Hispanics aren't as bad Muslims, but quantity has a quality all its own.
My county is pretty similar to your county, just twenty years behind. I just went on Wikipedia and Montgomery County, MD voted for Nixon, Reagan, and GWB. Now it's "the people's republic of Montgomery county". What happened?
While not denying that a lot of government people moved out there, I'm guessing it wasn't 41% white in the 70s and 80s. The biggest demographic change was Hispanics, what kind of political outcome do you expect in such a circumstance?
Without Hispanic immigration, my taxes would be lower and I'd have school choice. COVID would not have been as much of a hell.
I also don't see them as "just wanting to work." Their unemployment is higher, their earnings are lower, and they are net fiscal drains.
I do think that we probably could have swallowed a small chunk of Hispanics without it having the same impact that Muslims have in Europe, but the chunk isn't small anymore.
A disregard of detail, granularity, specifics is not unique to libertarians but they definitely don't seem to guard against the defect.
Due to propinquity if nothing else, but also perhaps some complementarity, and the opportunities and commonality (to a degree) that that has bred - Mexicans make a lot more sense in Texas than elsewhere. I only wish the pathway could go both ways - it should tell libertarians - something - that the pathway generally does not, a few beach resorts aside. Think how little of Mexico is really "open" to Texans. It used to be, more open, than it is now, actually, somewhat giving the lie to a melting together ...
And a lot more sense than all of Central America coming here. There aren't enough trees to trim, round the clock ... but there are, it seems, plenty of gangs and other shadow activities to be involved in.
And if you think Venezuelans have come here to clean your bathroom, you are in cloud cuckoo land. I can't imagine a job is in their plans at all. So bizarre that there is this idea of a monolith called "Hispanic".
Also: people may work hard. They don't always work well.
And: if you want to get into that WEIRD acronym - a major difference I see that I've not heard mentioned elsewhere is this: there are people who work hard, very hard, for their paycheck. Admirable, of course. And there are people, also, who have the ability to work hard, very hard, for no paycheck. If your culture and the quality of your country owe something to the latter, you are very foolish to throw them away, demographically.
I'm going to pile on here. This is not the first time Kling has talked about Latin American immigrants coming here to mow his lawn. The previous time this was mentioned in the context of explaining the concept of specialization and trade. This kind of argument comes across as a bit elitist and tone deaf. It reminds me of the time a minor female celebrity, perhaps one of the talk show hostesses on The View, got herself into trouble when criticizing Trump's anti-immigration policy by saying something to the effect of "but who is going to clean our toilets?" I also agree with luciaphile's point about the quality of work. One of my pet peeves is the way maids who have learned their trade at hotels turn down the corners of the TP, or they make a rosette out of the end of the TP role, and this is supposed persuade you that the toilet has been properly cleaned. Then you check under the lid and find it is not so. Call me old-fashioned, or just old, but I clean my own toilets, and I find it odd that so many Americans can't be bothered to do their own housecleaning. Another problem with the argument is that, although I am not an expert on Latin American economies, I thought one of the explanations of why they are so politically and economically unstable is that they are two-tiered societies, comprising a poor lower class and an ultra-rich upper class, with no middle class in-between. Do you really want to import this model into the US? Next, another constant theme of this Substack is AI and its impact on society, and that raises the question of why you want to import all these low-skilled immigrants when it is not clear there will be jobs for them in the future. I am skeptical about self-driving cars, but robots that can mow lawns and clean toilets don't seem like such a stretch to me (even I might be tempted to purchase the latter). Finally, I'm reminded of the moment in the Thursday night debate when Biden tried to rebut Trump's point about migrant crime by arguing, in effect, that women and girls get raped by American citizens as well as illegal migrants, which is bad enough argument by itself, but then he messed it up by claiming that they get raped by their own family members, including their sisters! Oy vey!
Specialization: it's like how these thousands of paperless Asian women are smuggled in and distributed throughout the country to provide sexual services in massage parlors in strip centers, and how cool it is, econ in action, that they're doing it more cheaply than girls used to - and then I remember, that we didn't have "massage parlors" in strip centers back then.
I did work in a kinda seedy Baskin-Robbins, but there was nothing like that. A little drug dealing, perhaps, but then it was on the UT Drag,
The Asian Massage Parlor phenomenon is not exclusively an American issue but it is especially pronounced in the US due to the particular way the (illegal) commercial and non-commercial sexual marketplace has evolved. For various reasons, it's a very expensive hobby because domestic prices are sky high, and that pulls in a lot of cheaper foreign imports.
Haha, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who heard that gratuitous slur against sisters lol.
I don't want to know if that made it into the transcript.
And yes, I had little sympathy for my mother, for whom like many women in the vicinity, the wholesale changeover some 30 years ago from African-American housekeepers, to super-fast Mexican cleaners, was not without some absurd drama. Namely, the penchant of the latter for bleach in all situations. Mother had to refinish the kitchen table after it was cleaned with bleach.
There was a feeling that their former (A-A) helpers knew how to care for wood furniture, and knew how to polish silver. And that the new women refused to iron.
I like you, do my own housework and have never had any sympathy for her travails with domestic help. But she's at last got someone she's sympatico with which is good, because she is indeed too old and her time too taken up with cooking and caregiving and its attendant laundry, to do a lot of cleaning.
To be fair, perhaps Biden buys into gender ideology, and therefore believes that it is possible for sisters to have you-know-whats.
Specialization and trade: I'm trained as an economist, so I buy into the idea, but it can be carried to an extreme. A contemporary example is gay couples (men) using surrogates to create families. Creepy.
> What the NatCons get right is that people do not like the disruption that comes with mass immigration. Libertarians are instinctively on the wrong side of that issue.
This is probably right in general, but there is a huge difference between massive ILLEGAL immigration vs legal. I would be in favor of the latter and not the former. That must be a common position.
I think almost everyone agrees that immigrants should not arrive and go on welfare. Today I believe that ends up being the case by having a long period (e.g. 10 years) on a green card. I'm assuming that non-citizens are not eligible for most benefits?
But also:
1. Our current legal immigration system does appear to prioritize skilled immigrants already. No doubt it could be improved, but if there's any issue today with legal immigration it's that too many highly skilled people are turned away.
2. Low skilled people that want to work are also welcome. In my opinion, wanting to work and assimilate is the bar, not having a fancy degree or working in high tech. I have cousins who would have immigrated to the US but were not allowed, so now some of them live in Canada which was more welcoming. They work as Dentists, in IT services. They have families and are folks who anyone would be happy to have as neighbors.
"Low skilled people that want to work are also welcome."
NO!
Having a job doesn't mean you aren't on welfare. If you have a minimum wage job you're on Medicaid, you're not paying enough to fund your own K-12 schools, I could list many other things.
Labor participation rates in third world countries are actually decently high. They were high when everyone was a dirt poor peasant too. I don't care that someone works. I care that they work productively enough that they aren't a burden on me.
They also vote poorly.
"They have families and are folks who anyone would be happy to have as neighbors."
Why the heck do whites and asians/indians divide into separate neighborhoods then? Obviously it's not as bad as low IQ immigration, but it's not nothing. Whites flee any area that gets more than 20% Asian.
Canada is turning against immigration because amongst other issues it turns out some Indian computer programmer has a lot of dumb cousins back in India but once they've got some family here on the inside they find loopholes to get them through the system.
We can agree on that. That feels like a shame since I think most would-be low-skilled immigrants would happily come if allowed given a proviso that they are eligible for work but not for welfare.
My impression is that commodity professions like Dentists do not generally meet the criteria of "high skilled", despite the fact that the profession clearly earns enough on average to avoid being a burden on society. But I could be wrong.
"They also vote poorly"
Is this true? I'm assuming you mean "for socialist policies", but I think education now predicts voting Democrat, doesn't it? Certainly all the immigrants in Miami vote far more conservatively than some large native populations.
"Why the heck do whites and asians/indians divide into separate neighborhoods then?"
I work in technology. I do not see or experience the strong segregation you describe, among first generation or greater. I agree that recently arrived immigrants are often segregated, but that is short lived and I don't think it's a compelling argument against immigration.
"most would-be low-skilled immigrants would happily"
Most low skill immigrants vote for their own welfare.
"but I think education now predicts voting Democrat, doesn't it?"
White college graduates split 50/50.
Trump won a majority of voters with income above $100,000. Amongst people with incomes above $100,000 that don't have a college degree he won something like 7X% or something.
In general, Republicans win people whose income is higher than their education, and Democrats win people whose income is lower than tier education. I leave it to you to decide who's maximizing their talents.
In a world where government spending is approaching half of GDP and lots of the "private" market is determined by regulation, being a high earner doesn't say as much about productivity as it used to. I live in the richest county in the country and literally every fucking person I meet is a government contractor. Lots of high earners are just government and government adjacent rentiers.
