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I recently completed Douglas Murray's The Strange Death of Europe and The War on the West. Taken together these books amply document the changes in America both past, present, and future as a result of internal and external forces. It is sobering and depressing if you are a lover of the Enlightenment and the animating philosophy of the American founders.
The important takeaway is that America (anymore than Europe) is not going back to earlier times. The people chanting "Death to America" in Michigan are not leaving, nor will they be removed. President Biden and the Democrats will certainly not remove any illegal aliens while in power -- now or in the future. President Trump will remove some, but certainly not all. That President Trump will remove some will be an improvement. Those targeted will be violent criminals and/or gang members. The Chinese "immigrants" will no doubt come under some scrutiny by Trump to determine whether they are actually foreign agents of the CCP positioned here either as part of a specific plan or giving the CCP some "options" in the event of harsh treatment by a future administration. But wholesale deportation is not in the cards.
Thus America will have absorbed millions of migrants in some fashion. Will that result in increasing "no-go" zones for domestic law enforcement? Will that result in acceptance of cultural and religious practices not heretofore countenanced by American law? It has in Europe, so why not here?
But more than that, the entire conception of what it means to be an American is changing. It doesn't matter what you want, the transforming power of the surging tide will modify the terrain. How can it not? We can rail and complain, but what are we really going to do about it?
Murray's book clearly identifies a major human weakness: We only see clearly what is coming after it arrives. We assume our leaders either anticipated it and did not act, did not anticipate and failed us, or anticipated and wanted it to happen. So we always know who to blame -- feel better? No, I didn't think so.
It is incumbent upon us to adapt to changed circumstances. That doesn't mean just accepting what happens. But it does mean focusing on practical steps to salvage as much as we can of the America we want.
Don't get me wrong, there are bad actors. There are politicians, academics, and NGOs that need to be dealt with in some fashion to address their malign creation and support for American "transformation" away from our constitutional order. But the important task is to do what we can to bolster the reality and significance of citizenship, and its most important attribute: consent of the governed. We must not let the migrant crisis divide us, and by "us" I mean those of us who share a view about constitutional order without regard to agreement on a given fixed set of policies.
We need to focus on our own geographical communities and its leaders. What do they know about illegal immigrants where you live? What are their plans for integrating them into the community and providing civic education to help them understand what their neighbors expect of them, what is tolerable and what is not? Does local government actually have the means of communicating with these illegals? Are there NGOs operating in your community that are acting against the community's interests and what can be done to stop them or redirect their efforts away from your community? Are community leaders communicating with surrounding communities to share information and strategies?
The federal power is not going to help. We are on our own. The sooner we accept that reality, and the reality that it is in our own hands to preserve our communities as close to the "before times", the more quickly we will develop the network and strategies that best serve us.
Discussion (50)
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Get a second passport so you can bug out if/when things get too much for you to handle. Estonia's a pretty good option.
Contrary to the stereotype of the patriotic American, Americans are actually more likely to have a second passport than any other nationality.
I've noticed a small flurry of articles about obtaining a second passport lately (largely based on the CNBC article):
cnbc.com
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businessinsider.com
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menafn.com
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finance.yahoo.com
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escapeartist.com
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If people truly love America, they will not leave it to the commies. Move from a blue state to reinforce a red state. Push back as long as you can. If life becomes intolerable, red states need to edit the Declaration of Independence and resubmit it then grab the flag and Constitution and save the red states. There are no other choices once life under authoritarians becomes intolerable. The entire western world is under assault.
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Civilization has to be defended every damned day. Some days it takes more work for longer. I think those days are here.
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I think we need to think differently about everything from now on.
I was just watching this video about the "protests" at Yale this past week and today:
Riot police at Yale as hundreds of students hold anti-Israel protest (youtube.com)
About a minute into the clip, Brian Kilmeade asks the Jewish Yale students who these protestors were, if they were students. Both students said that it was impossible to tell.
That raised my curiosity about the schools my kids attended. I looked them up to see if there were any anti-Semitic riots there. Nope. Then I looked at some other schools their friends went to. Nope. I am curious to know if other readers on Ricochet who have connections with colleges that are not Ivies are seeing the same thing I am--no anti-Israel riots.
This is what I think is happening: These are Antifa types of professionals who are entering these campuses and stirring up the students and a lot of violence. They are probably a mix of U.S. citizens and immigrants. The point is, Americans haven't changed. These are domestic terrorists who, like all terrorists, are looking for the maximum amount of press coverage. The University of New Hampshire is not going to get global attention, but Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and MIT will. They are not bright people, but they know the names of the Ivies, and so that's where they are going.
People who hate the United States have been infiltrating our country now, coming through within the sea of immigrants let in by Obama and now Biden, some legally, some not, for almost fifteen years. Poorly controlled or completely uncontrolled immigration was the number one issue in America in 2016.
Larry Kudlow always cites the number of illegal immigrants as being somewhere between 10 and 40 million. The size of that unknown range is just mind boggling in and of itself.
I don't know how we can get this situation under control.
We think the anti-Israel riots are bad. Wait until Trump deports the first hundred people.
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But aren't places like Yale also more likely to want people like AOC and Tlaib as students to promote their "diversity?"
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