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It’s the Immigration, Stupid
Many Americans get very mad when they see protesters waving Mexican flags in American streets. It calls to mind the people who have been flooding into their communities, their emergency rooms, their public parks and their schools for a generation – people with broken or non-existent English who are showing up in increasing numbers mowing lawns, installing carpets or flooring, working in liquor stores or bagel bakeries or garages or a myriad of other businesses or else who are standing out huddled together by the street at 6 AM waiting to be picked up by someone for day labor.
The flying Mexican flag reminds Americans that these people are breaking the law and living in a lawless underground which shuns the police. They are people who – either through poverty or because of a deficiency in character and upbringing – possess no concept of “respect for the law;” people for whom the law is merely a punishment entity that needs to be factored into their personal cost-benefit, risk-reward analysis. They are people whose fundamental amorality with regard to society’s explicit and implicit rules allows them to obtain welfare handouts wherever possible, to apply for child tax credits for children outside the country, to use emergency rooms rather than pay for medical services, to drive without a license and drive away recklessly from accidents and to gather at and often trash public parks and spaces.
These are people who, for whatever reason, have chosen an illegal life course and who, in order to maintain it, are forced into a cascade of other illegalities. That someone living illegally in a foreign country would be unburdened by an abstract respect for the law of that country is not surprising. The disposition you would expect from them is contempt. It is not hard to believe that such people would be prone to disrespect more serious laws involving property and personal safety.
Those Americans who get angry at seeing the Mexican flag on their televisions are quite different from the people who are flying it. They are brought up with an idea that the rules have a basic logic and that they are there for the common benefit. Some may break the laws, many may cheat on the rules, but the vast majority possess an instinct that the law is supposed to be followed irrespective of how it inconveniences me right now or how likely I am to be punished for disobeying it. They wear their seatbelts and they don’t run away from their bills. They wait their place in line instinctively.
The perceptions of these angry Americans toward the flag-wavers and their brethren is predicated on the skin color and accents or languages of the newcomers. They are better able to notice the influx of illegal aliens because many of the illegal aliens are Latino and speak Spanish. The angry Americans, however, get angrier still if you suggest that the source of their disapproval of illegal aliens is racism. The case is quite the reverse. The source of Americans’ growing contempt for Hispanics – and there is no point claiming that it doesn’t exist – is the knowledge that the people they see invading their country and taking their jobs happen to be predominantly (though not exclusively) Hispanic and the majority are in fact from Mexico.
Should the elite from the GOP and their Chamber of Commerce wing and the Democratic Party and the Masters of the Universe get their way and succeed in passing their vile amnesty, you can trust that the subsequent celebratory explosion will be marked by seas of green, white, and red Mexican flags. You can also trust that no single law will more piercingly rip the social fabric and fatally deepen the racism that already exists. There are Americans who will never accept the invaders and who will never forgive their enablers.
It is probably true that the Americans who are enraged by protesters waving the Mexican flag would not list solving illegal immigration – in comparison to providing jobs and building the economy or protecting them from the threat of terrorism – as their highest priority. While, in the words of Senator Jeff Sessions, they have been “begging and pleading their government to enforce the law” for a generation, still, they have grown accustomed to the dishwashers, the hotel staff, and the gardeners and they cannot afford to go around in a state of rage – at least until the flags come out.
It also makes sense to suppose that those Americans who are most enraged by the Mexican flags come preferentially from the lower rungs of society. Not only are poorer people more immediately impacted by illegal aliens (no illegal alien has threatened, so far, to take my nanophysics theory job), but there is something subtler and more spiritual about their anger. It is this:
If you are poor, it can be a struggle to respect the rules. It can be a struggle to obey them. Hell, just getting by may be a struggle. Perhaps you haven’t seen a pay raise in a decade. Perhaps you are working longer hours in harder jobs than you used to. Or you are facing a pile of medical bills or are postponing your retirement. Or if you are younger you might be having trouble putting decent clothes on your kids without thinking about where or whether they will ever go to college. It is more than a suspicion to you that life in the lower echelons of American society is not easy and for what seems like the longest while it’s been getting harder.
And yet with all the bills and the hardship and the sweat, you are able to find that vital, holy something that causes you, when you’re not totally exhausted, to sit your kids down and tell them about the importance of obeying the rules. God bless you.