As to Hispanic voting patterns, they are reliably 10-30% more Democrat than whatever the local white voting % is.
Cubans are a bit unique. The Revolution expelled a lot of the upper crust, and those upper crust tended to be more light skinned "white Hispanics" with lots of European DNA in them. This and communist resentment stamped a right wing flavor onto the Cuban population of Florida. This hasn't translated to other Hispanics as well (Puerto Ricans in Florida vote Democrat). In general, each Hispanic population has its own story and they tend to follow the same voting pattern as back in Latin America (light skins right wing, dark skins left wing).
"I do not see or experience the strong segregation you describe"
I've spent a lot of my life in heavily Asian communities. I certainly see this segregation. I see it where people live. I see it in who they hire and the ethnic composition of departments and hiring managers. I see it in where they go to church and how they choose to spend their free time.
Obviously, it's not the same level of segregation as white and black in the Jim Crow south. And since UMC white and UMC Asians belong to the same CLASS, it removes one of the other sources of segregation in society.
"I don't think it's a compelling argument against immigration."
I think the best argument against Asian immigration is that their culture and politics is very different than whites. Where I live it used to be right wing and then a lot of Asian and Hispanics moved in and its very left wing. This has a lot of impacts but it was very evident during COVID. I wouldn't trade slightly lower dentistry prices for lockdowns, school closures, and face masks.
This is one area where I needed to update my opinion based on the evidence. I used to be pro-Asian immigration before 2020 but now I'm not so gung ho. True unique talent should be recruited, but I'm not convinced every mediocre office drone adds much. And we can tell from experience that they tend to chain migrate their less impressive kinsmen.
That is true, but I think that points to the power of Progressives to have influence far out of proportion to the popularity or justice of their position.
I have the strong suspicion that this would be very unpopular in any large poll. I think a majority of Democrat voters, when given a choice between enforcing the border and taking them in to live at taxpayer expense, would choose the former.
"I do not feel as threatened by the throngs of Latin Americans coming here to mow lawns, repair roofs, and clean hotel rooms as I would be by the immigrants from Muslim countries flooding into Europe, seemingly with less eagerness to work."
This is excellent. And the EU welfare states are worse, more generous with less work requirements, than the US.
Yet it's a bit incomplete -- where are the illegals committing crimes? And how many are there? How many is too many?
Seems Trump said there were millions of illegals, from jails & mental institutions. Millions? Was he lying? I do not believe millions of illegals from jail, but certainly millions of illegals AND many from jails AND many illegals committing crimes in the US.
Too many illegals - Trump true.
Too many from jails - Trump true. (Proxy adjacent to: Too many low IQ, undesirable, non-productive immigrants who absorb more govt program cash than they generate in taxes. An anti-low IQ immigration truth.)
Too many committing crimes - Trump true.
Three serious truths in one likely literally untrue statement of Trump. (Where is the study that has a definitive consensus estimate of how many Biden illegals, numbers not percentages from 2021-2024, were ever in prison, jail, or diagnosed with a mental illness? My guess is such a study would be tens or maybe 100 thousand, not millions. Where are, what are the facts)
Low wage earning immigrants, both legal but especially illegal, compete with US citizens, and suppress the wages of US worker-voters. Yes, that allows the companies higher profits, and consumer customers lower prices.
Trump will likely win against Biden -- I don't think Biden will be on the ballot in Nov.
The trouble is that it's not just Latin Americans anymore, plenty from everywhere else too, including more worrying places. In 2024 it's easy and quick for anyone from anywhere to get to the Mexican side of the border and then get smuggled across, and there is a large and thriving industry advertising its eagerness to help them do so. Whether it's 'cheap' or not is debatable, but for most would-be migrants who can get the money to pay it's definitely worth it. The future will not look like the past, so to the extent it was ever true, the American argument that "We get Mexicans and the Mexicans are fine" is no longer justified because of the changed context.
In a data-loving age, when there is data they don't collect around incarcation at all levels, and in connection with foreign-born and, crucially, first generation individuals, you wonder why it suits them not to collect the data that would make such a study simple.
As your link points out - this contention is extrapolated across the other 49 states, from one state: Texas - the only one to attempt to collect such data.
Of course, all efforts to portray the crime rate among immigrants are muddied by disingenuousness - Asian immigrants having less crime at least in the agony column way, if not in the Medicare/Medicaid fraud and financial fraud way - and by the paradox that if you consider that foreign-born Hispanics commit less crime than Americans, then you have to conclude that their kids are committing a lot more - which doesn't exactly leave the happy impression it's meant to by the Cato Institute.
I don't think there's a strong incentive to look into this subject, nor even to publicize truly breathtaking frauds such as the Minnesota daycare fraud which is surely unknown to 99% of the population.
There is, too, the black hole problem presented by immigrant enclaves. For instance, in the city I last lived in, crimes were frequently traced to a particular area - from routine car theft up to and including a cartel favorite, burning the victim in their car - and not many of these were ever solved.
Finally, the police themselves do not interest themselves in immigration status. Thus, this identification process is not instant, and moreover relies on the offender having been encountered and fingerprinted by immigration officers, and can take years - and thus generally bears little relation to who may be in local and state jails at any given time.
Yes, the best data is from Texas. If you want to think, BASED ON NO DATA, the rest of the country is different, that's your choice.
It would be a pretty big mistake to include aliens as citizens because you didn't know better. It would be interested to hear what the authors say about that complaint. Either way, note that the homicide conviction rate is much lower. I doubt that one has as much error.
"then you have to conclude that their kids are committing a lot more - which doesn't exactly leave the happy impression it's meant to by the Cato Institute."
I don't get it. Why do you think Cato meant a happy impression?
the kids are committing more than their parents? Yes. Committing more than other citizens? Why do you think this?
MN daycare - A finding of 7% fraud rate seems hardly breathtaking to me.
I’m reading a long piece in the FT about “an arrangement that is fueling the fentanyl crisis in America”.
This is the marriage of Mexican cartel and Chinese national “underground” banks, a money-laundering scheme benefitting Chinese who prefer to hold dollars.
I have yet to read about a non-immigrant in connection with the indictments which are described as “anything but an isolated incident.”
But we good with this?
Or only good with the fact that only the FT has done some real reporting on the issue, since we don’t need to know about these things, being as they cannot contribute to our knowledge on the subject of immigrants and crime, since that subject needs no investigation. Ever.
You choose not to grapple with the fact that the Texas data is - worthless. And that if you absolve immigrants for ideological reasons - then bingo, you've just awarded Hispanics born here in the country, a disproportionate share of crime.
And if you are untroubled by a $75 million fraud perpetrated by people who set about it *almost immediately* upon being recruited to enter the country on humanitarian grounds, then you are either Lutheran or, if a taxpayer, one who deserves to be defrauded.
"And I have to say that I do not feel as threatened by the throngs of Latin Americans coming here to mow lawns, repair roofs, and clean hotel rooms as I would be by the immigrants from Muslim countries flooding into Europe, seemingly with less eagerness to work."
Not as threatening as European Muslim immigration is a very low bar. Latin America sucks, and as such the Latin Americanization of the US is a bad thing. This is particularly obvious when looking at the politics of Latin Americans, especially from a libertarian/conservative perspective.
America over-built motels, seems like, in that period when auto travel had taken off and commercial air travel had not yet taken off.
I guess this is the reason why Indian people were able to immigrate here (I assume legally? at least the leading edge?) and scoop up motels for a few thousand dollars.
(I think this is actually a really interesting subject that would reward a book-length econ as well as cultural treatment.)
But from what I've gathered, the folks who did this, exploiting their ability to bring in and employ family labor for free, were pretty natural at the motelkeeping business, having some group tie to the hospitality industry traditionally.
So the sudden changeover to all motels being Indian-owned in some states, was a little weird, but things weren't noticeably that much different.
But now -- this is maybe not that group's American dream anymore.
The motels are going into other hands*, but not American hands. It seems to me they are going out of the hands of the ethnic innkeeper group, and into the hands of random immigrants who buy convenience stores and vape shops and whatever else - and now, motels.
And the motels for the most part now really suck while being super-expensive. Even the ones built in the last 25 years appear to be falling apart. I defy you to find that they do not suck but I doubt most of you stay in motels. We camp now pretty exclusively.
It's made me understand the popularity of RVs, which otherwise seem to me like a big expensive pain.
You had to remain until the end of this movie to see how it turned out.
*My favorite in this way was a down-at-heels KOA which was being run - oddly, if you're familiar with the KOA model - by a Chinese woman, somewhere in New Mexico, or maybe it was AZ. She was summoned unwillingly, during working hours, by knocking on the door of the manager's house, and waiting about 15 minutes for her to appear.*
She had pasted signs all over the property, their variety truly breathtaking - it seemed that no possible adverse happening had escaped her notice, or having happened, been memorialized in sign. "DO NOT STEP IN THIS HOLE!"
