Stephen Miller was asked if the proposed immigration policy supported by the Trump administration that weights the ability to speak English higher than previous immigration policies was intended only allow immigrants from Great Britain and Australia. Here is his response.
Some people think that was response brilliantly turned the tables on the questioner while others thought it was more than a little intellectually dishonest. I’m in the second camp but that’s not what inspired this thread.
What caught my ear was the use of the phrase, “Cosmopolitan bias.” I had never heard the phrase before and it seemed like a weird turn of phrase for a 31 year-old guy from Santa Monica, CA. So I Googled it and it turns out to be a white nationalist dog whistle.
I’ll repeat for emphasis. The guy who represents Trump’s plans for immigration is dog whistling to white nationalists.
Try to convince me that I’m reading this wrong. I’m less than 100% open minded on this uberdouche (Miller), but I’m willing to listen.
I’ve never heard the phrase before either, but such is the way of dogwhistles- if that’s what this is. While we’re on the subject, my own belief is that I don’t give a shit if someone speaks English or not, let them in to the melting pot, the more the merrier. If I find I’m disturbed by not understanding the language spoken by the people in line behind me at the store, I can learn a new language if I feel like it. I’m free to learn whatever I want to learn- it is a free country.
All terms used by members of the Right to disparage the other side. Folks in the “Fly Over States” often feel that the upper echelons of the Left disparage them (while ignoring how their own party leadership does the same).
So I give him partial credit for being ready with the answer (no way that was off the cuff). It was a cute, trite way to attack back with some legitimacy (I work in a US office full of English speaking immigrants from China and India). Requiring English fluency does not automatically block out immigrants from non-Anglo nations - it just limits it to the more educated (and helps continue the American brain drain effect).
But I won’t deny that he was also tossing out red meat for the deplorable wing of the Trump base.
Salon.com is of course a well known white supremacist web site:
“Nothing Klein says is on its face untrue, and I am particularly sympathetic to his notion of a cosmopolitan bias — one I discussed myself in an earlier post — not because it is unfair to Trump, but because it skews coverage away from the disempowered and toward elites. Let’s face it, the media are self-serving.”
And of course the Cosmopolitan magazine, the Cosmopolitan hotel in NYC, the Cosmopolitan cocktail - all those are dog whistles.
I never heard the term before Miller used it either, but I’m quite sure Miller and his orange boss had no idea that it had a white nationalist connotation, just as they never meant anything about Jews by using the term “International Banks”, and of course that wasn’t a Star of David on that nasty Tweet about Hillary’s supposed corruption a while back.
The bigger question: how the fuck is it cosmopolitan bias to assume that English speakers are from English-speaking countries? Surely folks who live in cosmopolitan cities will be more, not less, familiar with foreigners who speak English as a second language.
Not that the reporter was making any such assumption–Miller was being disingenuous in this attack–but the attack itself makes no sense at all.
whether or not “cosmopolitan bias” is a dog whistle distracts from the larger elephant in the bill. Non English speaking immigrants is a HUGE issue for many in the immigration debate. Many people don’t like it that they have to “push 1 for English” in their own damn country! That local govt offices are spending so much money on nonenglish signs. That a language they dont understand is “spoken by the people in line behind me at the store.” etc. Don’t worry about the dog whistles only a few can hear. It’s the shouts out to the xenophobic that should really concern us!
My greatgrand parents who immigrated here from Ireland had NO FORMAL EDUCATION.
My grandparents never went to high school.
my mother only finished high school.
my father didn’t but got his GED.
I am the first person in my family, EVER, to go to college.
What’s not clear is what the fuck that “vs.” has to do with anything. This isn’t immigrant thunderdome, there’s no natural limit on the number of immigrants we can allow in. And nobody is objecting to letting in educated immigrants; the objection is to using increases there to further stymie poor immigrants who are desperate for a better life here.
I am aware that cosmopolitan can be used as a codeword for Jewish in some circles. (It’s similar to how the word urban is sometimes used as a codeword for black.) But from the context, I don’t think it’s the case here.
I think Miller was using cosmopolitan to connote big city liberal elitists as opposed to Real Americans who live in small towns in the middle of the country.
There are immigration quotas, and no country can, does, or should bring in unlimited number of immigrants, so priorities are important. I think a priority for more educated immigrants is a good one.
I listened to an interviewee on NPR who studies alt-right language, and she laid out a pretty clear, historical case for the use of “cosmopolitan” as a dog whistle in this case. From personal knowledge, all I can say is that when I originally watched the exchange, the word stuck out as bizarrely out of place. Like if Miller had said, “you are showing your urban bias” we would have all said, “huh, what?”
[QUOTE=Okrahoma]
And of course the Cosmopolitan magazine, the Cosmopolitan hotel in NYC, the Cosmopolitan cocktail - all those are dog whistles.
[/QUOTE]
Sure. And if your wife steps out on you (example only - I don’t know if you are male or married, and if you are both of those things, whether your wife would ever cheat on you) and I say “Okrahoma is a cuckold!” I’m on the alt-right.
But you and I both know that’s not true, because context matters.