That vital something you have found has a name. It is called civilization.
I’m telling you people: literally millions of Americans who are not distinguished by their dedication to political discourse are rushing to support a rather loutish and highly imperfect presidential candidate (who will go unnamed) who started his campaign by exhibiting a profound sympathy for those who have suffered the most — practically and morally — from watching the rules get trampled. And trampled.
He has suggested that the only solution to the illegal immigration problem is for those who have come here illegally to return home. However much that may end up being a blue-smoke “touchback” – and we owe it to ourselves to make it more and to make it real – it is nevertheless, morally, the only answer.
Those people who get most angry at the Mexican flag wavers guard a wisdom that is little more than a rumor to you or me. If, in your efforts to crush the vulgarian, you manage to crush them as well, you will leave us with an empty space on the inside.
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Published in Immigration
Well, there has been a couple of generations of the Idiocracy effect since WWII.
And, in WWII, if you didn’t work, you starved. Now, if you don’t work, you stay at home watching TV on your big screen TV and playing video games.
If you haven’t seen this Adam Carolla video, it’s worth watching, but about a minute in, he has a bit about how what you see on daytime television says about how we have changed as a country in his lifetime.
I’ve spent a lot of my lifetime as a volunteer in American high schools, and we are not doing a very good job with the kids.
That does not mean we cannot fix it. These kids have the same potential the kids in the 1940s had.
One thing we overlook when we talk about World War II was what a monumental achievement it was in terms education.
We educated thousands of young people in a very short period of time for military work, and then thousands and thousands more for the factories here.
They used to think women weren’t too bright either. Then the women started making the tanks and ammunition in World War II.
Tyrell Owens is not the reason the Dallas Cowboys stink as a team.
And complaining about income inequality and “the 1%.”
Perhaps it means that if they wave the Mexican flag their primary loyalty is not to the United States.
Am I allowed to be concerned when many millions of foreigners enter my country without permission and wave the flag of their country?
Or is that racist?
Plus, I still recall the license plate I saw in the Walmart parking lot in Battle Creek, Michigan circa 2006.
Someone had gone to the trouble of getting a license plate sign with crossed Mexican and American flags- and had scratched out the American flag.
Hence, Trump.
Then why didn’t he just run as a democrat?
Up until today, I’ve assumed that he was trying to help get Hillary elected by destroying the Republican party (he certainly could not have been more successful towards that end if that was his original purpose), but FJG planted the idea in my head that the Clintons, his long-time personal friends, talked him into running as a Republican and it would explain why he is running as a caricature of what the left thinks about Republicans. I guess Clinton really was a brilliant politician.
That’s not true. If you didn’t work, someone took care of you. It was usually a church, or a friendly old lady, or something like that. Until it became clear that you were a shiftless bum, not a hard luck story. Then the old lady ran you off with a shotgun.
A law-abiding tax-paying American doesn’t have the same incentives. First, Americans pay taxes. To take home $12-$15 per hour legally requires a much higher hourly rate. Second, I doubt you’ll find employers willing to pay overtime so Americans can legally work 80 hours a week.
Unless you’re law-abiding. But that is a defect our lawless political class is working hard to correct.
It’s always fascinating to see how much sympathy some people have for illegals and how little for actual Americans.
Yet another reason the political establishment of this country is collapsing.
The people have figured out that the elite despise them.
This seems to be a reasonable point.
I think Michael made some good points.
My own thinking is this– how do we bring in a large portion of Mexicans and not become more like Mexico? Do we want to become more like Mexico? And now, add to that China, I guess. I was never really asked.
My big concern is really this– I don’t want the demographics to completely eliminate the chances of my own political voice being heard except maybe at the local level.I’m getting a little worn out bringing in a bunch of people who will vote left if they get citizenship (barring that, their kids). I like the idea of America as the beacon of hope. But our politics aren’t primarily for the self-actualization (in this country) of foreigners, especially 2nd/3rd world ones.
How did Donald Trump, life-long leftist, acquire the magical ability to destroy the Republican party? How did the GOP become so vulnerable to such disruption? What happened?
It seems to me that if the GOP had done a good job representing the people who voted for the party this would not be happening.