Two that I remember distinctly because they were practically worth the price of the campsite, were in the women's bathhouse. It had a radio and speakers in the wall. She had taped next to the dial a sign enjoining you not to change the channel, stating that "classical music is the BEST MUSIC!!! It is the only music!"
Nearby, hand-lettered but identical signs were taped over each of the 5 or six sinks, taped exactly where, should you be a woman grooming herself or applying makeup, it would take the place of your face: "No HAIR-DYE! NO DYING HAIR! Dye hair somewhere else! NO HAIR DYE IN SINK!!!"
*We might not have waited so long, but a sign had given us reason to expect this.
As a reader I'd be curious what tips AK's favor towards National Rally/Rassemblement National and against Macron. He is for increasing the work week, lower marginal tax rates, free-trade, reducing the size of the civil service, private provisioning of healthcare, raising the retirement age.
He has a background in Investment Banking, is a student of the classics, and a trained Philosopher. In the finest traditions of Western Civilization. And to give this up for .. Marine Le Pen??
Perhaps the "common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard".
I think it stems from the fact that Macron is viewed as out of touch. I suppose it's not his fault that France is a bureaucratically sclerotic and culturally divisive country that has made generations of its citizens dependent on its welfare state. The French left hates Macron because he is too economically liberal for them. The French right hates him because he is not restrictive enough on immigration, although I'm not sure how much it matters what he thinks with EU open borders anyway. The European far-right is essentially center-left economically and center-right socially but very nationalistic and anti-immigration. They would not have power if European countries had independent immigration policies and functioning borders. National Rally, in particular, truly is a single-issue party these days in that regard.
I keep seeing this, but as far as action, I see a lot of "we have to destroy the village in order to save it" logic coming from the left. On both sides of the Atlantic.
Actions matter, and the left is, in tangible ways, upending the rule of law to prevent what? The upending of the rule of law?
What you do when you hold power matters. I don't believe that Trump has "the good of the country" at heart, but I don't believe that of Biden either. And Biden is in power. That's a fundamentally more dangerous position. If he's incompetent to run for President, he should not be president now and the Vice President should invoke the 25th Amendment if the President will not resign. The Constitution is explicit on this.
Why isn't it happening? Biden's ego? The faceless and unaccountable Democratic consensus that they do not want the duly elected Vice President to assume power. Even though she is of their own party?
There is no reasonable understanding here where the left looks any different from the right. Except they are actually in power and dangerously abusing it rather than not in power and potentially abusing it.
"What I want to do is this. I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state." Fake electors in seven states. Pressure the Vice President to reject certification of votes.
But what do we unwashed mouth breathing masses know about the finer points of the law. Surely all this falls inside the "outer perimeter" of a President's duties and the President enjoys either absolute immunity or a presumption of immunity from criminal charges.
This is not the point here; the point here is that even the personal power of populist leaders is substantially higher than that of the establishment parties. Even if I agreed with the populist, there are clear dictatorship hints in all of them, and the worst case of that pathology is Trump (while his substantive policies were moderate!). The worst crime was non concession, which is intended usurpation.
Actions are more important than intent, and the establishment party here is behaving as dictatorially.
1. It's not accurate to say that the power of the populist leader is higher than that of the establishment party. The truth belies that because we can see that establishment party actually holds power. Not just the executive, but at many levels across the government.
2. Further, the populist leader actually did hold power, and actually did relinquish it after a fitful attempt to contest it.
3. Actions and words are different. The non-concession was harmful, but followed by, in practice, a prompt concession.
4. The worst crime isn't intended usurpation, it's actual usurpation. Which is what is happening right now.
That is, no matter what "clear dictatorship hints" surround Trump, there is actual dictatorial behavior going in from the establishment party.
A little discussed point here is that the establishment party is not just behaving dictatorially in regards to Trump, but also with regards to Vice President Harris.
By the letter and spirit of the law, Harris should be the acting President at this moment. The operation of the government has nothing to do with the machinations of a political party.
But, that isn't what's happening. Why not? Because the party has, and continues to calculate that Harris, who is the duly elected President, is a political liability, and they don't want her to be in that role.
Harris was elected to the position, and angling to sideline her, keep an incapacitated president in power for the next several months while they select a more popular member of the party to run (without the democratic vetting process of the primary) is a blatant attempt to circumvent the rule of law an the democratic process.
The fact this doesn't seem to even merit mention puts the lie to the idea that the establishment party has much interest in the spirit or legality of their actions.
What we observe everywhere is that personal power is more dangerous than oligarchic power. Even the Chinese communists were more rationally ruled until Xi became emperor.
I think you are drawing a false distinction between dictatorship and oligarchy. In practice it is a distinction without a difference, as the dictator needs the support of oligarchs to rule, and oligarchs invariably find a single leader to settle disputes.
No it isn’t! The court is chosen by King (as in Russia), while in Venezia or England, the government was chosen by wealthy individuals having their own independent power. The ideal is to add to that, some degree of popular participation (while not political system has ever deserved to be named democracy)
In addition to being false, I think it’s quite irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if personal power is more or less dangerous than oligarchic power.
The latter is still sufficiently dangerous on its own. Relinquishing a democratic republic into the hands of an oligarchy has a long and unfortunate history. And it’s often done based on fear that turns out to be overblown.
Short version is I’d rather take my chances on maybe having to fight Trump, who would be opposed by significant democratic opposition, than have the certainty of having to fight the government usurped by a faction that is already taking unprecedented steps to consolidate its hold on power deviate from legal exercise of government power.
Many seem as unrealistic as a Full Border Wall, yet such a Wall now seems likely to be very possible.
On-line free American Academy sounds pretty good, and pretty disruptive.
Stopping illegal immigration should be a key goal of all who claim to favor Rule of Law. Trump, like the NatCons, are right on this issue, as M. Friedman was.
The fear of civil war by Dem Antifa protesters is overblown—once National Guard starts arresting large numbers of violent protesters for their violence. The pro-abortion women are willing to march, but few are willing to be violent. And there’s no other actual Trump policy that generates as much or more emotion.
The Trump tweet of Jan 6 where he called for peace, and no violence, which Twitter then censored in about 5 minutes, is a pretty strong rebuttal against the insurrection charge, tho him actually leaving with no real problem should be an even stronger rebuttal.
The TDS folk, including Kling, will also continue to have Trump’s very uncool narcissism as an illogical reason to hate him. Presidents should be judged on their policy decisions, and the results. Which are only influenced, not dependent on, their personalities. Trump’s policies were far far better than have been Biden’s (or the unelected decision makers behind him).
There is definitely some irony in John Eastman and John Yoo participating in the same panel when Eastman was the person who came up with the idea for Vice President Pence not to certify state ballot results and overturn the 2020 election while John Yoo was the one who personally advised Pence that this was unconstitutional and illegal. It would be interesting to see these two debate that topic, although the subject of the panel makes it unlikely.
It is strange to me that a largely disgraced figure like Eastman would even be invited to an event like this that features essentially the intellectual and political leaders of the right at the moment. NatCons seem to be a little too deep in the "we must embrace everything Trump says and embrace the opposite of whatever the left says" camp. Also, I'm unsure how Steve Bannon will make that first panel on July 8 from his prison cell. Again, another person who seems out-of-place to invite even if you think his conviction is lawfare or Eastman's disbarment was unjustified. The NatCon coalition seems like an untenable truce between the alt-right and the conservative movement, and I think it will implode with one side winning or losing control of the GOP if Trump wins and has to start choosing whether he wants right-wing populists or Bucklean conservatives to occupy the top positions in his second administration.
The Buckleans have not exactly covered themselves in glory for the past 30 years. It's one thing to criticize "populist" republican voters for being "all fight but no plan". It's another thing not to even want to fight at all.
My main problem with populists, NatCons, or whatever label is used to describe that wing of the right isn't that they have no plans or means to implement policies, although that is a valid criticism of them. The problem I was alluding to is that they have no quality control or accountability for people within their movement because they see everyone on their side as an enemy of the left who must be righteous in their actions on some level. That is why Eastman still gets invited to events like this even though, to any impartial observer, he has disgraced himself and done something knowingly wrong and arguably illegal. The left has this problem, too, although they are sometimes willing to turn on someone inside their movement if they commit one of their pet grievances, like saying something that can be construed as racist or sexist.
You can argue that the Buckley/Reaganite conservatives have led the right to where it is today by being ineffectual and constantly giving in to the left. That being said, there was/is a bit more intellectualism, elitism, and civility within that movement that I think is better for promoting truth-seeking, outing bad actors, and respecting institutions.
"What the NatCons get right is that people do not like the disruption that comes with mass immigration. Libertarians are instinctively on the wrong side of that issue."
