Then I’m very skeptical that there are any motives other than racism/xenophobia or an ignorance of how immigration and economics work. What other reasons would someone oppose immigration, in the present US?
I’m much less confident in my understanding of this issue, and in any case I wouldn’t attribute one position or the other to racism. In my understanding, tariffs are very dumb policy, but not racist.
Can you see how this at least looks like you’re calling people racist and/or invalidating their experience and insisting you know better than them?
To racists and the ignorant? Sure. I imagine the KKK feels “invalidated” when they’re called racist and ignorant for their actions. I’m sure Trump is too.
Can’t imagine where he got that idea… 
I think I see the disconnect. It appears you believe that me calling anyone who disagrees with me, for any reason, “racist”, is no different than calling everyone who disagrees with me racist. I don’t think you’ll be surprised that I find these two things just wildly, massively different.
Nah, it’s the fact that it seems to be your go-to response on every issue I’ve seen. Didn’t take long to find an example, did it?
Racists exist, and they’re not always hard to find. It is indeed easy to pick an issue in which racism is a significant motivator. Do you deny this? Do you deny that many are opposed to immigration because of racism or ignorance? If not, then you and I are pretty much on the same page. I didn’t say that everyone opposed to immigration is definitely racist or ignorant. I said I’m skeptical that those aren’t significant motivators. I also asked you for other possible reasons to oppose immigration, and you didn’t answer.
It really appears that you’re just looking for a single example to make a broad, sweeping, negative conclusion about me. I’ve made tens of thousands of posts, probably on hundreds of issues. I’ve probably called only a handful of Dopers racist, if that, in those tens of thousands of posts. If you’re genuinely interested in my views, they’re here for all to see, with plenty of nuance and thought behind them. If you’re just interested in flip responses based on very superficial questions, then that probably takes much less effort, but isn’t going to actually tell you much about what I believe.
Do you want to talk about immigration, or about attitudes generally? The fact you’ve posted so much, on a variety of topics, makes it hard to give you more than my impression. You asked for an example so I tried to give you one.
On immigration, I can tell you why people oppose it here: that an influx of low-skilled workers drives down wages for that segment of the population, increased population causes strain on services like schools, hospitals, and transport, that the country is overcrowded and immigration makes this worse, it reduces social cohesion, most immigrants come from countries with higher crime rates, and many have different cultural attitudes - including often holding very bigoted views themselves. Do some people oppose immigration out of racism and/or ignorance? Almost certainly. But those aren’t the only reasons.
But you didn’t say ‘well, it would depend on why they opposed immigration’ or something like that. It’s straight to assuming racism and ignorance. And why did you jump immediately to a comparison with the KKK? That’s not exactly indicative of nuance. If you don’t want people who dislike immigration to think you’re comparing them to the KKK, you should probably try not doing that.
And sorry if I seem to be attacking you particularly. It’s an attitude I see commonly in progressives generally.
Some of those examples you give are actually bigotry, disguised or undisguised. Reducing “social cohesion” is bullshit, and very clearly poorly disguised bigotry. “Overcrowding” is bullshit in most Western countries, certainly the US (and probably the UK). “Different cultural attitudes” is undisguised bigotry - fear of different cultures is one of the most common forms of bigotry. Maybe the economic and infrastructure reasons aren’t bigoted, but here in the US, they’re mostly bullshit, in my understanding of the facts. And here in the US, one of the clearest things the election data from 2016 indicated was that the most significant driver of support to Trump was bigotry. He focused on immigration, and used especially hateful language, for a reason.
So maybe I’m a bit more likely to suspect bigotry is involved than you. So what? Do you expect everyone to have the exact same views on immigration as you do, or the exact same level of skepticism for those opposed?
As for comparisons to the KKK - I was specifically comparing racists (and the ignorant) to the KKK.
But why should I be less skeptical of those who oppose immigration? Should I also be less skeptical of those who oppose women’s rights, like abortion? Or those who think gay people shouldn’t be allowed to get married? Skepticism is a great thing. Everyone should be skeptical of those with bad policy views.
It’s certainly what right wing entertainers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity say about progressives. It doesn’t have much to do with our actual views, though.
I’ll add one thing that I always try and think about when discussions approach heated – none of this matters. All we’re doing is wasting time on the internet. Maybe, if we’re lucky, a few people might think about things differently because of our arguments. But in the scheme of things, these discussions are just fun time wasters.
And I’ll note that I don’t always argue in real life in the same way I do online. I generally try to frame my arguments in the way I think will be most effective. I’m generally a lot more “gentle” in my arguments IRL. But here I feel no need to censor myself, or “tone it down”, so I let my freak flag fly.
I’ve heard their names. Never watched (or listened?) to either.
Before going on, I want to point out that immigration also has benefits. For example, a better economy, more innovation (especially if you are choosy about who to let in), more variety in foods, art and entertainment; from the government’s point of view you can get young adult workers without the costs of raising and educating them, and a larger population can mean more clout internationally. But I think voters should be allowed to decide whether the benefits outweigh the costs for them.
