Trump's GOP Moves to "Make America White Again"
Stopping "illegal," or, more appropriately, undocumented immigration was one of the big three messages of Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
But so was stopping legal immigration, and now Trump's fellow Republicans are making good on his promises.
On Tuesday, two leading Republican senators -- Georgia Senator David Perdue and Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton -- introduced a bill that they say would cut legal immigration to the United States by a whopping half.
It would do this by limiting green cards, slashing away at the number of refugees that are legally allowed to flee to America, and ending a lottery system that brings in immigrants from countries under-represented in the country as a whole.
Cotton defended the plan Tuesday night on Fox So-Called News - saying it was all about defending "blue-collar workers"
Cotton is a smart politician who knows how to say the right things to make Fox happy - but he's not telling the truth about this.
His bill isn't about protecting workers and raising wages, it's about something else -- something so ugly that Cotton wouldn't even say on Fox So-Called News.
It's about "Making America White Again."
Think of it this way.
If Cotton and Perdue really cared about wages and workers - they'd raise the minimum wage so that it matched up with productivity (around $19 an hour) and they'd pass card check legislation to make it easier for workers to form unions and thus collectively bargain for higher wages.
But that's not what they're doing.
They're trying to cut immigration.
And they're trying to cut immigration because immigrants to the United States these days are way less white than they used to be.
Until 1960s, we limited immigration on the basis of how many people whose ancestors were from any particular country were already in the United States.
Since most Americans in the first half of the last century were white, this was a slick way to keep people who weren’t white out of the country.
That all changed in 1966, when President Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, blowing apart the old quota system and ushering in a new era of immigration from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Johnson's move was as revolutionary an act as the Voting Rights Act, which conservatives also hate, and they have never really gotten over it.
For example, Pat Buchanan, the godfather of Trumpism, even went so far as to blame the Immigration Act of 1965 for the 2007 Virginia Tech Massacre because the gunman was Korean.
As Buchanan wrote, "Cho was among the 864,000 Koreans here as a result of the Immigration Act of 1965...which threw the nation's doors open to the greatest invasion in history. What happened in Blacksburg cannot be divorced from what's been happening to America since the immigration act brought tens of millions of strangers to these shores."
That would be "strangers of color," if you've never read Buchanan.
As ugly as that sentiment is, it's swarming right below the surface of the entire Republican Party's anti-immigration rhetoric.
The simple reality, as Buchanan would point out, is that they want to "Make America White Again."
They just don't have the guts to say it.
Comments
It hasn't been just Johnson that has been responsible for the influx of foreign nationals. Under Dubya, our medical system has been fully stocked with foreign doctors. In the past fifteen years I have had a two Korean doctors, a Chinese doctor, a Mexican doctor, a Persian doctor, an Eastern Indian doctor, and a Phillippine doctor. Where did all of the White doctors go? I think the answer is, the professional class has been promised great authority lattitude and getting their pockets lined (Tom Price) and is being used to garner padded profits but also "compulsive compliant submissiveness" from people. The doctors are holding our health care and scripts hostage if we don't comply with their demands. These foreign doctors come from patriarchal, mysognistic, authoritarian, if not totalitarian, societies that are already on board with Right-wing thinking. White doctors seem to be ending up specialists that most of us can't afford (eg sport medicine or plasitc surgery).
Just wondering, if I cross a boarder without a visa or passport, am I not an illlegal entrant? Why do we say undocumented? If one is undocumented, has landed in our boaders, are is one not Illegal? I would change the PC language to Illegal Entrant! That sounds truthful and yet not so Alienated!!! Ha, get the pun!
Sorry, the Opposames (GOP and DEM PROGRESSIVES), need to stop the Idenity Politics and the Social Politics. If we don't focus on educational changes to build a worker base of 22nd Century types, we are going to be a nation of "Cupcakes" who can't read, write or have a thought worth listening to.
Best to all you millineal dunderheads - Have fun protesting nothing that matters or anyone cares about. Besides, your hoolagan friends are rioting and causing property damage and we old farts are blamiong you for that too. Gonna be a rough ride for the next 50 years. Ill be dead, someone elses problem. I went from 60's hippie, to 70's anti-war type, to 80's middle class worker, to 90's Baby Boomer wealth, to 2000 social securtity and retirement fund wine drinker and fishing slacker. Will be dead by 2040. Just about the time the debt (or the Giant Comet hits the earth), and all colapses. Charge up your AMEX cards around 2035 to max, you won't likely have to pay it off.