It's not the wrong side, any more than supporting gay marriage was the wrong side of that issue 20 years ago. People don't like a beneficial thing? Well they should learn to like it. Yes, a compromise should be reached with the xenophobes until they die off or become better people, but that doesn't mean they're on the right side of the issue.
Agree of course that low-skill immigrants from majority-Muslim countries are a special problem in Europe. Certainly that's a reason not to have 100% open borders.
I am not sure what Trump’s ideology would be, however. As in, I don’t know with certainty what his reaction and decision might be when it comes to surprise events. I was surprised by his COVID response, for instance. Then again, I was surprised by a lot of people’s response, by which I learn that people on the right are less ideological than perhaps I thought.
I wouldn’t have thought mandated lockdowns would have been considered “ok”. I might be misremembering Trump’s exact stance, however.
I was further surprised by how many on the right, including libertarians, were ok with mandating vaccines and lockdowns and other restrictions. I would have hoped that ideology would have trumped “this scares me”. It seems to me that many people are more in favor of expedient than principled, which makes me think they are less ideological.
Maybe I'm the one misremembering but I thought Trump was against the lockdowns. I'm sure he understood an economic slowdown would be bad for his re-election bid so I suspect I have it right.
As for mandatory vaccines, I wouldn't begin to suggest I know the politics of everyone in favor, I'm not aware of any conservatives who were.
I don't recall for certain, but I don't think Trump came out against lockdowns, but then maybe he just left it up to the states (which would be proper, even if the states do the wrong thing.) Didn't he close the borders to air travelers as well? I am tired and too lazy to look it up now... maybe if I get some more time over the weekend. Still, I was surprised his administration, if not him personally, didn't take the CDC to task for all their nonsense with changing the definition of vaccines, changing the protocols for pandemics last second, etc.
Re: mandatory vaccines, lockdowns and other restrictions: Tyler Cowen was oddly in favor of them, and many other Republicans/conservatives were at least silent. It became a left/right issue over time, but for a while there were very few voices saying "Woah, you aren't allowed to do this, public health crisis or no."
Yes, I remember hearing media saying it was a state by state decision Trump couldn't make. I forgot the part about lockdowns to reduce hospital admissions but I'd still say Trump was against lockdowns.
The archetypal rebellious reaction of young men when "any idea becomes hegemonic, and comes to attract ideological drones and scolds" is the most salient point here.
Notwithstanding how is discussed, I don't think American are really so much opposed to high levels of immigration as the chaotic way it is happening. And Republicans strategically and Democrat by ineptitude coincide in keeping it chaotic. It's hilarious that Trump got the publicity for "green cars on graduation" whihc ought to be near the top of t he list of Abundancy Democrats.
It really isn't that chaotic. The Biden administration had made the entry and inprocessing of millions of migrants a year very orderly, quick, and easy, and often at the normal ports of entry (and even bureaus and airports abroad) under official 'supervision', so long as the migrants say the right lies and magic words, which of course in the internet era everyone knows how to do.
The chaotic part is what happens after they hit the ground or the tarmac, which is not a border or immigration policy problem, but a welfare policy problem that causes the broader homelessness problem, and the new migrants are basically homeless and will do what homeless people do, try to get to the places where they hope to settle because there is local work and where they can also expect to receive the most generous benefits from the local government.
Yes, a bunch of new migrants will bunch up right across the border because they don't have the money to keep moving, and this is kind of chaotic and unfairly stressing and burdensome of those local communities which can't do anything about it because they can't move themselves away from the border. But the migrants don't want to bunch up in those places and just need enough bus ticket money to move on to greener pastures.
The chaos comes in because there are areas which have decided (or been 'forced' by courts) as a matter of local policy to become migrant magnets by promising both legal sanctuary and generous welfare to all comers without limit. Wherever there are not these magnets, there is no chaos.
I refer to the refusal of Congresses and Presidents to have procedures and enough people at the border to orderly hear the asylum claims, most of which are bogus, admit those that are valid and deport the others. This ought to discourage those with invalid claims. Now some of those deported would be admitted if we had a merit based immigration system, but until we get the irregular entry problem under control, it is hard to get people to focus on reform.
Do not fall for the bogus claim that it has anything to do with people or resources, of which there are more than plenty, especially when complemented by treaty-based policies that require refugees to stop in the nearest place where they would be safe from whatever they claim to be running from, or require asylum seekers to remain abroad unless and until their application is approved, or which impose small quotas on the annual number of migrants granted asylum or other protected status, so that administrations have to make hard choices of the most worthy cases and don't have the ability to hide their intentional policy to open the floodgates under the cover story of discretion. Congress did actually act, that's the existing immigration law. The chaos is because it's policy to ignore that law, so why should anyone negotiating a deal or compromise expect any new law not also to be ignored?
This is tantamount to saying that Americans want their country to be more crowded.
I wish the pollsters would have the guts to ask that.
Of course, as time passes, and we've filled the country with people from crowded places who are utterly indifferent as to whether it is crowded here or what things look like, and whether there are farms and open space, and completely indifferent to the environment, this not being their country in any sense* - the polls may reveal - whatever is the opposite of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
*You must have noticed this if you've lived in a boom town that attracted people from all across the country. They never do take an interest in the local history - perhaps that's natural - and they never do learn the first name of a single native plant. They live in their house, not in your town or region. They learn restaurants, not local issues.
No doubt immigrants add to crowds in crowded places but immigrants are not the cause. Despite the costs and crowds, people continue to move to crowded places. Far more small towns are dying than growing. The vast majority of acreage in the US is getting LESS crowded despite more people overall.
Crowded is when there is traffic everywhere because the cities have grown into one another - drive from San Antonio through San Marcos through Austin through Round Rock through Georgetown and tell me you do not feel that urbanization produces "crowding".
To recover, maybe you'll want to go visit a state park - oops, you didn't make a reservation - and it's full.
Or maybe you bought a place in the Hill Country years ago, when there were flowing springs and green hills.
Well, hell, where'd the "country" part of that go? And where did the water go?
Less crowded it is not. Less crowded with birds, sure.
Increasing density in a city can have some down sides but it also has upsides. I think it's a matter of management.
You and I have a different impression about how easily new immigrants assimilate. The ones I know of are or are one generation removed from solidly middle class and probably unable to speak the language of the place their parents or grandparents came from.
Look at an aerial map of the major cities of Texas, as it changes over the decades. This is not your urban density dream. This is metastasis.
It is not even your suburban dream. The sprawl housing developments are not what y'all are picturing, they are in many cases instant slums, and the houses in them will appreciate about as well as their owners' F-150s.
ETA: when I was a kid I first heard the term "bubble" in reference to relatives who lived in the "Park Cities", a tony, leafy precinct of Dallas. (Though of course, the original houses, like those of River Oaks in Houston, were mostly quite modest compared to what people choose now.) I remember hearing these relations teased for "living in the bubble". Note: *the* bubble.
The rest of us though we lived in single family homes, did not conceive of ourselves as living in a bubble, being as we lived in ordinary middle-class areas, and our public schools were not "fancy". There were really just one or two bubbles, then.
Now I don't know anyone who does not live in a bubble, and does not so refer to it, without embarrassment. And it ain't no Highland Park.
Hispanics aren't as bad Muslims, but quantity has a quality all its own.
My county is pretty similar to your county, just twenty years behind. I just went on Wikipedia and Montgomery County, MD voted for Nixon, Reagan, and GWB. Now it's "the people's republic of Montgomery county". What happened?
While not denying that a lot of government people moved out there, I'm guessing it wasn't 41% white in the 70s and 80s. The biggest demographic change was Hispanics, what kind of political outcome do you expect in such a circumstance?
Without Hispanic immigration, my taxes would be lower and I'd have school choice. COVID would not have been as much of a hell.
I also don't see them as "just wanting to work." Their unemployment is higher, their earnings are lower, and they are net fiscal drains.
I do think that we probably could have swallowed a small chunk of Hispanics without it having the same impact that Muslims have in Europe, but the chunk isn't small anymore.
A disregard of detail, granularity, specifics is not unique to libertarians but they definitely don't seem to guard against the defect.
Due to propinquity if nothing else, but also perhaps some complementarity, and the opportunities and commonality (to a degree) that that has bred - Mexicans make a lot more sense in Texas than elsewhere. I only wish the pathway could go both ways - it should tell libertarians - something - that the pathway generally does not, a few beach resorts aside. Think how little of Mexico is really "open" to Texans. It used to be, more open, than it is now, actually, somewhat giving the lie to a melting together ...
And a lot more sense than all of Central America coming here. There aren't enough trees to trim, round the clock ... but there are, it seems, plenty of gangs and other shadow activities to be involved in.
