Our Next President?

[DSpencer]

Re: med costs

The ICE thing is just symbolic...


I don't think it's fling open the borders time for anyone.

That said, it's not obvious what her strategy is with immigration. It's pretty clear that the overarching sentiment is so slow it down. And to be honest, lots of folks on the left realize immigration's a tool to drive down the price of domestic labor, and will agree with that. In fact, folks on the left have been talking about open borders as a right wing idea for some time now.

I think maybe it's only ivory tower establishment centrists who want open borders. I don't know if you caught this clip from 2015. But Ezra Klein thinks he can get Sanders to agree to open borders, and it doesn't go the way he thought it would.

The average person doesn't understand any of the nuance about INS vs ICE. So to the extent it's symbolic, the symbolism is that people advocating to abolish ICE are advocating against a symbol of enforcing immigration policy. Nobody is chanting "bring back INS".

I hate the binary division of everything into right and left, but seriously, what evidence supports the idea that open borders are a right wing idea? Donald Trump is claimed by many to be aligned with not only the right, but the "FAR RIGHT." The people at his rallies are screaming "BUILD THE WALL!" Meanwhile candidates on the left are calling to abolish ICE. I'm really supposed to conclude that open borders is a right wing idea? Dcarrigg, you have posted often about the importance of agreeing on the meaning of words. What is right wing? Are most Trump supporters not considered right wing? What right wing candidate supports open borders?

Bernie's interview was very interesting and surprising to me. Other than the weird part about open borders being a right wing concept, I found his message to be a very logical position.

I really can't make sense of the liberal position on open borders. If someone's position is:

1. Existing illegal immigrants should not be deported. They should have a path to citizenship instead.
2. We should not build walls to keep illegal immigrants out.
3. We should not separate illegal immigrant children from their families or throw whole families in jail.
4. Immigrants are hard working people and we need them here to help grow our economy.

How is that not essentially an open borders policy? It's basically saying we should have laws about immigration, but should never enforce them because it's inhumane; and the people who break them are good people who are helping America and should be made into citizens.

From feelthebern.org:

"From Bernie believes that border security is an important aspect of immigration law and reform, but does not support stronger measures to increase it and does not think border security should be connected to a border fence."

That's the definition of lip service in my mind. Imagine if his position was "College tuition needs to be affordable, but I don't support any measures to make that happen."

[jk]

Re: med costs

my understanding is that illegal immigration has been declining, and that also much or most of it is people overstaying visas, not people crossing the border from mexico. a wall, as i understand it, is not an efficient use of funds if we indeed want to put more funds into border security.

i agree that bernie's position is an endorsement of the immigration status quo.

as for right wing support for immigration, i think it exists at the BUSINESS level, not the populist one. i.e. illegal low skill agricultural workers in california and texas, increased LEGAL h1-b's desired by tech companies.

[dcarrigg]

Re: med costs

The average person doesn't understand any of the nuance about INS vs ICE. So to the extent it's symbolic, the symbolism is that people advocating to abolish ICE are advocating against a symbol of enforcing immigration policy. Nobody is chanting "bring back INS".

I hate the binary division of everything into right and left, but seriously, what evidence supports the idea that open borders are a right wing idea? Donald Trump is claimed by many to be aligned with not only the right, but the "FAR RIGHT." The people at his rallies are screaming "BUILD THE WALL!" Meanwhile candidates on the left are calling to abolish ICE. I'm really supposed to conclude that open borders is a right wing idea? Dcarrigg, you have posted often about the importance of agreeing on the meaning of words. What is right wing? Are most Trump supporters not considered right wing? What right wing candidate supports open borders?

Bernie's interview was very interesting and surprising to me. Other than the weird part about open borders being a right wing concept, I found his message to be a very logical position.

I really can't make sense of the liberal position on open borders. If someone's position is:

1. Existing illegal immigrants should not be deported. They should have a path to citizenship instead.
2. We should not build walls to keep illegal immigrants out.
3. We should not separate illegal immigrant children from their families or throw whole families in jail.
4. Immigrants are hard working people and we need them here to help grow our economy.

How is that not essentially an open borders policy? It's basically saying we should have laws about immigration, but should never enforce them because it's inhumane; and the people who break them are good people who are helping America and should be made into citizens.

From feelthebern.org:

"From Bernie believes that border security is an important aspect of immigration law and reform, but does not support stronger measures to increase it and does not think border security should be connected to a border fence."

That's the definition of lip service in my mind. Imagine if his position was "College tuition needs to be affordable, but I don't support any measures to make that happen."

There's nothing here I really disagree with. I think we're on the same page for the most part.