Capt'n Scinicle
Yes, keeping Amereria white is probably a big motivating factor for them. On the other hand, they are not incorrect that the influx keeps wages down and jobs harder to get. That impacts low end & blue collar workers the most, making life difficult for them.
The University of Minnesota recently released a report confirming what economists and analysts have been trying to tell us for a long time: Immigration and influx of other individuals is a distinct economic gain all around. Minnesota is experience extremely slow growth -- .05 % -- not enough to keep up with people leaving the workforce, moving elsewhere, and the like. We need these immigrants and others to for our workforce.
Forbes (that radical publication) says this: The conventional wisdom says illegal immigrants take American jobs and lower American wages.
That conventional wisdom is wrong.
According to an April 2015 symposium on the effects of illegal immigrants in the Southern Economic Journal, illegal immigrants actually raise wages for documented/native workers. Meanwhile, rules preventing illegal immigrants from getting driver's licenses raise our car insurance premiums and E-Verify requirements raise the cost of doing business and reduce employment.
People need to start understanding that, as Forbes said, we NEED these immigrants and others to fill our workforce and do these jobs. Moreover, many of them have strong skills we need. Many are entrepeneurs who start businesses and create jobs. No, the "influx" does NOT keep wages down. Read what the economists -- including conservative economists -- have to say on the impact of immigration.
Thanks for that, historywriter!
Blaming America's economic woes on a tiny fraction of immigrants (documented or not) is a transparent diversionary tactic to throw a frustrated working class off the scent of the real culprits -- an unaccountable class of millionaires and billionaires, who suck up most of the wealth of our nation by bending the rules to benefit themselves, while the rest of us bicker among ourselves, looking for convenient scapegoats.
Have we learned nothing from Bernie?
Just an old independent here, but for my money, Trump would have done well to get rolling on some biggly needed public works projects fixing and enhancing our transportation infrastructure and creating jobs first before doing the Republican melt-down of all things 'tainted' by Democrats. But that's just me. I hate to fly and would love to be able to take a fast rail train ride to our nations capital, say for a future innauguration or some such.
They are as Thom suggests, obviosly not concerned with blue collar woirkers or they would be hollering about the multitude of laws that hamstring blue coller workers instead of using blue collar workers as an excuse to cover their hatred and bigotry toward immigrants that may not be as white as they are.
Illegal immigrants do indeed keep wages lower. Economic fact that the more the demands are the higher the cost. Only fools think more labor increases wages. That's simply foolish thinking.
Look at it like this. I have three people prepared to do the same job. I only need one. I take which ever person is less economically costly for labor.
If I have three people and need four, I increase the wages to proselytize more employees.
Illegal immigrants depress wages, meaning less available jobs for legal labor participants. The lie Americans wouldn't do the jobs is just that, a lie. If the wages are high enough, you well get the needed employees.
Immigration reform is needed. We are, in fact, accepting more legal immigrants than we can currently sustain.
Speaking of depressed wages, they depressed me so much that after thirty years I retired.
Sorry, Thom...but I hope you smiled.
The phrase "...more appropriately", undocumented immigration... is a misnomer. Specifically, it is not "appropriately", it is "techically, accurately and legally" undocumented immigration. There is no such thing as "illegal immigrant".
Talk to any immigration attorney - it is not illegal to be undocumented in America, although the Republicans ARE talking about making it so (which means by inference that they are admitting that it is not illegal).
To be 'illegal' means it is criminal, subject to a trial and imprisonment. Being undocumented is a civil matter, not criminal - they may be arrested and held, but they go before a civil immigration judge and the penalty is deportation, not jail time (except for the time they are held for processing). Definitely not a criminal matter to be undocumented.
The term "illegal immigration" was originally used to denigrate the Polish, German and Italian immigrants of the 1920's, then faded away until a Republican political operative revived it as a Republican wedge issue around 1984, during the Reagan administration, as a cause celebre for the Republicans. (Unfortunately, I've lost my reference to who the operative was, believe his first name was Richard.)
Keep that in mind when somebody tells you to not be so PC - you are not being PC, you are being legally accurate. Just because everybody THINKS it is illegal does not make it so.
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TRAVESTY {a 2-verse limerick}
We fret in yuuge despair.
Trumpism’s too much to bear.
We’re in his snare;
he’s {everywhere} EVerywhair.
Travesty beyond compare.
… … …
Clumsily they speed; - all blurs
in confusions {everywhere} EVerywhurs.
They’re {amateurs} amaturs; -
- bad horsemen with spurs
and under their saddles sharp burrs.