Evidence?
This is of course nonsense in general, since most Western countries are in Europe, but I’ll grant the US has large empty spaces. I bet most immigrants aren’t setting in the middle of nowhere though, but are moving to already overcrowded cities.
Aren’t you one of those people who look forward (eagerly!) to old conservative white people dying off and the Democrats achieving political hegemony in the new multicultural America? And now you’re gonna pretend that demographic changes don’t affect politics or social attitudes?
You know your own country best. But have you listened to any specific complaints from people? Something can be overall good for the economy and still hurt certain groups within it - I didn’t think it was controversial that if, for example, a large number of doctors immigrated to the US, then wages for doctors would be likely to fall.
No doubt the language appealed to some people. But for others, maybe they merely saw a chance to get problems addressed that other politicians had been ignoring.
Ah, is this the ‘I’m not touching you’ defence I’ve been hearing about? “I wasn’t talking about you, I just felt the need to bring up the KKK, no reason.”
No, that’s all wrong. You’re supposed to be skeptical of all ideas, not of people, and decide which are good and bad based on the evidence. Not pick the conclusion you want beforehand and then try and make the evidence fit, and ignore or try to hide any that doesn’t. And shoot any messengers who try to bring it to your attention. That’s how you get bad and stupid policies that make things worse for everyone.
Obviously (in the form of electing government officials).
Talking about “social cohesion” is a way of saying “we shouldn’t take in immigrants because people don’t like immigrants”. It’s nonsense. There’s no objective measure of something like “social cohesion” – it’s just the existence of bigotry. And the existence of bigotry isn’t a reason to oppose immigration – this bigotry should be opposed, not appeased.
I feel no obligation to rhetorically tolerate intolerance. But there’s a difference here – I’m not advocating for policies that would help kill off (or expel) old conservative white people. I don’t like their views, but I’ve never advocated for any policy that would actually harm them.
There might be very limited circumstances where this is reasonable. But the vast majority of opposition to immigration in the US is cultural, not economic. Even when people say it’s economic, it’s usually cultural, according to the polling (and other, like regional google search) data I’ve seen.
There’s definitely a reason – I want to highlight and challenge bigotry. Including anti-immigrant bigotry (one of the KKK’s most prominent bigotries). Maybe it will get one or two people who oppose immigration to think about why they really do, and reevaluate.
Sure, I’m skeptical of the ideas. But also the people, if they advance hateful or otherwise harmful ideas, again and again. One of the ways we get bad and stupid policies is by assuming the best, and giving the benefit of the doubt, when someone or some policy advocates are clearly motivated by bigotry (or corruption, or some other immoral motivator).
Like the existence of selfishness isn’t a reason to oppose communism? 
Sounds like you agree immigration reduces social cohesion, you just think it shouldn’t. But you have to deal with people as they are, not as you wish them to be. That at the least should mean finding ways to help existing immigrants to integrate rather than pretending the problem doesn’t exist.
Here we go again with the conservative = intolerant. You really need to stop conflating the two things. And are you seriously arguing that reducing immigration is equivalent to killing people? That’s a new one.
Yes, and maybe a bunch of people like @Kearsen1 will decide they prefer the side that doesn’t conflate opposing open borders with being a KKK member. I mean, he did just say so and all. (And a whole bunch more people will learn to tune out all the hyperbolic comparisons to racists, Nazis etc, so that when a real fascist appears - they don’t listen to you.)
Easy to say. I think you were honest the first time.
Just realised you’re also a member of the covid baby club. Congrats!
If it reduces “social cohesion”, that’s only because of the existence and behavior of bigots. And the way to help them integrate is to fight bigotry.
The anti immigrant side in the US today (Trump and co) favors deliberate mistreatment of migrants, even children. So that position really is comparable to killing people, especially when we consider where and what so many immigrants are fleeing from.
I think you haven’t been paying attention. The fascists are already here, in the White House. Brutalizing peaceful protesters, mistreating immigrants, and trying to stop voting.
Yes, they really are that bad. Acting like this is just normal politics is how the really, really bad things happen.
Thank you. If you are too, then congrats to you as well.
What are your actual proposals to improve integration? Hopefully it’s something more than haranging people and comparing them to KKK members. Or better yet, what has been tried already and how well did it work?
It would certainly help if your government stopped screwing with Latin America. But Biden’s policy is just more of the same AFAIK. Anyway, wanting to reduce immigration != agreeing with Trump’s methods.
And yet Trump isn’t bad enough, and the crisis isn’t serious enough to convince you to abandon one single plank of the Democratic party platform, if it proved necessary to remove him from office? I doubt the sincerity of anyone who says both of those things.
I am, so thank you. 
Hopefully by the time they are old enough to understand we’ll all be vaccinated and Covid will be a distant memory.