But here's the thing: there is no agreement on the meaning of this stuff!

Leftists tend to think open borders is a right wing idea. They really do. Not liberals. Leftists. I don't feel like folks on the right quite grasp the distinction between those groups on the left. And it's not easy, because there are some folks who blur it.

The equivalent might be libertarians and conservatives. Libertarians, at least the Koch variety, tend to support open borders. Conservatives don't. And I think, if I go way out on a limb, leftists more often view libertarianism as extreme right wing, and liberals tend to view conservatives as extreme right wing. But that's way out on a limb. And it's easy to talk past each other.

Leftists and Conservatives in this vein sometimes just get labeled "populist," and the idea then becomes "Populism vs. Centrism" or some dichotomy like that. In reality, everything's more complicated.

But I might suggest that if you want an example of right wing open borders supporters, maybe look at Amash et all's letter to Paul.

And I'd go further and suggest the following:

The real question is simply: "Do we want to let more or fewer immigrants in over the next few years?"

I think you would find some very right wing Senators like Rand Paul who would answer, "More." Maybe more, with caveats. But more.
I think you would also find some very left wing Senators like Bernie Sanders who would answer, "Fewer." Maybe fewer, with caveats. But fewer.

So it doesn't map necessarily in ways people would think at first blush.

As far as the security stuff goes, the leftist version will always be warmer and fuzzier. Partly because white collar criminals do less time in a country club for ruining countless lives than these kids do on a cold cement floor with a space blanket for having committed no crime themselves. Mostly because the idea that a child should have to suffer state punishment for the sins of his father is really antithetical to a group of people who aren't keen on the concept of inheritance.

So it's a mixed bag.

My personal position is that the wall/fence/whatever is fine. I don't object to it. I also have no objection to slowing down immigrant flows. I think it's necessary at this point politically. I further think there's no political will to pull an Eisenhower Operation Wetback type of mass deportation option. So I figure it's probably better to get those who are here on the books somehow. Can't do it for free, there has to be a penalty since the law was broken. But the pathway should be there. Limbo status is no good for nobody. You also don't want the precedent that this happens every 30 years. So it's worth getting on top of with more visa restrictions and agents to enforce them. I don't think this is terribly hard. I'm just a couple generations off the boat myself. And my experience has been generally that immigrants are hardworking people. But the US is also a nation-state and its citizens have every right to restrict immigration flows and reasonable reasons to want to do so from time to time. I also think it's reasonable to restrict capital flows too (not just labor flows), especially foreign mass purchases of real property. But there too, I'll butt heads with libertarian-minded folk.

Anyways, if that doesn't sound like a very left wing position to you, I wouldn't be surprised. But I suspect you'd find it pretty common amongst the rank and file left, if not the liberal high-rise folk. Labor, self-determination, and non-domination are the principles at work. The Democrats largely sold labor out. The left still hasn't forgiven them. The general opinion amongst the left is that Clinton was a terrible president who gutted Roosevelt's New Deal, deregulated telecom giving rise to things like Murdoch and Bezos owning increasingly monopolized and partisan media, and deregulated banks giving rise to the Great Recession. It's not uncommon to hear people say HW was a better president. View is that Americans have a raw deal now. Worst healthcare at the highest prices. Most expensive education. Fewest labor protections. Fewest benefits. Most people arrested or in prison. Life for most citizens is unnecessarily brutal.

Thing is, the liberals run the DNC. And they care much more about what the elite think than what Joe the union pile driver thinks. And that pisses the left off. Especially the labor left.

Did you catch this Time article from a couple years ago? Sanders and the other labor-minded pols have a looooong record of voting against measures to expand immigration. They routinely vote to reduce visa numbers and reduce the number of guest workers and all that. They see it as a method by which corporate America imports low wage workers and drives down the price of labor. What's weird about this is that it's mostly northeast and midwest Dems who aren't the party elite but who've been there forever on the "fewer immigrants" side. The "centrist" Dems and blue dogs from the south like Tim Kaine always vote for more visas and more guest workers.

It's part of what I mean by saying centrism is an ideology, not the middle ground between left and right. It's really whatever corporate America wants. So the idea's like this: Centrism means no healthcare for Uncle Sam's kids. But also open borders for cheap labor. Tax cuts for the wealthy. But also no sick days for the janitor. It's always what the boss wants in the extreme. There's nothing moderate about it.

[dcarrigg]

Re: med costs

This is a rough sense of the picture. Immigration numbers were drastically reduced under W & Obama. In part because of policy and increased policing and the secure communities act and whatnot.

