). Saying that articulating a policy simply opens them up for criticism that complicates their electoral strategy and they're better off just sniping at Republican rhetorical (and in the case of Trump, actual) excesses on the topic strikes me as irresponsible and feckless, and just plain bad governance. They have a responsibility to communicate to the citizenry what they want to achieve regarding something that is, again, a basic function of the federal government. Other than an extremely brief moment at the very beginning of the Biden administration, they've not been doing that, which certainly allows MAGA to own the space.
Oh, and in articulating their policy position, they would do well to make sure that any (again hopefully tiny) faction in their ranks that feels that Latin American residents are "owed" residency / citizenship because of U.S. actions in the 1960s-1980s (I went to college in the 1980s, I remember all the protests) are disavowed - it's just not a legitimately credible policy position.
You can't beat something with nothing. I'm not as optimistic as you are that the Open Borders minority on the Left is "tiny", but I agree that it almost certainly is a minority, one that the Administration needs to confront and stop trying to placate. At this point, any comprehensive Biden Administration policy statement short of actual Open Borders would be an improvement on the silence we have now.
The Mayor of Chicago is putting up tent cities to house migrants this week, just in time for Winter. If that isn't a wakeup call to Democrats that this is a real crisis that needs to be addressed, then next year it's going to be Mourning in America, with a second Trump term on the way.