And if you think Venezuelans have come here to clean your bathroom, you are in cloud cuckoo land. I can't imagine a job is in their plans at all. So bizarre that there is this idea of a monolith called "Hispanic".
Also: people may work hard. They don't always work well.
And: if you want to get into that WEIRD acronym - a major difference I see that I've not heard mentioned elsewhere is this: there are people who work hard, very hard, for their paycheck. Admirable, of course. And there are people, also, who have the ability to work hard, very hard, for no paycheck. If your culture and the quality of your country owe something to the latter, you are very foolish to throw them away, demographically.
I'm going to pile on here. This is not the first time Kling has talked about Latin American immigrants coming here to mow his lawn. The previous time this was mentioned in the context of explaining the concept of specialization and trade. This kind of argument comes across as a bit elitist and tone deaf. It reminds me of the time a minor female celebrity, perhaps one of the talk show hostesses on The View, got herself into trouble when criticizing Trump's anti-immigration policy by saying something to the effect of "but who is going to clean our toilets?" I also agree with luciaphile's point about the quality of work. One of my pet peeves is the way maids who have learned their trade at hotels turn down the corners of the TP, or they make a rosette out of the end of the TP role, and this is supposed persuade you that the toilet has been properly cleaned. Then you check under the lid and find it is not so. Call me old-fashioned, or just old, but I clean my own toilets, and I find it odd that so many Americans can't be bothered to do their own housecleaning. Another problem with the argument is that, although I am not an expert on Latin American economies, I thought one of the explanations of why they are so politically and economically unstable is that they are two-tiered societies, comprising a poor lower class and an ultra-rich upper class, with no middle class in-between. Do you really want to import this model into the US? Next, another constant theme of this Substack is AI and its impact on society, and that raises the question of why you want to import all these low-skilled immigrants when it is not clear there will be jobs for them in the future. I am skeptical about self-driving cars, but robots that can mow lawns and clean toilets don't seem like such a stretch to me (even I might be tempted to purchase the latter). Finally, I'm reminded of the moment in the Thursday night debate when Biden tried to rebut Trump's point about migrant crime by arguing, in effect, that women and girls get raped by American citizens as well as illegal migrants, which is bad enough argument by itself, but then he messed it up by claiming that they get raped by their own family members, including their sisters! Oy vey!
Specialization: it's like how these thousands of paperless Asian women are smuggled in and distributed throughout the country to provide sexual services in massage parlors in strip centers, and how cool it is, econ in action, that they're doing it more cheaply than girls used to - and then I remember, that we didn't have "massage parlors" in strip centers back then.
I did work in a kinda seedy Baskin-Robbins, but there was nothing like that. A little drug dealing, perhaps, but then it was on the UT Drag,
The Asian Massage Parlor phenomenon is not exclusively an American issue but it is especially pronounced in the US due to the particular way the (illegal) commercial and non-commercial sexual marketplace has evolved. For various reasons, it's a very expensive hobby because domestic prices are sky high, and that pulls in a lot of cheaper foreign imports.
Haha, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who heard that gratuitous slur against sisters lol.
I don't want to know if that made it into the transcript.
And yes, I had little sympathy for my mother, for whom like many women in the vicinity, the wholesale changeover some 30 years ago from African-American housekeepers, to super-fast Mexican cleaners, was not without some absurd drama. Namely, the penchant of the latter for bleach in all situations. Mother had to refinish the kitchen table after it was cleaned with bleach.
There was a feeling that their former (A-A) helpers knew how to care for wood furniture, and knew how to polish silver. And that the new women refused to iron.
I like you, do my own housework and have never had any sympathy for her travails with domestic help. But she's at last got someone she's sympatico with which is good, because she is indeed too old and her time too taken up with cooking and caregiving and its attendant laundry, to do a lot of cleaning.
To be fair, perhaps Biden buys into gender ideology, and therefore believes that it is possible for sisters to have you-know-whats.
Specialization and trade: I'm trained as an economist, so I buy into the idea, but it can be carried to an extreme. A contemporary example is gay couples (men) using surrogates to create families. Creepy.
I don't think he thinks about it at all; I think he just went off into listmaking, which is one of his verbal pitfalls at the best of times.
If we could do an Ngram search for prevalence of tattoos in the general population over time, that would be some startling data.
> What the NatCons get right is that people do not like the disruption that comes with mass immigration. Libertarians are instinctively on the wrong side of that issue.
This is probably right in general, but there is a huge difference between massive ILLEGAL immigration vs legal. I would be in favor of the latter and not the former. That must be a common position.
I think almost everyone agrees that immigrants should not arrive and go on welfare. Today I believe that ends up being the case by having a long period (e.g. 10 years) on a green card. I'm assuming that non-citizens are not eligible for most benefits?
But also:
1. Our current legal immigration system does appear to prioritize skilled immigrants already. No doubt it could be improved, but if there's any issue today with legal immigration it's that too many highly skilled people are turned away.
2. Low skilled people that want to work are also welcome. In my opinion, wanting to work and assimilate is the bar, not having a fancy degree or working in high tech. I have cousins who would have immigrated to the US but were not allowed, so now some of them live in Canada which was more welcoming. They work as Dentists, in IT services. They have families and are folks who anyone would be happy to have as neighbors.
"Low skilled people that want to work are also welcome."
NO!
Having a job doesn't mean you aren't on welfare. If you have a minimum wage job you're on Medicaid, you're not paying enough to fund your own K-12 schools, I could list many other things.
Labor participation rates in third world countries are actually decently high. They were high when everyone was a dirt poor peasant too. I don't care that someone works. I care that they work productively enough that they aren't a burden on me.
They also vote poorly.
"They have families and are folks who anyone would be happy to have as neighbors."
Why the heck do whites and asians/indians divide into separate neighborhoods then? Obviously it's not as bad as low IQ immigration, but it's not nothing. Whites flee any area that gets more than 20% Asian.
Canada is turning against immigration because amongst other issues it turns out some Indian computer programmer has a lot of dumb cousins back in India but once they've got some family here on the inside they find loopholes to get them through the system.
"Having a job doesn't mean you aren't on welfare"
We can agree on that. That feels like a shame since I think most would-be low-skilled immigrants would happily come if allowed given a proviso that they are eligible for work but not for welfare.
My impression is that commodity professions like Dentists do not generally meet the criteria of "high skilled", despite the fact that the profession clearly earns enough on average to avoid being a burden on society. But I could be wrong.
"They also vote poorly"
Is this true? I'm assuming you mean "for socialist policies", but I think education now predicts voting Democrat, doesn't it? Certainly all the immigrants in Miami vote far more conservatively than some large native populations.
"Why the heck do whites and asians/indians divide into separate neighborhoods then?"
I work in technology. I do not see or experience the strong segregation you describe, among first generation or greater. I agree that recently arrived immigrants are often segregated, but that is short lived and I don't think it's a compelling argument against immigration.
"most would-be low-skilled immigrants would happily"
Most low skill immigrants vote for their own welfare.
"but I think education now predicts voting Democrat, doesn't it?"
White college graduates split 50/50.
Trump won a majority of voters with income above $100,000. Amongst people with incomes above $100,000 that don't have a college degree he won something like 7X% or something.
In general, Republicans win people whose income is higher than their education, and Democrats win people whose income is lower than tier education. I leave it to you to decide who's maximizing their talents.
In a world where government spending is approaching half of GDP and lots of the "private" market is determined by regulation, being a high earner doesn't say as much about productivity as it used to. I live in the richest county in the country and literally every fucking person I meet is a government contractor. Lots of high earners are just government and government adjacent rentiers.
As to Hispanic voting patterns, they are reliably 10-30% more Democrat than whatever the local white voting % is.
Cubans are a bit unique. The Revolution expelled a lot of the upper crust, and those upper crust tended to be more light skinned "white Hispanics" with lots of European DNA in them. This and communist resentment stamped a right wing flavor onto the Cuban population of Florida. This hasn't translated to other Hispanics as well (Puerto Ricans in Florida vote Democrat). In general, each Hispanic population has its own story and they tend to follow the same voting pattern as back in Latin America (light skins right wing, dark skins left wing).
"I do not see or experience the strong segregation you describe"
I've spent a lot of my life in heavily Asian communities. I certainly see this segregation. I see it where people live. I see it in who they hire and the ethnic composition of departments and hiring managers. I see it in where they go to church and how they choose to spend their free time.
Obviously, it's not the same level of segregation as white and black in the Jim Crow south. And since UMC white and UMC Asians belong to the same CLASS, it removes one of the other sources of segregation in society.
But I wouldn't call it nothing:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=30d2e10d4d694b3eb4dc4d2e58dbb5a5
"I don't think it's a compelling argument against immigration."