[DSpencer]

Re: med costs

my understanding is that illegal immigration has been declining, and that also much or most of it is people overstaying visas, not people crossing the border from mexico. a wall, as i understand it, is not an efficient use of funds if we indeed want to put more funds into border security.

i agree that bernie's position is an endorsement of the immigration status quo.

as for right wing support for immigration, i think it exists at the BUSINESS level, not the populist one. i.e. illegal low skill agricultural workers in california and texas, increased LEGAL h1-b's desired by tech companies.

I think there exists a lot of confusion about the means vs. the goal and probably much of it on purpose. Trump gets a lot of criticism that the wall isn't a cost effective way of securing the border. That's likely true. However, the people doing the criticizing don't seem to be pushing a real alternative that would achieve the same goal through different means. The Trump opposition groups aren't chanting "install more cameras" or "hire more border patrol" or "deport overstayed visa holders."

Sure, people like Bernie claim they want to secure the border. I assume they see it as a weakness if they admit to wanting open borders. Maybe Bernie really does want it, as I said, he presents a pretty good working-class justification. But to the extent that immigration is a motivating issue for Bernie's supporters or any other democratic nominee, it seems to all be in the direction of being friendlier to immigrants rather than securing borders, enforcing laws, deporting immigrants, etc.

It doesn't seem like business owner support for immigration is split along party lines in a way that would make it seem like a right-wing issue. Sure, maybe there are some right wing business owners that break from the rest of their right wing brethren on immigration because it benefits them personally. But I doubt they are more likely to support higher immigration levels than left wing business owners.

[DSpencer]

Re: med costs

There's nothing here I really disagree with. I think we're on the same page for the most part.

But here's the thing: there is no agreement on the meaning of this stuff!

The terms are imprecise and the confusion only worsens over time because even if Left and Liberal were used distinctly at one time, they are now used interchangeably by most people. Also, just like trying to sort people into Right and Left is oversimplifying, the same is true for Left or Liberal.

Some libertarians hold positions on largely ideological rather than pragmatic grounds and this sometimes leads to positions others find extreme. I think most people that consider themselves at least somewhat libertarian (such as myself) try to balance. In an ideal world, it would be great if humans could choose to live wherever they preferred, rather than being bound in many cases to wherever they happened to be born. In the real world, that creates an enormous problem.

Defining a moderate or a centrist is always difficult, even in theory. Libertarians might consider themselves moderate because they are "socially liberal and fiscally conservative." But if another person is the opposite, are they both moderates? Or is a moderate supposed to have some balanced view on every issue? I think that's often the ideal portrayal: that a moderate is someone who believes in reasonable compromises between two extreme positions on every issue. In many cases that probably is the right answer, but it's often hard to even pin down what it would mean in any given situation.

The reality is that a left-right spectrum just doesn't capture the complexity. Adding two dimensions might get you closer, but it still doesn't really work.

The problem with the pathway to citizenship (or even just legalization) is that if you can't or won't stop the inflow of illegal immigrants, then it will always be a repeating cycle. I think most people would come around to the idea of doing a one time legalization, if they believed it was really the last time. But most skeptics, rightly in my opinion, question whether the will to enforce the law going forward exists. That's the appeal of Trump to the anti-immigration crowd. His over the top rhetoric gets him a ton of flak, but it signals to the people that care that he really means what he says. Does anyone really believe that Bernie is going to secure the border, even if he says we should? Since nobody will admit that their real position is lax enforcement and cyclical amnesty, you have to look for other clues.

I'm curious what would happen if a Democrat actually used immigration enforcement as a core position. Take Bernie's position that American workers have to come first. Soften the blow by offering the pathway for people already here. But beat the drum like Trump did that we are shutting down the southern border and turning people away, not because they are rapists and murders, but because the jobs they want are our jobs and we aren't giving them away to the lowest bidder. Maybe they would end up in no man's land, but it would be interesting to see.

[dcarrigg]

Re: med costs

Defining a moderate or a centrist is always difficult, even in theory. Libertarians might consider themselves moderate because they are "socially liberal and fiscally conservative." But if another person is the opposite, are they both moderates? Or is a moderate supposed to have some balanced view on every issue? I think that's often the ideal portrayal: that a moderate is someone who believes in reasonable compromises between two extreme positions on every issue. In many cases that probably is the right answer, but it's often hard to even pin down what it would mean in any given situation.

It seems to me the convention is that moderate or centrist means socially liberal, fiscally conservative, although generally more neoliberal than libertarian in orientation, more corporate realpolitik than pure libertarian ideology would allow. I've never heard of fiscally liberal socially conservative people labeled as moderate or centrist. Seems to me they're always branded 'populist,' which has a much more negative connotation likely due to the preferences of media moguls. Of course, the term populist has been used for everyone from Trump to Sanders and in between. So it's just kind of a catch-all for doesn't tow the mainstream corporate culture line.

