Post by Cornflake on Sept 30, 2024 18:15:34 GMT -5
Russell, I was mostly trying to articulate an attitude that I don't share. That makes it a little difficult to respond to your points. I don't feel any economic insecurity due to immigration. I feel some cultural insecurity but it isn't strong. My own reasons for wanting to curtail immigration, which has been my view since my twenties, are mostly environmental, for lack of a better term. I've explained them here before. Nobody was very interested then and I doubt that they would be now.
I've tried to understand the motivations of the many people who support Trump, which includes a lot of my extended family. What I'm calling economic insecurity seems to be a significant factor. People who've played by the rules but are still struggling think immigrants are cutting in line, as someone put it, and taking jobs that might otherwise go to Americans. However accurate or inaccurate the perception might be in an objective sense, I think it's affecting people's attitudes.
As for cultural insecurity, I think back to what some Brexit supporters were saying during the campaign. They thought foreigners were taking over their country. (And the foreigners weren't dark people; they were other Europeans.) They wanted their familiar culture back. We see a similar reaction to immigrants and refugees in a lot of European countries and it tends to benefit the authoritarians. We can pronounce a negative judgment in such attitudes and attach a pejorative label to them, such as racist or nativist. I don't think that's really accurate and I think it tends to keep us from coming to grips with the fact that resistance to large-scale immigration is a real and growing phenomenon.
Some of my cousins have a more immediate objection to illegal immigration. They've had the coyotes dump a truckload of people on their ranch. They felt violated and were mightily pissed off. Can't say I blame them.
"Racism" is a word I've long avoided because it gets used in very squishy ways. A quick search led me to one definition that's close to what I always thought the word meant: "the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another." There are certainly racists of that sort around. In my view, Trump is very consciously trying to appeal to them by warning about criminal immigrants coming from the Congo, etc. But I think they're a dwindling breed. The people who still hold such views aren't going to elect a president. If Trump gets elected it will be with the votes of people like my pro-Trump cousins. They aren't ignorant and they aren't bigots. The Democrats haven't done a very good job of listening to them.
I've tried to understand the motivations of the many people who support Trump, which includes a lot of my extended family. What I'm calling economic insecurity seems to be a significant factor. People who've played by the rules but are still struggling think immigrants are cutting in line, as someone put it, and taking jobs that might otherwise go to Americans. However accurate or inaccurate the perception might be in an objective sense, I think it's affecting people's attitudes.
As for cultural insecurity, I think back to what some Brexit supporters were saying during the campaign. They thought foreigners were taking over their country. (And the foreigners weren't dark people; they were other Europeans.) They wanted their familiar culture back. We see a similar reaction to immigrants and refugees in a lot of European countries and it tends to benefit the authoritarians. We can pronounce a negative judgment in such attitudes and attach a pejorative label to them, such as racist or nativist. I don't think that's really accurate and I think it tends to keep us from coming to grips with the fact that resistance to large-scale immigration is a real and growing phenomenon.
Some of my cousins have a more immediate objection to illegal immigration. They've had the coyotes dump a truckload of people on their ranch. They felt violated and were mightily pissed off. Can't say I blame them.
"Racism" is a word I've long avoided because it gets used in very squishy ways. A quick search led me to one definition that's close to what I always thought the word meant: "the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another." There are certainly racists of that sort around. In my view, Trump is very consciously trying to appeal to them by warning about criminal immigrants coming from the Congo, etc. But I think they're a dwindling breed. The people who still hold such views aren't going to elect a president. If Trump gets elected it will be with the votes of people like my pro-Trump cousins. They aren't ignorant and they aren't bigots. The Democrats haven't done a very good job of listening to them.
