US Politics, September 2024 -- “I’m Not Going to Apologize For Posting a Joke”

immigration is something that pokes people in a weird bad spot all over the world and has for a long time, people dont like change they dont like those from outside, america is prob better than most places as far as that stuff goes, just had a conversation with a friend who who was born in armenia moved to russia and then america and he was saying america is so much more welcoming to immigrants than either armenia or russia, which stands to reason since america is as they say a nation of immigrants, especially if you move to a place like nyc where 40% of people were born outside the country

places like japan that more or less just dont allow immigration even now that their populations are declining causing lots of undesirable situations, european countries facing population decline are having all sorts of racist/xenophobic reactions to the immigrants theyre letting in to try to combat it

to quote jd vace you ever seen the movie gangs of new york

JD Vance on asylum seekers -- "you ever see the movie Shutter Island?"

she's talking about immigration now.

except now she's not. didn't last long.

Alfred otm — see also the podcast I posted about how deeply ingrained the idea of “don’t give handouts” is within the populace of this country. I’m personally sickened by how easy it is for people to scapegoat immigrants and there’s basically nothing I can individually do about it. Immensely upsetting and I try not to get too heated about it for my own sake.

i came in the legal way and am now a citizen and I undoubtedly make this country worse. something to think about.

kamala is saying the right things or at least as right as one can expect from a centrist dem, doesnt seem like shes saying them loudly tho, whether thats not wanting to get in yr adversarys way when theyre fucking up or just being wary of the situation idk, id like to see her be more forceful here

Deport caek imo

close the borders until we figure out how he got in

I thought we did in 2011.

They're not sending us their best caeks

they call it pudding

Eaten any cats recently, caek?

the shift from "immigrants" to "migrants" is a nasty, de-humanizing rhetorical trick. "sure my grandfather was an immigrant, but he was nothing like those migrants flooding over the border"

It doesn't necessarily persuade people but, just to focus on practical advantages, bringing up low unemployment (nationally), dying cities or even States in terms of population (oh look they're all red on the map) and especially the decreasing birthrate in the West, are the basic counterpoints to be used against anyone's 'legitimate concerns'. Maybe Dems could be pushing some plan for specific investment in smaller cities expansion - even saying that the problem is that there aren't enough Springfield, Ohios.

yup, republicans are good at that sort of thing xp

xxp Absolutely. Cue me trying very emphatically to get this across to an older person who's proudly of several different European immigrant backgrounds w/r/t "those people" coming here now.
:((((((

when Dems try and invest in small towns the GOP just crucifies them for creating government dependence, it's pure politics because any GOP efforts to do the same are simply not reported on as government handouts and the GOP base refuses to think of them that way. also, as noted upthread, people aren't super smart and just want contradictory things... they want high-paying factory jobs across America but despise unions and won't pay more for goods made here vs cheap stuff made overseas. not sure how you solve that.

even saying that the problem is that there aren't enough Springfield, Ohios.

Hmm. Sounds more like a Shelbyville plan to me.

One thing the Springfield debacle makes clear — not that it's news — is that the focus on "illegal" immigration is total bullshit. The Haitians in Springfield are there legally AND are working, but Trump's out there promising to deport them anyway. It's not really about about "legal" vs. "illegal," it's just about othering.

there was a lot of pro-immigrant talk at the convention

Uh, I would suggest that such talk means very little given that the Biden Admin has continued a _lot_ or Trump policies(and there was more than a modicum of those that were continued Obama policy), and they deliberately tried to do some cute stunt where they put forth a more reactionary and restrictive border bill which they knew that the GOP electeds would reject thanks to Trump wanting to run on the deal. The Dems could then do the bullshit thing where they try to appeal that they’re obviously the more reasonable party and thus deserve votes, because they will give in on a lot of GOP points anyway in this rejected bill.

The “kids in cages” talk got used as a talking point in the 2020 election and then a lot of the loudest elected proponents sure shut the fuck up about it after the election. Either they don’t actually care, and I’m sure there are no doubt some party functionaries who do care some, but they either don’t care enough or they can’t change the policy.

A shit-ton of the signaling is also towards the wealthier suburban incoherent voter who might vacillate between parties and who consumes political media more which means that this issue is more live.

i’m pretty sure the dems weren’t bluffing with that border bill. before trump chimed in it was looking like it was going to pass

Took my car to the dealership for an oil change this morning (first one's free!) and there was an old asshole in there wearing a Trump hat and talking loudly about it, to make sure people noticed it. He also claimed to own a T-shirt that said, "I'm Voting For The Convicted Felon." Then he said he was an independent. I felt like looking up the NY Times' phone number and giving it to him. They'd probably give him his own front page story.

politics of immigration are extremely depressing but it’s hard to understate how anti-immigration trump term 1 policies were and how much worse a term 2 will be. not just compared to biden-harris but even previous republican administrations. ppl tend to focus on the border but trump got huge cuts in all forms of legal immigration, too

50 bps rate cut probably good for Harris.

awesome i was sure they were gonna do 25

xxxp So what else did Ted Turner say

I've had weekly conversations with a friend at work who has lived in the US for at least 15 years, dutifully submitted reams of documents yearly, had to jump through hoops any time he travels to make sure all of his visas are in place, but won't even be considered for a green card for decades because he moved here from a country with a large number of immigrants and the per-country quotas suck.

It's tiring to hear there might be some sort of reform only for politicians to treat all immigration as this giant, unknowable issue that no one can significantly address

There are a bunch of shitheads in the Trump camp that have said in no uncertain terms that they'd like to legislate a denaturalization process that would allow them to revoke the citizenship that has already been granted to legal immigrants! There's no reasoning with these assholes.

They also keep making noises about abolishing birthright citizenship. I'd like to think SCOTUS would shut that down, but I don't count on SCOTUS for much these days.

as this LGM summary lays out, study after study have shown that immigrants (whether legal or “illegal” god that term is so fucked) actually improve the employment and economic outcomes for US-born workers.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/09/how-would-mass-deportations-impact-the-american-worker

lol have you ever tried to tell one of these racist idiots about studies?

Teamster Trump endorsement coming

carne asada, that wasn’t the point of my post, i know it’s racism and nativism all the way down

Harris and Walz should be highlighting more how gullible Trump and Vance are (appearing), specifically using that word in conjunction with the quotes "I saw it on television!" and "it's the media's responsibility to fact check things I say".

Teamster Trump endorsement coming

O'Brien was not invited to speak at the DNC after he spoke at the RNC

I sometimes ask myself "is this activity I'm doing, and what I'm reading/watching, making me actively dumber or negatively affecting my mental health" but these people are like "yes, this thing is bad for me and I should elect a president and VP who have broken their brains in the same way"

looks like they backed off an endorsement entirely, which is interesting. Well over 50%+ of their members supported Trump over Harris in the vote, so it wasn't just a leadership problem.

https://x.com/Teamsters/status/1836463348269092918/photo/1

Gotta guess Teamsters going with a non-endorsement is hedging against a Harris win.

Just Billie Eilish is on Team Bratmala, so neener-neener to the Teamsters.

*just heard

Yikes at those percentages

that's gotta be racism and sexism inherent in teamsters' membership, no? given how widely they supported Biden against Trump.

their polling methods were completely different before and after biden dropped out, so i don't think you can compare them in that way.

(straw poll before, actual random poll after)

Nothing turned up on name-search, so I assume this hasn't come up yet?

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/17/politics/video/sarah-huckabee-sanders-kamala-harris-kids-humble-comments-src-digvid

No kids myself, probably why I'm such an arrogant bastard.

Year 44 of being so tired of this shit