I think the best argument against Asian immigration is that their culture and politics is very different than whites. Where I live it used to be right wing and then a lot of Asian and Hispanics moved in and its very left wing. This has a lot of impacts but it was very evident during COVID. I wouldn't trade slightly lower dentistry prices for lockdowns, school closures, and face masks.
This is one area where I needed to update my opinion based on the evidence. I used to be pro-Asian immigration before 2020 but now I'm not so gung ho. True unique talent should be recruited, but I'm not convinced every mediocre office drone adds much. And we can tell from experience that they tend to chain migrate their less impressive kinsmen.
"I think almost everyone agrees that immigrants should not arrive and go on welfare."
I wish that were true, but I don't think it is. They are being given free hotel rooms, meals, and I don't know what else...
That is true, but I think that points to the power of Progressives to have influence far out of proportion to the popularity or justice of their position.
I have the strong suspicion that this would be very unpopular in any large poll. I think a majority of Democrat voters, when given a choice between enforcing the border and taking them in to live at taxpayer expense, would choose the former.
"I do not feel as threatened by the throngs of Latin Americans coming here to mow lawns, repair roofs, and clean hotel rooms as I would be by the immigrants from Muslim countries flooding into Europe, seemingly with less eagerness to work."
This is excellent. And the EU welfare states are worse, more generous with less work requirements, than the US.
Yet it's a bit incomplete -- where are the illegals committing crimes? And how many are there? How many is too many?
Seems Trump said there were millions of illegals, from jails & mental institutions. Millions? Was he lying? I do not believe millions of illegals from jail, but certainly millions of illegals AND many from jails AND many illegals committing crimes in the US.
Too many illegals - Trump true.
Too many from jails - Trump true. (Proxy adjacent to: Too many low IQ, undesirable, non-productive immigrants who absorb more govt program cash than they generate in taxes. An anti-low IQ immigration truth.)
Too many committing crimes - Trump true.
Three serious truths in one likely literally untrue statement of Trump. (Where is the study that has a definitive consensus estimate of how many Biden illegals, numbers not percentages from 2021-2024, were ever in prison, jail, or diagnosed with a mental illness? My guess is such a study would be tens or maybe 100 thousand, not millions. Where are, what are the facts)
Low wage earning immigrants, both legal but especially illegal, compete with US citizens, and suppress the wages of US worker-voters. Yes, that allows the companies higher profits, and consumer customers lower prices.
Trump will likely win against Biden -- I don't think Biden will be on the ballot in Nov.
The trouble is that it's not just Latin Americans anymore, plenty from everywhere else too, including more worrying places. In 2024 it's easy and quick for anyone from anywhere to get to the Mexican side of the border and then get smuggled across, and there is a large and thriving industry advertising its eagerness to help them do so. Whether it's 'cheap' or not is debatable, but for most would-be migrants who can get the money to pay it's definitely worth it. The future will not look like the past, so to the extent it was ever true, the American argument that "We get Mexicans and the Mexicans are fine" is no longer justified because of the changed context.
I've never heard of a study that didn't conclude illegal immigrants commit other crimes at a far lower rate than citizens.
In a data-loving age, when there is data they don't collect around incarcation at all levels, and in connection with foreign-born and, crucially, first generation individuals, you wonder why it suits them not to collect the data that would make such a study simple.
I can't remember the last time I looked but such data does exist and it showed illegal residents commit less crime.
https://www.cato.org/blog/white-houses-misleading-error-ridden-narrative-immigrants-crime
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1745-9125.12175
https://www.cato.org/blog/new-research-illegal-immigration-crime-0
https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/illegal-immigrant-murderers-texas-2013-2022
https://www.cato.org/publications/immigration-research-policy-brief/their-numbers-demographics-countries-origin#methodology
As your link points out - this contention is extrapolated across the other 49 states, from one state: Texas - the only one to attempt to collect such data.
Of course, all efforts to portray the crime rate among immigrants are muddied by disingenuousness - Asian immigrants having less crime at least in the agony column way, if not in the Medicare/Medicaid fraud and financial fraud way - and by the paradox that if you consider that foreign-born Hispanics commit less crime than Americans, then you have to conclude that their kids are committing a lot more - which doesn't exactly leave the happy impression it's meant to by the Cato Institute.
I don't think there's a strong incentive to look into this subject, nor even to publicize truly breathtaking frauds such as the Minnesota daycare fraud which is surely unknown to 99% of the population.
There is, too, the black hole problem presented by immigrant enclaves. For instance, in the city I last lived in, crimes were frequently traced to a particular area - from routine car theft up to and including a cartel favorite, burning the victim in their car - and not many of these were ever solved.
Finally, the police themselves do not interest themselves in immigration status. Thus, this identification process is not instant, and moreover relies on the offender having been encountered and fingerprinted by immigration officers, and can take years - and thus generally bears little relation to who may be in local and state jails at any given time.
https://cis.org/Report/Misuse-Texas-Data-Understates-Illegal-Immigrant-Criminality
Yes, the best data is from Texas. If you want to think, BASED ON NO DATA, the rest of the country is different, that's your choice.
It would be a pretty big mistake to include aliens as citizens because you didn't know better. It would be interested to hear what the authors say about that complaint. Either way, note that the homicide conviction rate is much lower. I doubt that one has as much error.
"then you have to conclude that their kids are committing a lot more - which doesn't exactly leave the happy impression it's meant to by the Cato Institute."
I don't get it. Why do you think Cato meant a happy impression?
the kids are committing more than their parents? Yes. Committing more than other citizens? Why do you think this?
MN daycare - A finding of 7% fraud rate seems hardly breathtaking to me.
I’m reading a long piece in the FT about “an arrangement that is fueling the fentanyl crisis in America”.
This is the marriage of Mexican cartel and Chinese national “underground” banks, a money-laundering scheme benefitting Chinese who prefer to hold dollars.
I have yet to read about a non-immigrant in connection with the indictments which are described as “anything but an isolated incident.”
But we good with this?
Or only good with the fact that only the FT has done some real reporting on the issue, since we don’t need to know about these things, being as they cannot contribute to our knowledge on the subject of immigrants and crime, since that subject needs no investigation. Ever.
You choose not to grapple with the fact that the Texas data is - worthless. And that if you absolve immigrants for ideological reasons - then bingo, you've just awarded Hispanics born here in the country, a disproportionate share of crime.
And if you are untroubled by a $75 million fraud perpetrated by people who set about it *almost immediately* upon being recruited to enter the country on humanitarian grounds, then you are either Lutheran or, if a taxpayer, one who deserves to be defrauded.
Pick your source, this is forever:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/blaine-man-indicted-his-role-250-million-feeding-our-future-fraud-scheme
https://minnesotareformer.com/2023/08/03/about-half-the-people-indicted-in-feeding-our-future-fraud-had-other-state-contracts/
https://minnesotareformer.com/2024/05/23/somali-nonprofit-got-a-million-dollar-cut-from-feeding-our-future-prosecutors-say
"And I have to say that I do not feel as threatened by the throngs of Latin Americans coming here to mow lawns, repair roofs, and clean hotel rooms as I would be by the immigrants from Muslim countries flooding into Europe, seemingly with less eagerness to work."
Not as threatening as European Muslim immigration is a very low bar. Latin America sucks, and as such the Latin Americanization of the US is a bad thing. This is particularly obvious when looking at the politics of Latin Americans, especially from a libertarian/conservative perspective.
Motels: they tell so much.
America over-built motels, seems like, in that period when auto travel had taken off and commercial air travel had not yet taken off.
I guess this is the reason why Indian people were able to immigrate here (I assume legally? at least the leading edge?) and scoop up motels for a few thousand dollars.
(I think this is actually a really interesting subject that would reward a book-length econ as well as cultural treatment.)
But from what I've gathered, the folks who did this, exploiting their ability to bring in and employ family labor for free, were pretty natural at the motelkeeping business, having some group tie to the hospitality industry traditionally.
So the sudden changeover to all motels being Indian-owned in some states, was a little weird, but things weren't noticeably that much different.
But now -- this is maybe not that group's American dream anymore.
The motels are going into other hands*, but not American hands. It seems to me they are going out of the hands of the ethnic innkeeper group, and into the hands of random immigrants who buy convenience stores and vape shops and whatever else - and now, motels.
And the motels for the most part now really suck while being super-expensive. Even the ones built in the last 25 years appear to be falling apart. I defy you to find that they do not suck but I doubt most of you stay in motels. We camp now pretty exclusively.
It's made me understand the popularity of RVs, which otherwise seem to me like a big expensive pain.
You had to remain until the end of this movie to see how it turned out.
*My favorite in this way was a down-at-heels KOA which was being run - oddly, if you're familiar with the KOA model - by a Chinese woman, somewhere in New Mexico, or maybe it was AZ. She was summoned unwillingly, during working hours, by knocking on the door of the manager's house, and waiting about 15 minutes for her to appear.*
She had pasted signs all over the property, their variety truly breathtaking - it seemed that no possible adverse happening had escaped her notice, or having happened, been memorialized in sign. "DO NOT STEP IN THIS HOLE!"