=======================
Where do these "so-called" white men think their forebears came from? As so often mentioned, the indigenous people of this country were Native Americans. So, all the rest of us are or were "immigrants". These white elitists cannot reverse the tide of a multi-cultural United States so they had better get with it and stop acting like would-be slave owners. That time is long past and it is but a generation or two before this change will be accomplished.
ejwong,
Your own racism is showing...big time.
K2
1. The Latinamerican people that are undocumented should be considered "refugees" I will tell you why. The USA is responsible for the bombings, invasions, coup d'etats, Condor Plan in LA, resulting in the establishment and support of dictatorships that have resulted in millions of deaths, assassinations, etc. that have brought violence against the people of X country making people flee. Latest Obama/Clintons Haiti, Honduras, Paraguay, and recently Brasil.
2. The Wall: If the USA stops these actions there would not be so many refugees. LA countries should build a wall to prevent the interventions by the USA.
3. The USA along with UK, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia and other countries have created the Middle East crisis by assassinating leaders, good or bad, it doesn't matter, but they are all oil producing countries. So now the neoliberals in USA have taken power and want to deny Muslims from entering the USA.
4. This administration ignorance or (making believe) think that this is a nationality, not a religion.
5. These so called "free trades" NAFTA, CAFTA have destroyed the economies in Latinamerica, mainly Mexico.
Everyone talks about the problem but never take a look at the cause or the source.
Responsibly, Ivonne Garcia
deepspace, comment #6 ...says it all!
Now if we could only get our elected representatives to speak like that to the national press. Bernie needs to hold trainings for his coworkers.
My question is, if we're going to round up people of color for undocumented immigration, don't we also need to arrest those who were accomplices to this so called crime?
Crooked Donny for example needs to be arrested for his involvement with the countless illegals who have enriched his raggedy ass. We could start with the 200 "illegals" he hired to demolish the Teller building???
I'm so god damn fed up with all the greed, hypocrisy, and self puffed power seekers.
A few days ago somebody made a comment about progressive radio going off the air in Ithaca NY, one of the most progressive communities in the world. If that's the case, then I would guess a wealthy fascist owns that radio group. All local businesses should boycott and not purchase advertisement minutes with them.
Creeping fascism in America is no longer creeping; it's galloping! All the essential tenets are on full display in the new White-man House and formally endorsed by the demonic high priests of monopolistic capitalism and their greasy-palm disciples in Congress:
Disenfranchising the opposition through fraudulent election processes; instituting one-party rule; stroking the ego of the dear leader; dictating by decree; deregulating concentrated wealth; installing military and business elites in key cabinet positions; attempting to purge the bureaucracy of the ideologically impure; establishing opaque governmental departments; promoting the build-up of an already too-powerful, militaristic, world-wide empire; posturing an attitude of hostility toward foreign governments; wasting taxpayers' money by needlessly building ineffectual border walls; militarizing the police state; disparaging the judiciary; suppressing the press; lying repeatedly to the public; prosecuting dissent; bullying and ridiculing the less powerful; fanning the flames of nationalistic fervor; supporting the radical views of one's own fringe, authoritarian followers; dividing the people; instilling fear and hate; encouraging violence; advocating one religion over others; irreligiously demanding the denial of health programs for the sick; cold-heartedly defunding programs that help the poor and the disadvantaged; stupidly dismantling programs that help the environment; unabashedly implementing programs aimed at racial purification.
...And what will week four bring, Herr Drumpf?
First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America By David J. Meltzer, 2009, et al.
There were never peoples indigenous to America, or The New World. By definition, indigenous means "naturally occuring." "America" evolved with indigenous plants and animals, but no indigenous people. Archaeology and other disciplines some time ago established that who are called "Native Americans" were the existing people here when the Spanish arrived, but these were people descended from immigrants, the earliest of whom were most likely Siberian.
This is the most up to date conclusion, excepting that of Creationists, and has nothing to do with ownership, rights, entitlements, or political conflict.
There were no people in America until the first immigrants arrived.
We need to have the uncomfortable discussion that we want to avoid, the one about jobs. The last I heard, there are seven jobs for every ten jobless people who still have the means to pursue one (home address, phone, etc.), in a country that has turned its back on the jobless poor. Every new immigrant, as well as every refugee, needs a job. We like to imagine that immigrants will create a mass of new jobs, but if so, that would be years in the future. As immigtrants are hired, what do we say about the Americans who are left jobless?
Actually, the US has slowly been implementing fascism for years, with the consent of the "masses." Because the US itself is an economic entity, it makes sense that ours is a class-based form of fascism. Since the 1980s, we've stripped our poor of a list of fundamental civil and human rights, thereby meeting the definition. During this time, we were effectively re-educated to regard the poor as something less than "regular Americans." This is fascism, and predictably, we see it trickling up.