But it has not, and seems incredulous with the idea that it should represent the people who vote for it, because that is mere vile populism.
Shrug. One of things I have learned at Ricochet is that the GOP really doesn’t want the likes of me in their precious club, so my concern for the fate of the gop is sorely lacking.
Especially watching so many gopers come out and say they’d vote for Clinton ahead of Trump.
Maybe that was Trump’s secret plan- elect Hillary by winning the GOP nomination with votes from the despised American people, with whom the GOP wants nothing to do- thus causing the “true conservatives” to vote for Hillary in a landslide.
Because he was successful at marketing to the racist, anti-free-trade, pro-authoritarian wing of the Republican party.
This, so the theory goes, is why the Clintons wanted Trump to run, to put the racist, anti-free-trade, pro-authoritarian wing of the Republican party on the evening news every night. I don’t think the Clintons thought he would win the nomination, he would just make the party eats its own, and that Trump most certainly has done. But Trump winning the nomination makes their job even easier.
I said over the weekend that it seems like the GOP nominee is contra-indicated by what the popular belief of the party is, because whatever belief system is popular will attract 3 or 4 candidates, while the sole candidate holding contraindicated beliefs collects a plurality in the early states and becomes the front runner before anyone can stop it.
The fact that Cruz is going to stay in this race for so long is an indication of how deeply unpopular Trump is in the GOP. I don’t see Trump winning a sizeable majority in any state the rest of the season, but he may very well wind up being the nominee.
I feel the same way. If Trump is what the Republican party wants, then it doesn’t want me as a member.
But then again, I was never a member of the Republican party, I just claimed to be a conservative, and Donald Trump is bridge too far for me. It that makes me a “goper” in your mind, I’m quite comfortable with that, because apparently goper apparently just means someone who refuses to vote for Trump.
And, yes, in this election, I will vote for the lesser of two evils, which might be Hillary Clinton.
I’ll take a shot at this.
The Republican party drifts ever towards the center, engages in crony capitalism, and doesn’t respond to its base of support. Add to this the fact that a deeply unpopular (among conservatives) President wins re-election in a year when he shouldn’t have. Republicans are notoriously unable to tolerate differences of opinion in their elected officials (“Why, he’s nothing but a Rino!”) The party’s elected officials become fractured, between the so called establishment and so called tea party people (if one can make such broad groupings). We’ve got a family feud going on, and it’s at its boiling point. That is how it became vulnerable, to oversimplify.
Donald Trump comes along and says “I can tap in to that anger, and get a whole pile of those dopes to vote for me. That’ll really stir things up.” It is not hard to imagine that the Democrats saw this unfolding, even that they came up with ways to use it to their advantage. Whether Trump is their plan or just an unwitting accomplice, I don’t know.
Either way, he drives a wedge between the factions within the already fractured party. This is not magic. It’s just the dynamics of humanity.
And boom, Republicans lose the general, and maybe even their party.
Good points. I don’t like Trump and wouldn’t vote for him. But GOP left a lot of people behind and now its coming back to haunt them. What gets me is that we are supposed to believe #NeverTrump because he’s really bad and not conservative, and the GOP was some instrument of conservatism. It wasn’t. It was liberal-lite for a long time. I’m not saying that GOP never had to make decisions between bad and worse, but it hasn’t been a largely principled conservative party for a while, even though it has some principled conservatives in it.
So when GOP wants to blow the budget or sell promises it has no intention of keeping that’s okay. When Trump does, its #NeverTrump! In the interest of integrity I must have a fair bit of disdain for both propositions.
Some will be outraged at this excellent article. Let me say one thing. Latinos, legal and illegal come from countries with napoleonic code law, e.g. everything is illegal unless specifically legalized. This means that poor people, small business, tradesmen can only survive by subverting the law. It started as Spanish mercantilism where authorities were remote, tried to control everything and couldn’t really control anything. We should be telling them why they or their parents left their countries of origin and that the Democrats have been turning this country into administrative state from hell with creeping napoleonic black law, i.e. rule by bureaucrats, as they subvert the rule of law.
Well said. The GOP has cooked its own goose and has only itself to blame.
Shrug. My problem no more.
You lost me here.
It seems to me base Republicans have been very tolerant of GOP elected officials making deals, and very accepting of their excuses.