Two that I remember distinctly because they were practically worth the price of the campsite, were in the women's bathhouse. It had a radio and speakers in the wall. She had taped next to the dial a sign enjoining you not to change the channel, stating that "classical music is the BEST MUSIC!!! It is the only music!"
Nearby, hand-lettered but identical signs were taped over each of the 5 or six sinks, taped exactly where, should you be a woman grooming herself or applying makeup, it would take the place of your face: "No HAIR-DYE! NO DYING HAIR! Dye hair somewhere else! NO HAIR DYE IN SINK!!!"
*We might not have waited so long, but a sign had given us reason to expect this.
As a reader I'd be curious what tips AK's favor towards National Rally/Rassemblement National and against Macron. He is for increasing the work week, lower marginal tax rates, free-trade, reducing the size of the civil service, private provisioning of healthcare, raising the retirement age.
He has a background in Investment Banking, is a student of the classics, and a trained Philosopher. In the finest traditions of Western Civilization. And to give this up for .. Marine Le Pen??
Perhaps the "common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard".
I think it stems from the fact that Macron is viewed as out of touch. I suppose it's not his fault that France is a bureaucratically sclerotic and culturally divisive country that has made generations of its citizens dependent on its welfare state. The French left hates Macron because he is too economically liberal for them. The French right hates him because he is not restrictive enough on immigration, although I'm not sure how much it matters what he thinks with EU open borders anyway. The European far-right is essentially center-left economically and center-right socially but very nationalistic and anti-immigration. They would not have power if European countries had independent immigration policies and functioning borders. National Rally, in particular, truly is a single-issue party these days in that regard.
In many substantial issues I would agree with them, but they sacrifice to the false and bloody idols of personalism and authoritarianism.
I keep seeing this, but as far as action, I see a lot of "we have to destroy the village in order to save it" logic coming from the left. On both sides of the Atlantic.
Actions matter, and the left is, in tangible ways, upending the rule of law to prevent what? The upending of the rule of law?
What you do when you hold power matters. I don't believe that Trump has "the good of the country" at heart, but I don't believe that of Biden either. And Biden is in power. That's a fundamentally more dangerous position. If he's incompetent to run for President, he should not be president now and the Vice President should invoke the 25th Amendment if the President will not resign. The Constitution is explicit on this.
Why isn't it happening? Biden's ego? The faceless and unaccountable Democratic consensus that they do not want the duly elected Vice President to assume power. Even though she is of their own party?
There is no reasonable understanding here where the left looks any different from the right. Except they are actually in power and dangerously abusing it rather than not in power and potentially abusing it.
"What I want to do is this. I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state." Fake electors in seven states. Pressure the Vice President to reject certification of votes.
But what do we unwashed mouth breathing masses know about the finer points of the law. Surely all this falls inside the "outer perimeter" of a President's duties and the President enjoys either absolute immunity or a presumption of immunity from criminal charges.
This is not the point here; the point here is that even the personal power of populist leaders is substantially higher than that of the establishment parties. Even if I agreed with the populist, there are clear dictatorship hints in all of them, and the worst case of that pathology is Trump (while his substantive policies were moderate!). The worst crime was non concession, which is intended usurpation.
There is no single point here.
Actions are more important than intent, and the establishment party here is behaving as dictatorially.
1. It's not accurate to say that the power of the populist leader is higher than that of the establishment party. The truth belies that because we can see that establishment party actually holds power. Not just the executive, but at many levels across the government.
2. Further, the populist leader actually did hold power, and actually did relinquish it after a fitful attempt to contest it.
3. Actions and words are different. The non-concession was harmful, but followed by, in practice, a prompt concession.
4. The worst crime isn't intended usurpation, it's actual usurpation. Which is what is happening right now.
That is, no matter what "clear dictatorship hints" surround Trump, there is actual dictatorial behavior going in from the establishment party.
A little discussed point here is that the establishment party is not just behaving dictatorially in regards to Trump, but also with regards to Vice President Harris.
By the letter and spirit of the law, Harris should be the acting President at this moment. The operation of the government has nothing to do with the machinations of a political party.
But, that isn't what's happening. Why not? Because the party has, and continues to calculate that Harris, who is the duly elected President, is a political liability, and they don't want her to be in that role.
Harris was elected to the position, and angling to sideline her, keep an incapacitated president in power for the next several months while they select a more popular member of the party to run (without the democratic vetting process of the primary) is a blatant attempt to circumvent the rule of law an the democratic process.
The fact this doesn't seem to even merit mention puts the lie to the idea that the establishment party has much interest in the spirit or legality of their actions.
What we observe everywhere is that personal power is more dangerous than oligarchic power. Even the Chinese communists were more rationally ruled until Xi became emperor.
I think you are drawing a false distinction between dictatorship and oligarchy. In practice it is a distinction without a difference, as the dictator needs the support of oligarchs to rule, and oligarchs invariably find a single leader to settle disputes.
No it isn’t! The court is chosen by King (as in Russia), while in Venezia or England, the government was chosen by wealthy individuals having their own independent power. The ideal is to add to that, some degree of popular participation (while not political system has ever deserved to be named democracy)
Respectfully this seems like a bare assertion.
In addition to being false, I think it’s quite irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if personal power is more or less dangerous than oligarchic power.
The latter is still sufficiently dangerous on its own. Relinquishing a democratic republic into the hands of an oligarchy has a long and unfortunate history. And it’s often done based on fear that turns out to be overblown.
Short version is I’d rather take my chances on maybe having to fight Trump, who would be opposed by significant democratic opposition, than have the certainty of having to fight the government usurped by a faction that is already taking unprecedented steps to consolidate its hold on power deviate from legal exercise of government power.
What will Trump do? Or at least try to do? He has Agenda 47 on his website. Here’s less than 3 min. list by a Dem against it.
https://twitchy.com/amy-curtis/2024/07/01/best-trump-ad-ever-leftist-lists-agenda-47-and-all-the-things-trump-will-do-n2397845
Many seem as unrealistic as a Full Border Wall, yet such a Wall now seems likely to be very possible.
On-line free American Academy sounds pretty good, and pretty disruptive.
Stopping illegal immigration should be a key goal of all who claim to favor Rule of Law. Trump, like the NatCons, are right on this issue, as M. Friedman was.
The fear of civil war by Dem Antifa protesters is overblown—once National Guard starts arresting large numbers of violent protesters for their violence. The pro-abortion women are willing to march, but few are willing to be violent. And there’s no other actual Trump policy that generates as much or more emotion.
The Trump tweet of Jan 6 where he called for peace, and no violence, which Twitter then censored in about 5 minutes, is a pretty strong rebuttal against the insurrection charge, tho him actually leaving with no real problem should be an even stronger rebuttal.
The TDS folk, including Kling, will also continue to have Trump’s very uncool narcissism as an illogical reason to hate him. Presidents should be judged on their policy decisions, and the results. Which are only influenced, not dependent on, their personalities. Trump’s policies were far far better than have been Biden’s (or the unelected decision makers behind him).
There is definitely some irony in John Eastman and John Yoo participating in the same panel when Eastman was the person who came up with the idea for Vice President Pence not to certify state ballot results and overturn the 2020 election while John Yoo was the one who personally advised Pence that this was unconstitutional and illegal. It would be interesting to see these two debate that topic, although the subject of the panel makes it unlikely.
It is strange to me that a largely disgraced figure like Eastman would even be invited to an event like this that features essentially the intellectual and political leaders of the right at the moment. NatCons seem to be a little too deep in the "we must embrace everything Trump says and embrace the opposite of whatever the left says" camp. Also, I'm unsure how Steve Bannon will make that first panel on July 8 from his prison cell. Again, another person who seems out-of-place to invite even if you think his conviction is lawfare or Eastman's disbarment was unjustified. The NatCon coalition seems like an untenable truce between the alt-right and the conservative movement, and I think it will implode with one side winning or losing control of the GOP if Trump wins and has to start choosing whether he wants right-wing populists or Bucklean conservatives to occupy the top positions in his second administration.
The Buckleans have not exactly covered themselves in glory for the past 30 years. It's one thing to criticize "populist" republican voters for being "all fight but no plan". It's another thing not to even want to fight at all.
My main problem with populists, NatCons, or whatever label is used to describe that wing of the right isn't that they have no plans or means to implement policies, although that is a valid criticism of them. The problem I was alluding to is that they have no quality control or accountability for people within their movement because they see everyone on their side as an enemy of the left who must be righteous in their actions on some level. That is why Eastman still gets invited to events like this even though, to any impartial observer, he has disgraced himself and done something knowingly wrong and arguably illegal. The left has this problem, too, although they are sometimes willing to turn on someone inside their movement if they commit one of their pet grievances, like saying something that can be construed as racist or sexist.