What we need is an effective E-Verify system universally applied and strong enforcement and penalties for business that either refuse to use E-Verify when hiring, or knowingly hire and keep illegal workers.
We simply don't need illegals working in this country when there are plenty of jobless Americans, or under-employed Americans that would work good jobs, such as construction, meat and food processing, and manufacturing, at wages that would be higher without the undercutting of illegals.
We don't need illegals burdening our schools with expensive mandated bilingual classes that their taxes don't come close to paying for.
Also, since far more persons throughout the world want to come to the US, we can afford to be very selective in who legally comes here.
We should heavily favor those with specialized skills, high education levels, capital, and from cultures that are the most likely to immediately assimilate. Also, we should take relatively young candidates who are determined by evaluation to be healthy.
This is simply common sense.
If Christian Arab refugees are determined to be less of a potential threat than Muslims, and more likely to assimilate, why not give them a more favored status? Common sense.
Ejecting Illegals from milllions of good jobs, establishing a guest worker program (for jobs that Americans really don't want), that doesn't offer citizenship and is limited to a six year maximum stay in or, and carefully monitoring the numbers and qualifications of those we allow in here, would not only enhance security, but create a more favorable jobs/worker ratio that would reduce unemployment and raise wages far more than a 15/HR middle class harming minimum wage scheme.
The only concerns about immigration, legal and otherwise, should be what is best for the American worker, citizen, and taxpayer. And what will ensure the most effective assimilation into the mainstream. (We must not allow our country to become a high unemployment, high taxed, linguistic and cultural tower of Babel just to please those who would delight in pleasing other countries and showing how nice and egalatarian we are.)
We need to just look at France, Germany, and Italy to see how "wonderful" unchecked immigration is.
As leighmf pointed out, we are all immigrants. As ejwong pointed out, Native Americans were the first people to inhabit this land, and look how they were treated by white-man immigrants flooding in from Europe. As IvanneGar pointed out, the United States' ruthless imperialistic policies over the decades have created millions of immigrants/refugees. As 2950-10K pointed out, the Hypocrite in Chief himself loves little brown immigrants, documented or not, as long as he can pay unlivable wages. As many others have pointed out, our economy is still highly dependent on slave labor; and that's just fine with us, as long as all those disgusting "mud people" keep making our shiny new toys, stay put in their own godforsaken polluted lands, and don't bother us with all that human rights crap!
The racist paradigm of "new" immigrants pitted against "old" immigrants does not address the deeper problem of all working people being forced into an ugly competition for fewer and fewer good jobs by a system rigged for the rich. Because of the reverse incentives inherent in the so-called "free" market globalization of the economy, the greedy and unpatriotic titans of industry for the last thirty-plus years have been busily transplanting the core of our manufacturing base -- the true wealth of a nation, and once the envy of the world -- to China and other third-world, low-wage economies with lax or nonexistent pollution regulations.
As Thom repeatedly points out, a large middle class -- thanks mostly to Democratic progressive policies -- is an aberration of history. The classic economic model of a society with extreme wealth disparity is a tiny ruling class of pampered elites, a small educated class of professionals and entrepreneurs, and a huge class of the working poor fighting over the crumbs, which makes up most of the population.
That's why Republican economic theories are regressive; they hark back to the dark ages of kings and serfs and slaves.
“We need a better screening process for people entering Canada. This current system is clearly isn’t working,” wrote one user on Global Edmonton’s Facebook page.
“Thanks a lot for opening the doors Trudeau,” said another.
“This is exactly what happens with foreign refugees being allowed into our country wholesale without proper vetting,” said another.
This is the reality of bringing in refugees without properly screening them. Canadians are furious as more and more sexual assaults are happening all over our nation after Prime Minister Trudeau rushed in 25,000 Syrians on an election promise. All you have to do is look north of your border to see that taking a pause to insure that only well intentioned people are entering your country. Many of the assaults are happening in pools. Think about you come from a nation where you have only seen a women's eyes to a swimming pool where they are just wearing a bikini. This isn't a color thing it is a lifestyle difference.
This whole meme of "OMG here come hordes of evil Muslims to kill and rape good Christians" has gone viral in the right-wing bubble; however, in the real universe, it is nothing but pure propaganda to terrorize and manipulate a malinformed audience of cow-eyed chumps. From time immemorial, authoritarian leaders have used fear of the "other" to exploit their gullible followers. That's how they consolidate power, start unnecessary wars, and commit horrendous acts of state sponsored terror, e.g., Dummy Bush and Darth Cheney.