Thing is, I spent a long time as a Republican, and for a very long time I expected the party to actually take on the left and institute reforms, if it gained control of the government and hence the power to do so.
Then it did gain control of the government, due to the 2002 elections- and then…
More of the same. I get the sense that the GOP would still not be able to stop the left even if it had 127 Senate seats and 4056 House seats, because the NY Times would still tell the leadership that the party had no mandate.
I’ve lost patience with this failure, made worse because the party doesn’t even believe it has failed.
Pitiful.
What a shock- a globalist post-American will vote for the globalist post-American in the presidential race.
Go for it. Vote your heart, globalist.
Sniff sniff. That hurts my feelings.
Not really. I don’t care what you or any other Trump supporters thinks.
Live a few years in Mexico, you will notice the innumerable government welfare programs aimed at the “poor” Indians, women, etc. This the Mexican way that they have chosen… and that they are bringing here, by not assimilating.
It is the real problem with illegal immigration… they are bring that failed culture with them.
This is probably true when considering the GOP as a whole. But it is not true, in my experience, when a typical Republican considers a specific candidate. I remember a lot of folks who said they wouldn’t vote for Romney because he flip-flopped on abortion. Or people won’t vote for Rubio because of Gang of 8. They pick on thing they don’t like about the candidate and that candidate is anathema to them. I don’t think the left really do that.
Or maybe it just means they are proud of their heritage. I come from a long line of English and German folks. So far back, I don’t remember anyone who came over from “the old country.” But if I was the son of an Irish immigrant, I might well identify to some degree with Ireland, and be proud of my Irish heritage, and yeah, maybe I’d wave an Irish flag. That doesn’t mean my loyalty is primarily not to the United States.
And here’s me thinking we were having rational conversation. Silly me…
I want you in the club Xennady.
If we are talking about humanitarian work in terms of immigrants from Central America, then our policies need to be considered in conjunction with our foreign aid budget.
Having people come here in such numbers that they are adding to the slums that rim our cities now and adding to our existing welfare budgets makes no sense. We could get much more help to them using foreign aid, where American dollars can go much further than they do here. These people would then get to stay with their families and fix their homes. And our slums would get smaller instead of bigger.
It’s also really important for people to know that something like 35 to 40 percent of the illegal immigrant population are simply visa over-stayers who can and should simply go home. They are here for a lark. It’s not a humanitarian issue.
This is another reason why Americans aren’t taking the low-paying jobs immigrants do: they’re not willing to live packed like sardines. I’m not saying this was the case with the people you’re writing about, but overcrowding and the “stacking” of housing for Hispanic labor is a big issue in a lot of North Jersey towns.
I’d probably say because the left (at least in terms of politicians and media surrogates) is more or less very uniform. Differences in degrees often get magnified mainly because the stakes are so small. Single payer healthcare now or in a few years.
I say this though Sanders is a bit of an outlier, but they all want lots of immigration, few if any restrictions on abortion, and lots of restrictions on legal gun ownership (no word yet on those pesky illegal guns).
Re: The “Proud of their heritage” argument:
I have nothing against people waving flags. But there is probably a meaningfully large (even if not 51+%) proportion of immigrants who believe they are exercising a historical, blood/soil claim to the southwest. So some of that isn’t just “pride” it’s “taking my ancestors land back from people who are exercising an illegitimate claim to it.”
Spin, that’s not at all what he said. I don’t know why you are manufacturing outrage, but that’s not even remotely present in this article. This is really low. Shame on you. This is exactly what the post is arguing against — and here it is. You must be a racist if you don’t adore seeing the Mexican flag? Or am I reading too much into your complaint, and you accuse Stopa (and millions of Americans) only of stirring up class resentment or some such thing — no, nothing to do with race at all.
This is the predicate:
Not your neighbor with a flag on his house. Now I myself don’t like seeing a foreign flag flying anywhere on US soil for other than diplomatic reasons, etc. I live in Japan, and you wouldn’t catch me dead flying an American flag in my neighborhood. It would be a provocation, appallingly bad manners, and it would not be less bad for my becoming a citizen here, God perish the thought. And if I “protested” with that flag for Japanese taxes, I would expect a beating at best.