The problem with the pathway to citizenship (or even just legalization) is that if you can't or won't stop the inflow of illegal immigrants, then it will always be a repeating cycle. I think most people would come around to the idea of doing a one time legalization, if they believed it was really the last time. But most skeptics, rightly in my opinion, question whether the will to enforce the law going forward exists. That's the appeal of Trump to the anti-immigration crowd. His over the top rhetoric gets him a ton of flak, but it signals to the people that care that he really means what he says. Does anyone really believe that Bernie is going to secure the border, even if he says we should? Since nobody will admit that their real position is lax enforcement and cyclical amnesty, you have to look for other clues.

I'm curious what would happen if a Democrat actually used immigration enforcement as a core position. Take Bernie's position that American workers have to come first. Soften the blow by offering the pathway for people already here. But beat the drum like Trump did that we are shutting down the southern border and turning people away, not because they are rapists and murders, but because the jobs they want are our jobs and we aren't giving them away to the lowest bidder. Maybe they would end up in no man's land, but it would be interesting to see.

It almost doesn't matter. Facts don't matter. More people were deported under the Obama Administration than ever in American history. He got almost no credit for it one way or the other. Right just paints him as weak on immigration. Liberals think he was dovish on immigration. Facts tell another story. In fact, deportations fell under Trump. But the medium is the message. The perception is all people absorb. That's the rub about the border fence. The objection's mostly to the symbol, not the reality. And the fence itself in fact is somewhat a symbol. It might deter a few entries, probably not most. But I've accepted that nobody cares about facts. So I'm fine with the fence. It's just a few billion. Screw it.

But I guess to circle back to your point, even if a Democrat does deport millions of people, nobody listens. It's like the narrative is fixed. People don't understand how other people are thinking. And somehow the perception of everyone has become an extreme caricaturized stereotype of reality. My view is that these perceptions are used to make people fight about things that don't cost much money so that you can rob them blind in the process. Notice that the largest single piece of domestic legislation since Obamacare was a debt-financed tax cut primarily aimed at large publicly-traded c-corporations and the highest income earners. America has a lot of problems. Not enough federal debt or not enough money for corporate execs etc. wasn't really one of them. Yet somehow made it to the top of the priority list, ahead of immigration, ahead of infrastructure, ahead of everything else.

[Polish_Silver]

Atlantic says Immigration way up

This article matches my impression, that immigration is still very high, and could increase.

By 2027, the foreign-born proportion of the U.S. population is projected to equal its previous all-time peak, in 1890: 14.8 percent. Under present policy, that percentage will keep rising to new records thereafter.

This may be mostly legal immigrants. The article did not spend a lot of time distinguishing legal from illegal. Wilton Ct, is close to lily white.

But in surrounding towns, (Norwalk) you almost think there are more immigrants than native born.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Atlantic says Immigration way up

This article matches my impression, that immigration is still very high, and could increase.



This may be mostly legal immigrants. The article did not spend a lot of time distinguishing legal from illegal. Wilton Ct, is close to lily white.

But in surrounding towns, (Norwalk) you almost think there are more immigrants than native born.

But everybody in the United States is foreign-born, or stems from the original immigration started in Virginia; except of course, those native populations that were there already.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Atlantic says Immigration way up

But everybody in the United States is foreign-born, or stems from the original immigration started in Virginia; except of course, those native populations that were there already.

Anglo-Saxon Protestants consider themselves the only true Americans. And it's very obvious to everyone else, especially tribal peoples. When someone like Sarah Palin was talking about "Real America" and the "Real Americans," that's what the dog heard. This isn't sour grapes or anything. It's just fact, glaring and obvious through American history, but uncouth to mention. The original Constitution, of course, was not signed by just WASPs, but most people presume it was. There were, in fact, a number of other folks, German, Irish, French, Scotch, Catholic, etc. But they were a minority of the signatories.

Ben Franklin spelled it all out quite clearly:

Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion. Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.

[DSpencer]

Re: Atlantic says Immigration way up

But everybody in the United States is foreign-born, or stems from the original immigration started in Virginia; except of course, those native populations that were there already.

There's all kinds of US born people whose parents immigration didn't stem from the "original immigration" in Virginia except in the broadest of senses. But putting that aside. Everyone is an immigrant, or the descendant of an immigrant, or the descendant of "native populations" that are basically only classified as such because they immigrated before modern countries or history.