The U.S. has one of the most thorough vetting processes in the world, which takes up to two years or longer, involving numerous agencies and stringent requirements. We already accept less immigrants and refugees than any other first-world Western nation, much to their chagrin. Moreover, on our Mexican border, under the Obama Administration, greater numbers of "undocumented" people (Bigoted buttheads prefer the demeaning label, "illegals.") have been leaving the U.S. than coming in.
Since 9/11 -- an attack carried out mainly by Saudi nationals, from one of our most murderous, militarily subsidized allies in the Middle East -- virtually every one of the lethal acts of terror on our soil have been committed by home-grown lone wolfs and/or white male, phony Christians, who think they are doing God's work by terrorizing peaceful Blacks, Hispanics, and Muslims, three of our most patriotic communities.
None of America's terrorists have come from the seven Middle East countries on Trump's ill-conceived and unconstitutional list, and none have ever been immigrants or refugees, other than a (very) few who came over as children, became citizens, and only later were radicalized as adults.
The liars and thieves who really need to undergo "extreme vetting" (and banished, preferably, to Antarctica with nothing more lethal than fishing poles and ice cleats) are the white supremacists who have immigrated into the White-man House and the Republican Congress against the will of the people, due to decades-long election fraud!
Talk to the Europeans and Scandinavian how happy they are with their immigration policies and the results of being stupid.
Comparing apples to oranges is stupid.
Deep space. Get your head out of the sand. This is what happens when close your eyes to the truth . Of course not all are like this but at very least we should do our best to prevent this from happening and it's happening all over the world
ARREST LEADS TO RENEWED CRITICISM OF REFUGEE POLICY
By Caley Ramsay Online Journalist, Global News, February 9, 2017:
WORD THAT A SYRIAN REFUGEE WAS CHARGED WITH SIX COUNTS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT IN EDMONTON QUICKLY LED TO SOCIAL MEDIA BACKLASH WEDNESDAY, FROM SOME WHO OPPOSE CANADA’S REFUGEE PLAN.
Soleiman Hajj Soleiman, a Syrian refugee and father of six, was charged following an incident at the West Edmonton Mall World Waterpark over the weekend. His arrest led to a heated debate over immigration policy in Canada.
Kend, get your head out of your arse.
According to your alternative "truth," do you mean to tell us that the only person who has ever committed sexual assault in Canada happens to be a Syrian refugee? Wow, I knew your country doesn't have the high crime rate that we do, but only one sexual predator out of your entire population is amazing!
If that's not the case, then your selective logic suggests that whenever anyone else commits such a horrible crime, say, a white Christian Canadian, then all the rest of the members of that person's nationality, religion, and ethnic identity by extension should not be labeled as morally corrupt and evil simply because of the actions of one member of their group ... ah, because they are not Muslim refugees or immigrants?
What about all the Syrian refugees who did not commit crimes? What about all the white Christians who did? Why didn't you mention those statistics? Why do you only cherry pick Muslim refugees?
The obvious conclusion is that you are implying all refugees and all Muslims therefore must be inherently wicked and harbor the same ill intent as the few rotten apples among them. The subsequent conclusion is that your logic is that of an unconscious bigot frightened by right-wing propaganda, which is doing the work of terrorists by scaring susceptible people, such as yourself.
If only Americans were so lucky; after all, our illegitimate so-called "president" committed sexual assault many times over as a lifetime behavioral pattern. Where's the outrage? Oh, that's right; he's a rich white man who calls himself a "Christian."
Evidently, your "truth" needs a bit more polish.
As they say in Eire, "Blarney is the varnished truth; baloney is the unvarnished lie."
Thom,
Sherriff Mack lied on Friday. The DOE doesn't have a SWAT team, and the raid he referenced was based on a warrant accusing them of fraud (nothing to do with their student loans) for which they were later convicted and are in jail.
He's a RW Hate Radio devotee, nothing more.
I wonder how soon they're going to start deporting non-white american citizens who have no birth certificate. It's probably already happening.
More lies from the liars that the lying predator hired to lie for him:
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
Hello All
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Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
Images of Thom
With His Holiness The Dalai Lama, at His home in Dharamsala, India (Synthesis Dialogues - made into a movie narrated by Harrison Ford)
Thom & Louise at a "private audience" with His Holiness Pope John Paul II at his summer palace, Castle Gandolfo, Italy
As most of the world is not white, its clearly mean spirited and illogical to shift questions from immigration policy to shrill sounds about skin color.
US needs a long pause on any immigration, and then it should put standards on skills or assets for immigrants as does Canada and many other rational countries.
ct