You can argue that the Buckley/Reaganite conservatives have led the right to where it is today by being ineffectual and constantly giving in to the left. That being said, there was/is a bit more intellectualism, elitism, and civility within that movement that I think is better for promoting truth-seeking, outing bad actors, and respecting institutions.
"What the NatCons get right is that people do not like the disruption that comes with mass immigration. Libertarians are instinctively on the wrong side of that issue."
It's not the wrong side, any more than supporting gay marriage was the wrong side of that issue 20 years ago. People don't like a beneficial thing? Well they should learn to like it. Yes, a compromise should be reached with the xenophobes until they die off or become better people, but that doesn't mean they're on the right side of the issue.
Agree of course that low-skill immigrants from majority-Muslim countries are a special problem in Europe. Certainly that's a reason not to have 100% open borders.
> And while he is the tribune of the “somewheres,” he represents an ego, not an ideology.
It's not either/or. Trump and every other politician they can vote for represent different things to different people.
I am not sure what Trump’s ideology would be, however. As in, I don’t know with certainty what his reaction and decision might be when it comes to surprise events. I was surprised by his COVID response, for instance. Then again, I was surprised by a lot of people’s response, by which I learn that people on the right are less ideological than perhaps I thought.
"I was surprised by his COVID response, for instance."
"by which I learn that people on the right are less ideological than perhaps I thought."
I'm curious what you mean by each.
I wouldn’t have thought mandated lockdowns would have been considered “ok”. I might be misremembering Trump’s exact stance, however.
I was further surprised by how many on the right, including libertarians, were ok with mandating vaccines and lockdowns and other restrictions. I would have hoped that ideology would have trumped “this scares me”. It seems to me that many people are more in favor of expedient than principled, which makes me think they are less ideological.
Thanks for explaining.
Maybe I'm the one misremembering but I thought Trump was against the lockdowns. I'm sure he understood an economic slowdown would be bad for his re-election bid so I suspect I have it right.
As for mandatory vaccines, I wouldn't begin to suggest I know the politics of everyone in favor, I'm not aware of any conservatives who were.
I don't recall for certain, but I don't think Trump came out against lockdowns, but then maybe he just left it up to the states (which would be proper, even if the states do the wrong thing.) Didn't he close the borders to air travelers as well? I am tired and too lazy to look it up now... maybe if I get some more time over the weekend. Still, I was surprised his administration, if not him personally, didn't take the CDC to task for all their nonsense with changing the definition of vaccines, changing the protocols for pandemics last second, etc.
Re: mandatory vaccines, lockdowns and other restrictions: Tyler Cowen was oddly in favor of them, and many other Republicans/conservatives were at least silent. It became a left/right issue over time, but for a while there were very few voices saying "Woah, you aren't allowed to do this, public health crisis or no."
Yes, I remember hearing media saying it was a state by state decision Trump couldn't make. I forgot the part about lockdowns to reduce hospital admissions but I'd still say Trump was against lockdowns.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/03/trump-says-nationwide-lockdown-would-ultimately-inflict-more-harm-than-it-would-prevent.html
It seems you at least implied Cowen was a conservative. I think he identifies as libertarian.
The archetypal rebellious reaction of young men when "any idea becomes hegemonic, and comes to attract ideological drones and scolds" is the most salient point here.
Notwithstanding how is discussed, I don't think American are really so much opposed to high levels of immigration as the chaotic way it is happening. And Republicans strategically and Democrat by ineptitude coincide in keeping it chaotic. It's hilarious that Trump got the publicity for "green cars on graduation" whihc ought to be near the top of t he list of Abundancy Democrats.
It really isn't that chaotic. The Biden administration had made the entry and inprocessing of millions of migrants a year very orderly, quick, and easy, and often at the normal ports of entry (and even bureaus and airports abroad) under official 'supervision', so long as the migrants say the right lies and magic words, which of course in the internet era everyone knows how to do.
The chaotic part is what happens after they hit the ground or the tarmac, which is not a border or immigration policy problem, but a welfare policy problem that causes the broader homelessness problem, and the new migrants are basically homeless and will do what homeless people do, try to get to the places where they hope to settle because there is local work and where they can also expect to receive the most generous benefits from the local government.
Yes, a bunch of new migrants will bunch up right across the border because they don't have the money to keep moving, and this is kind of chaotic and unfairly stressing and burdensome of those local communities which can't do anything about it because they can't move themselves away from the border. But the migrants don't want to bunch up in those places and just need enough bus ticket money to move on to greener pastures.
The chaos comes in because there are areas which have decided (or been 'forced' by courts) as a matter of local policy to become migrant magnets by promising both legal sanctuary and generous welfare to all comers without limit. Wherever there are not these magnets, there is no chaos.
I refer to the refusal of Congresses and Presidents to have procedures and enough people at the border to orderly hear the asylum claims, most of which are bogus, admit those that are valid and deport the others. This ought to discourage those with invalid claims. Now some of those deported would be admitted if we had a merit based immigration system, but until we get the irregular entry problem under control, it is hard to get people to focus on reform.
Do not fall for the bogus claim that it has anything to do with people or resources, of which there are more than plenty, especially when complemented by treaty-based policies that require refugees to stop in the nearest place where they would be safe from whatever they claim to be running from, or require asylum seekers to remain abroad unless and until their application is approved, or which impose small quotas on the annual number of migrants granted asylum or other protected status, so that administrations have to make hard choices of the most worthy cases and don't have the ability to hide their intentional policy to open the floodgates under the cover story of discretion. Congress did actually act, that's the existing immigration law. The chaos is because it's policy to ignore that law, so why should anyone negotiating a deal or compromise expect any new law not also to be ignored?
There are enough resources to process all the claims of asylum? I have not heard that claim before.
This is tantamount to saying that Americans want their country to be more crowded.
I wish the pollsters would have the guts to ask that.
Of course, as time passes, and we've filled the country with people from crowded places who are utterly indifferent as to whether it is crowded here or what things look like, and whether there are farms and open space, and completely indifferent to the environment, this not being their country in any sense* - the polls may reveal - whatever is the opposite of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
*You must have noticed this if you've lived in a boom town that attracted people from all across the country. They never do take an interest in the local history - perhaps that's natural - and they never do learn the first name of a single native plant. They live in their house, not in your town or region. They learn restaurants, not local issues.
No doubt immigrants add to crowds in crowded places but immigrants are not the cause. Despite the costs and crowds, people continue to move to crowded places. Far more small towns are dying than growing. The vast majority of acreage in the US is getting LESS crowded despite more people overall.
The county of my birth:
Added 203.13 square miles of development and 126.39 square miles of impervious surface between 2001 and 2019.
Density schmensity.
You know how you guys feel about climate change talk?
That's how I feel about your red herring called density.
I wish people could grasp that small towns becoming deserted does not mean there is a change in land use away from urbanization.
You said, "This is tantamount to saying that Americans want their country to be more crowded."
Crowded is people, not development and pavement. I responded regarding people.
Crowded is when there is traffic everywhere because the cities have grown into one another - drive from San Antonio through San Marcos through Austin through Round Rock through Georgetown and tell me you do not feel that urbanization produces "crowding".
To recover, maybe you'll want to go visit a state park - oops, you didn't make a reservation - and it's full.
Or maybe you bought a place in the Hill Country years ago, when there were flowing springs and green hills.
Well, hell, where'd the "country" part of that go? And where did the water go?
Less crowded it is not. Less crowded with birds, sure.
I said nothing contrary to that.
Increasing density in a city can have some down sides but it also has upsides. I think it's a matter of management.
You and I have a different impression about how easily new immigrants assimilate. The ones I know of are or are one generation removed from solidly middle class and probably unable to speak the language of the place their parents or grandparents came from.
Look at an aerial map of the major cities of Texas, as it changes over the decades. This is not your urban density dream. This is metastasis.
It is not even your suburban dream. The sprawl housing developments are not what y'all are picturing, they are in many cases instant slums, and the houses in them will appreciate about as well as their owners' F-150s.
ETA: when I was a kid I first heard the term "bubble" in reference to relatives who lived in the "Park Cities", a tony, leafy precinct of Dallas. (Though of course, the original houses, like those of River Oaks in Houston, were mostly quite modest compared to what people choose now.) I remember hearing these relations teased for "living in the bubble". Note: *the* bubble.
The rest of us though we lived in single family homes, did not conceive of ourselves as living in a bubble, being as we lived in ordinary middle-class areas, and our public schools were not "fancy". There were really just one or two bubbles, then.
Now I don't know anyone who does not live in a bubble, and does not so refer to it, without embarrassment. And it ain't no Highland Park.
Uhhh?