@DrDeth, I wrote a comment saying Biden had successfully reduced border encounters this year using Executive Orders, and that the Democrats could have tried to pass a bipartisan border bill early in Biden’s term rather than waiting till near the end, and then made the comment above.
Did you mean to say that Biden’s recent EOs and/or the failed border bill are bigoted and xenophobic? Or that wanting to reduce the flow of migrants over the border is bigoted and xenophobic? Or what?
(once again catching up a bit with old posts, but I’ve finished travelling now)
Two things:
Firstly, I think you’ve misunderstood something here. The point is that, due to covid, emergency measures were put in place to e.g. summarily expel migrants and the border was easier to police with non-essential travel also blocked.
Nobody envisioned those provisions lasting forever, for various practical and legal reasons. And when Biden ended the emergency measures there was a big spike after the two years or so that title 42 had been in place.
Secondly, we’re supposed to be discussing “woke policies”. No-one is disputing that border crossings were a real issue in this administration.
So where’s the woke? Apart from separating children from their parents, what was different about Biden’s policies to Trump’s pre-pandemic?
What are you basing that on? I see no reason to think that republicans would have been good faith actors if only the bill had been brought sooner. I mean, what is the good faith reason for them blocking this bill?
In terms of the time it took, sure, that’s a legit criticism.
I will say though that it took time to negotiate the bill, so the talking point of it being a last minute-pre-election thing is bogus, it was more than a year before that in the making (and only 4 days for republicans to completely flip their views on it).
Well, we’re waiting…I note that nothing in the remainder of your post supports the claim of snobbishness, only a goalpost shift to the idea that EU membership benefited higher paid workers more…
It may have benefit some workers more than others, but we’re basically *all* worse off now. Not even the brexit proponents pretend otherwise at this point. They just try to claim that the wrong kind of brexit was implemented.
Actually that’s not entirely true. On GB News to defend Brexit they might tout that UK exports are technically up right now; usually neglecting to mention that this is largely down to an increase in the price of gold, for which the UK is one of the world’s biggest traders, and looks substantially different with gold out of the picture. So I guess there is a way that Joe the plumber has benefited from Brexit, what with his substantial portfolio in the commodities markets.
As others have pointed out, this isn’t what has happened. US unemployment is at record lows, and not only have wages beaten inflation but the higher percent gains have been seen at the lower income levels.
Not disputing that illegal crossings are not an issue, but let’s try to stick to reality.
Additionally, we can see how much of it was just stoking up fear and hate by the fact that republicans repeatedly referred to the Haitian immigrants as “illegals”. It was code for brown people.
I do support mostly open borders, outside of disease carriers, criminals and the like. Actually dangerous people. Immigration is a benefit, not a problem. Nearly a necessity, in fact.
And I don’t think “anyone who opposes immigration is a bigot”. Most are but not all I think (not that the profit motive and poor judgement is all that moral either). And that most of the time it’s just race war, with “immigrant” as code for “brown”. I think that characterizing it as a “security issue” and immigrants as “dangerous” is bigoted, however. I also consider it bigoted to pretend that they are somehow harming the US instead of the ones being exploited.
Did you think I meant to imply illegal immigrants are dangerous by saying 'border security bill? I was trying to distinguish between a bill aimed mostly at policing the border/directly deterring entry with one mostly focused on illegal immigrants already living in the US (eg by providing paths to citizenship). So I thought you meant wanting the border policed at all was bigoted.
Exactly. I’ll suggest that it is certainly possible to have too much of a good thing, and unbounded immigration is going to be too much. Immigration needs to be managed.
You may not have meant to, but many people using that phrase mean to. The word security primarily means freedom or protection from danger. Pounding on the idea of Border Security is a way to shift people’s internal feelings about the issue, to repeat over and over that immigration management is the same thing as protecting Americans from danger.
Republicans have pursued the narrative that immigrants are poisoning the country, stealing our jobs, our money, and committing crimes. There’s an awful lot of discussion to be had about immigration and border crossings without supporting these dangerous ideas.
…can we clarify: what is the woke thing we are discussing regarding the border?
Because neither Trump or Biden had woke border policies. So there was nothing to tone down.
I can’t keep up with these shibboleths. Kamala Harris herself was calling it a border security bill! It’s wild to make these assumptions because someone uses the same language as major newspapers and networks. And even if a person is using a certain term because that’s what they’re familiar with from conservative news, it doesn’t mean they have fully bought into whatever propaganda point is supposedly being pushed.
I don’t think the Democrats lost by being too woke. I don’t think the campaign was very “woke” at all. Harris learned into being a moderate.
I think the Democrats lost for three major reasons:
Also, it hurt that Harris was a woman (and a Black woman.) she underperformed most of the down-ballot Democrats. I don’t think that’s because her campaign was bad, it she’s bad, or Trump is super-appealing compared to all the other Republicans. I’m think it’s because many are reluctant to vote for a woman for executive.
Thankfully, our next president said
so it should be easier for you to keep up in the future.
I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure you’ll meet someone someday.
(I kid, I kid…)
How do you determine if they’re a criminal?
The fact that so many people including their nominal opponents let the Republicans define the narrative and the language used is one of the reasons the Republicans have such an advantage. And most of the “major newspapers and networks” lean strongly Right, given that they are owned by giant corporations and rightwingers, so of course they talk like that. They want the public to think of brown people as enemies who should be killed.
Going into details on this seems pretty far afield–but checking criminal records in an origin country doesn’t seem beyond the reach of a government.
I’m curious why you think this. There are quite a few states that have or had female governors aren’t there? Why would voting for a president be different?
Exactly: Democrats are pretty goddamn far from “woke” in any sense. They’re using the language of conservatives.
Because what’s different about Harris than the downballot Dems who won is her gender. Because i spent two weeks canvassing, and spoke to an awful lot of voters, and they told me they wanted to vote for “someone strong”. Because it’s a freaking obvious thing that pops up pretty much everywhere.
A gay black man could win the race for mayor here in Philly. He would have no chance of becoming governor due to the fact that outside a few big cities Pennsylvania is very conservative.
If Democrats are using it then it’s hardly the language of conservatives! This stuff is crazy-making. People use the words they’ve heard before; if you’re going to judge their beliefs just from that then you’re pretty much precluding any better understanding.
And the fact she only had a short time to campaign, and the fact she wasn’t chosen but was made candidate out of necessity after doing relatively badly in the primary in 2020, which suggests she isn’t personally very popular.
There’s something to that. Both Thatcher and Merkel were definitely seen as strong. Maybe this is a bigger deal for female candidates, but it doesn’t mean no woman can win.