What's your point? This kind of thing gets said all the time as if the United States is somehow totally unique in this regard. What place isn't made up of immigrants or the descendants of immigrants? Is there some time limit where you say "well, now that the US is 500 years old, we are no longer a nation of immigrants." Is the implication that the US has some different set of rules than the UK or Egypt or China that says we don't have a right to determine immigration policy as a country because our immigrants are too recent?

[Chris Coles]

Re: Atlantic says Immigration way up

There's all kinds of US born people whose parents immigration didn't stem from the "original immigration" in Virginia except in the broadest of senses. But putting that aside. Everyone is an immigrant, or the descendant of an immigrant, or the descendant of "native populations" that are basically only classified as such because they immigrated before modern countries or history.

What's your point? This kind of thing gets said all the time as if the United States is somehow totally unique in this regard. What place isn't made up of immigrants or the descendants of immigrants? Is there some time limit where you say "well, now that the US is 500 years old, we are no longer a nation of immigrants." Is the implication that the US has some different set of rules than the UK or Egypt or China that says we don't have a right to determine immigration policy as a country because our immigrants are too recent?

Fair comment; point taken.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Atlantic says Immigration way up

There's all kinds of US born people whose parents immigration didn't stem from the "original immigration" in Virginia except in the broadest of senses. But putting that aside. Everyone is an immigrant, or the descendant of an immigrant, or the descendant of "native populations" that are basically only classified as such because they immigrated before modern countries or history.

What's your point? This kind of thing gets said all the time as if the United States is somehow totally unique in this regard. What place isn't made up of immigrants or the descendants of immigrants? Is there some time limit where you say "well, now that the US is 500 years old, we are no longer a nation of immigrants." Is the implication that the US has some different set of rules than the UK or Egypt or China that says we don't have a right to determine immigration policy as a country because our immigrants are too recent?

All that said, the citizenship convention in the western hemisphere is different. No, this doesn't mean citizens don't have a right to determine immigration policy. I agree with you there. At the same time, blood and soil are not the same here as in the old world.

[DSpencer]

Re: Atlantic says Immigration way up

All that said, the citizenship convention in the western hemisphere is different. No, this doesn't mean citizens don't have a right to determine immigration policy. I agree with you there. At the same time, blood and soil are not the same here as in the old world.

That's an interesting map. I was not aware how consistent the divide is. There's no doubt that cultural attitudes are different. I just don't like the implication that somehow we are bound to accept huge numbers of immigrants because we have historically.

One of my big personal concerns is environmental. I live in Ohio. Just a few hundred years ago there would have been bison, elk, wolves, bears, and mountain lions in this area. Now there's a few isolated black bears and every once in a while someone claims to see a mountain lion. At one time there were tens of millions of bison across nearly the entire country. Now there's a few thousand wild and free in a few small areas. Maybe that doesn't matter to some people, but I think it's a devastating loss.

Why do we need more people in the US? It's one thing to accept huge numbers of immigrants when the country was relatively uninhabited, but we have 325 million people now and every day we have 2,500 more than the day before. Nothing against the people of India or Bangladesh, but I don't want that kind of population density here.

One minute I hear about how we need immigrants to grow the economy and then next minute we need UBI because the robots are going to take everyone's job. I'm not so dystopian about the robots but it's pretty clear already that we don't need the same quantity of labor to work the fields, mine, factories, etc.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Atlantic says Immigration way up

That's an interesting map. I was not aware how consistent the divide is. There's no doubt that cultural attitudes are different. I just don't like the implication that somehow we are bound to accept huge numbers of immigrants because we have historically.

One of my big personal concerns is environmental. I live in Ohio. Just a few hundred years ago there would have been bison, elk, wolves, bears, and mountain lions in this area. Now there's a few isolated black bears and every once in a while someone claims to see a mountain lion. At one time there were tens of millions of bison across nearly the entire country. Now there's a few thousand wild and free in a few small areas. Maybe that doesn't matter to some people, but I think it's a devastating loss.

Why do we need more people in the US? It's one thing to accept huge numbers of immigrants when the country was relatively uninhabited, but we have 325 million people now and every day we have 2,500 more than the day before. Nothing against the people of India or Bangladesh, but I don't want that kind of population density here.

One minute I hear about how we need immigrants to grow the economy and then next minute we need UBI because the robots are going to take everyone's job. I'm not so dystopian about the robots but it's pretty clear already that we don't need the same quantity of labor to work the fields, mine, factories, etc.

My inclination is to be against UBI and in favor of slowing immigration flows at the present moment, so for once I really have little to argue with you about.