Summary: Immigration is the center ring in the political battles of western nations. It shows otherwise hidden dynamics. Most importantly, that both Left and Right are working against the rest of us. The winner might become the dominant force for the next several generations.
James Howard Kunstler nails it in yesterday’s column: “Conflict Escalation.” (bio here; Wikipedia). He provides an introduction to the perilous state of the Republic.
“I’m in the peculiar position of not being a partisan of President Trump, and yet being a publicly avowed enemy – if there’s any doubt – of the Resistance, especially these days its institutional branch known as the Democratic Party. What a ragtag and bobtail of mendacious cowards it has become.
“The truth, I believe, is that the party wants to bring as many Mexicans and Central Americans as possible across the border, by any means necessary, to fortify its future voter base. And so they are acting to insure that it happens. Of course, this might also be viewed as a suicidal course of action for the party, since it puts them in opposition to the rule-of-law as a general principle, which is a pretty sketchy basis for any claim to govern.
“That being the case, the outcome for the Democratic Party may be its own demise as a legitimate political bloc. It’s one thing to ignore the economically foundering, traditional working-class constituency of actual US citizens who are having a tougher time every year making a living; it’s another thing to bring in a several-millionfold population of non-citizens to replace them.
“The trouble is that the entities waiting to replace both the useless, careless, feckless Democrats and Republicans are chaos and violence, not reconstituted parties with coherent political programs. …”
Like Kunstler, I am a dropout from both major parties. But I believe he understates the complexity of our disintegrating politics.
“What a ragtag and bobtail of mendacious cowards it has become.”
That aptly describes both parties. They have been captured by larger social groups, whose use them like a carpenter uses a tool to reshape America. Officials in both parties understand this. Many, perhaps most, do not like being used. But that is the system, and they must play their assigned roles.
The Democratic Party
“I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”
— Darth Vader, “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980).
The forces of the Left use the Democrats to reshape American society, testing their ideology with us as lab rats — as they did to the people of Russia and China. Laboratories in the social science departments of universities have brewed noxious a noxious stew of ideologies. Identity politics, changing Americans concept of their self, fragmenting our society into competing factions (as the Founders feared would happen). Radical racial politics – making racism respectable again (“my” race is good, yours is evil). Radical experimentation with gender, child raising, and the family structure (see my posts about this).
They are like monkeys in the control room, confidently spinning dials and pushing buttons. They have ideology, and so see no need for testing or experimentation.
The Republican Party
“It’s all about power and the unassailable might of money.”
— E. P. Arnold Royalton, the great 21st century industrialist and philanthropist.
The Republican Party has been captured by the 1%. They use it to mold America into a plutocracy. They have no principles. Wars are good or bad as needed to gain power. They tell us that fiscal deficits are evil and fiscal stimulus does not work. But Reagan, Bush Jr., and now Trump cut the taxes of the rich, sending the Federal deficit skyrocketing — providing fiscal stimulus whose results they claim as the result of their genius.
They increasingly cream off America’s productivity, so that income and wealth inequality increase. Defunding the schools, so that social mobility falls from its already low levels. Destroying Obamacare, so that medical costs crush the lower middle class. Crushing centers of opposition, such as the unions. They want America back like it was before the New Deal, to restore the Gilded Age.
What do they get by doing so? Let’s ask a famous capitalist what he thinks of the New Deal programs.
“What did that get us? A discontented, lazy rabble instead of a thrifty working class. And all because a few starry-eyed dreamers like Peter Bailey stir them up and fill their heads with a lot of impossible ideas.”
–- Henry F. Potter, leading banker and first citizen of Potterville.
This is the vision of many American corporations. Their politics for generations has been focused on doing so — and they’re winning. They have crushed private sector unions, creating an insecure low-wage workforce — so that wages no longer rise from improved productivity, even at full employment. They ruthlessly control workers to maximize profits. Like Amazon, the future of American workers. Bezos is the Henry Ford of our time, reorganizing work to boost efficiency and profits.
- Gawker’s series of well-researched muckraking articles about Amazon
- “I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: My brief, backbreaking, rage-inducing, low-paying, dildo-packing time inside the online-shipping machine“ by Mac McClelland in Mother Jones.
- “Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon’s sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers“ by Simon Head in Salon — “You might find your Prime membership morally indefensible after reading these stories about worker mistreatment”
- “I Delivered Packages for Amazon and It Was a Nightmare” by Alana Semuls at The Atlantic.
The Central role of immigration
Massive immigration has a central role in the plans of both Left and Right, and since the 1970s they have deployed their lackeys in the Dems and GOP to slowly open the borders. It is the center ring in our political wars.
Kunstler describes one motive for the Left to open the borders: gaining votes.
- Migration from the south into America: new people, new foods, new political systems.
- Immigration as a reverse election: our leaders get a new people.
But massive migration gives the Left other benefits. A society can absorb only so many people with foreign cultures before it radically changes. The Left viscerally hates our culture, and sees disrupting it as a gain. They have dreams of installing their ideologies in the wreckage. That is quite foolish, since migrants are poor but proud. They have their own cultures, most of which despise the ideas of the Left (especially about gender roles). Historians will write with astonishment about the Left bringing in so many people who oppose their ideals about homosexuality and feminism.
The Right wants open borders for the same reason they did in 1870 – 1930: to lower wages. After both the Civil War and WWII workers had achieved a strong position in society. Massive immigration crushed them both times. Workers responded immediately in the late 19th century, beginning a multi-decade attempt to close the borders. They slowly succeeded, as a series of bills limited immigration – until FDR closed the border (and expelled millions back to Mexico). This is lost history, which our rulers do not want Americans to know. See the details here.
A massive propaganda barrage builds support for open borders. This is mostly lies (details here), as seen in the lies stoking hysteria about the migrant children in concentration camps. My favorite is the fancy dancing of the tame economists how deny the law of supply and demand. But a generation of data shows that it still works: more supply of labor lowers its price (i.e., wages).
The debate about immigration might determine if we will rule ourselves as a free people, or be pawns fought over by elites on the Left and Right. If the latter, we can look forward to the cage match when both sides fight to the finish. Today’s battles — such as those about immigration and our mad foreign wars, about our new Cold War — are bipartisan. Both sides against us. But only one can win.
Let’s work so that we are the winners.
“The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.”
— Ronald Reagan’s speech following the explosion of the Challenger, 28 January 1986.
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you found this post of use, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Also see these posts about immigrants, about fake news, and especially these…
- Essential reading about hidden history: The history of immigration and America, lost amidst the more useful myths.
- Migration from the south into America: new people, new foods, new political systems.
- Immigration as a reverse election: our leaders get a new people.
- Look at immigration policy to see our government respond to its masters.
- The numbers about immigration that fuel Trump’s campaign.
- Immigration to the US surges. It’s good news for Trump.
- Trump wants to defend our borders. Democrats protest.
- The lies about immigration keeping the borders open.
To better understand immigration
As so often the case, we can see these political dynamics more clear in other societies. We can learn much from the immigration crisis in Europe. It is our future.
Reflections on the Revolution In Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West
The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam
