US Politics Megathread

[Goodspeed]

@Dolan The thing is, an open border policy has almost no support even in democratic circles. It's not at all hypocritical, which you are implying, for the Biden admin to want to control the US border.

[Dolan]

@Dolan The thing is, an open border policy has almost no support even in democratic circles. It's not at all hypocritical, which you are implying, for the Biden admin to want to control the US border.

Idk, we can check, I'm not that knowledgeable on US politics and I don't follow everything they say, only the big stuff.

NPR wrote an article last year in which they took stock of the main positions in their party on illegal border crossings:
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/12/75944264 ... 3145398878



I mean, all their primary candidates backed decriminalising illegal crossings last year:

2020 Democrats Overwhelmingly Back Decriminalizing Border Crossings In Thursday Debate
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/decrimin ... 6116392906

Harris herself agreed with this:


It is true that Biden didn't and he held a compromise position, which allowed him to look tough on illegal migration so that he wouldn't lose too many votes against Trump last year. Instead, he supported "a more humane system", but still opposed illegal migration and favoured legal migration, much like his former boss, Obama, and a few other big shots in the party (Pelosi, Schumer, etc).

[Goodspeed]

The biggest divide in the democratic party, according to that NPR article and it sounds about right to me, is whether or not to decriminalize illegal border crossing. But that's a completely different thing than opening the borders. Not one of the dem presidential candidates in 2020 actually supported open borders as far as I know.

[Dsy]

“Raise your hand if you think it should be a civil offense, rather than a crime, to cross the border without documentation.”

It does not look like open border policy for me.

[Dolan]

@Goodspeed
These issues are related, because logically if you are against criminalising border crossings, then you are more open to the possibility of not sending the illegals back.
It probably also has a lot to do with those who already crossed the border and lived without any papers within the borders of the USA.
As far as I know, Democrats rejected the idea that the voting process should involve ID cards. (Even though in Europe this is a standard procedure to avoid voting fraud, nobody here complains that you need to show an ID to be able to vote. It's a common-sense thing to do.)
So a lot of policies which are logically tied to immigration follow from this entry point of what's your position on illegal crossings. It's a logically necessary, but not sufficient condition for having a more supportive attitude to legalising the status of illegals, instead of repatriating them, etc.

[Goodspeed]

@Goodspeed These issues are related, because logically if you are against criminalising border crossings, then you are more open to the possibility of not sending the illegals back.

That they're related is not relevant here. It's very simple: Your implication was that it was hypocritical of the Biden admin to want to control the US border, as if the democratic party campaigned on open borders. They didn't. Not even close, in fact. At work here is your tendency to project the most extreme version of every policy onto "the left", so you can feel validated in your opinion that the left is a bunch of irrational extremists.

[Dolan]

This attitude of intransigence on immigration is not typical of the left, you have to admit that. Show me another example when left-wing leaders said "don't come here, we're sending you back".
This kind of attitude is just not typical of leftwing policies. What you usually see is the Kumbaya, all-embracing, global coming-together spirit. And saying "do not come here" doesn't quite match that.
That's what I reacted to. It runs counter to the typical political attitude to immigration that leftwing governments had.

Someone could argue the Biden administration is not leftwing, though. Then I guess their leftwing voters projected on them some hopes that were not fulfilled, they now see a message sent to those who intend to cross the border illegally, a message that is more similar to what they heard from Trump.

[Goodspeed]

This attitude of intransigence on immigration is not typical of the left, you have to admit that. Show me another example when left-wing leaders said "don't come here, we're sending you back".
This kind of attitude is just not typical of leftwing policies. What you usually see is the Kumbaya, all-embracing, global coming-together spirit. And saying "do not come here" doesn't quite match that.
That's what I reacted to. It runs counter to the typical political attitude to immigration that leftwing governments had.

Someone could argue the Biden administration is not leftwing, though. Then I guess their leftwing voters projected on them some hopes that were not fulfilled, they now see a message sent to those who intend to cross the border illegally, a message that is more similar to what they heard from Trump.

I would imagine it's pretty typical for governments to discourage illegal immigration, but that's a whole other discussion. My only point was that the dem party doesn't support and didn't campaign on open borders, which you apparently thought they do/did.

[Dolan]

Well, did they campaign on a message of "don't come here, we're gonna send you back"?

[Goodspeed]

Dems don't tend to campaign on immigration. It's really only a popular issue with republicans.

[Dolan]

Yeah, so coming out with such a message while they're in power is unusual. It's not typical of them to explicitly come out and say: don't come here, we're sending you back.
Sounds more like something a Republican would say.

[Dsy]

There is a difference between:
-Do not come here because we don't have the resources to help you (but wish we could)
Or
-Do not come here because you are dangerous subhuman beings

That is the difference between the left and far-right wings.

[n0el]

Yeah, so coming out with such a message while they're in power is unusual. It's not typical of them to explicitly come out and say: don't come here, we're sending you back.
Sounds more like something a Republican would say.

Obama did this as a way to try and show toughness when negotiating an immigration bill in his presidency. Hence he became the deporter-in-chief. Didn't work since there's no bipartisan path forward with 10+ Republicans on the issue.

[princeofcarthage]

@Dsy US doesn't have resources?

[Dsy]

@Dsy US doesn't have resources?

It has but its distribution is awful. So practically it doesn't have resources.

[Dolan]

I knew this wouldn't sit well with the progressive wing

[princeofcarthage]

She also made a fool of herself today bu some poor comments I think

[Horsemen]

Might as well just dissolve the border and let them all in

[Dolan]

Just like during prehistoric times when tribes roamed freely on the plains

[lejend]

Or like during the 1800s. Immigration restrictions are actually pretty new to America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... ted_States

For the first century of the United States' history, immigration to the country was unrestricted. Anyone could move into the United States, start a new life, pay taxes, participate in military service and conduct business. However, while the United States had an "open-borders" policy for the first century of its existence, it had very clear naturalization laws from the first years of its existence. Anyone who wanted to vote or hold elective office had to be naturalized. That is, anyone could immigrate in, but only those who went through the naturalization process and became a citizen could vote or hold elective office.

This set of policies, in which open immigration was permitted, but naturalization was tightly controlled, persisted until the 1870s and 1880s, when growing support for eugenics eventually drove the US government to adopt immigration laws. These laws were intended to end the open immigration policy which the Founding Fathers had permitted, in favor of preventing "racial taint" from immigrants who entered from undesirable countries.

[Dsy]

Do you think this will change under Biden?

[RefluxSemantic]

No

[Dolan]

There's a politician in my country who was president twice (Băsescu), he was famous for saying things that were absurdly funny, like: Winter is not like summer.
But he said it as if he was actually saying something significant, not something obvious. Winter is not like summer, ok? You need to understand that.
He was saying this in the context in which he was the mayor of the capital and people were complaining about some problems that always appeared in the city during the winter. His answer was: what can I do, people, winter is not like summer.

Well, the USA is not like Europe.

[RefluxSemantic]

In this case the USA and Europe are quite a bit alike though. Yes, things aren't as extreme in Europe but the USA is generally also slightly richer. I think the same problem applies to both regions, where the rich have outrageous wealth.

I wonder what that graph would look like for actual wealth, rather than income.

[Dsy]

I do think if the extreme gap wont change between poor and rich in the US its inevitable that the country will change into autocracy.
(see example of Trump)