American xenophobia
Donald Trump and JD Vance are campaigning on xenophobia. There’s no evidence that immigrants are any sort of threat to America, and the data show that immigrants commit crimes at *lower* rates than American citizens. Sadly, though, fear of the other seems to work in America:
“Jeffrey Balogh, a resident of Erie, said at that event that he feels strongly about Trump’s proposals on immigration. He shared that he felt uncomfortable recently when he went to rent chairs from a business and five men who spoke a foreign language were standing outside waiting for a bus.
“Not one spoke a lick of English,” he said. “You see a whole different environment.”
Actually, Jeffrey doesn’t know whether these men do or don’t speak English. He only knows he didn’t hear it during the brief time he was in earshot. If he heard me speak, he probably wouldn’t know that I can speak some French.
Look, I’ve traveled to plenty of places where I don’t speak the language—Spain, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Greece, Russia—and wasn’t in the least bothered by not hearing English. If you hike out more than a couple hundred yards on most national park trails, you’ll hear lots of different languages. Most of the English speakers stay in the parking lots.
I often encounter people on my walks here in Rhode Island speaking Portuguese, French, Chinese and Arabic. Doesn’t bother me at all, nor should it.
America has been strengthened by immigration, and we will remain strong by encouraging immigration. Shame on Trump and Vance for encouraging xenophobia. Shame on America for embracing the cowardice and fear they are promoting.
Xenophobia in 21st century America
“Jeffrey Balogh, a resident of Erie, said at that event that he feels strongly about Trump’s proposals on immigration. He shared that he felt uncomfortable recently when he went to rent chairs from a business and five men who spoke a foreign language were standing outside waiting for a bus.
“Not one spoke a lick of English,” he said. “You see a whole different environment.”
Actually, Jeffrey doesn’t know whether these men do or don’t speak English. He only knows he didn’t hear it during the brief time he was in earshot. If he heard me speak, he probably wouldn’t know that I can speak some French.
Look, I’ve traveled to plenty of places where I don’t speak the language—Spain, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Greece, Russia—and wasn’t in the least bothered by not hearing English. If you hike out more than a couple hundred yards on most national park trails, you’ll hear lots of different languages. Most of the English speakers stay in the parking lots.
I often encounter people on my walks here in Rhode Island speaking Portuguese, French, Chinese and Arabic. Doesn’t bother me at all, nor should it.
America has been strengthened by immigration, and we will remain strong by encouraging immigration. Shame on Trump and Vance for encouraging xenophobia. Shame on America for embracing the cowardice and fear they are promoting.
Xenophobia in 21st century America
About fifty years ago the Club of Rome figured out that the best method to limit the immigration of non-white populations to the Global North was to export manufacturing jobs to the Global South providing the Global South the economic expansion that their peoples desired while preserving the wealth of the Global North via financialization (i.e., the ownership economy of IP and FIRE sector) and backstopping the median incomes with retail and service jobs while discarding the burden of labor and environmental regulation from the shoulders of the ownership class. The best laid plans of mice and men…..
More or less that is how we got Trumped. However, it has been many years since I last found a reference to such on the WWW as this is one of many realities too embarrassing to survive the editorial Internet apparatus. We can have pretty lies to satisfy any appetite, but the truth would just make everyone sick.
IOW, when Nixon ended convertibility of the US dollar (i.e., to silver – gold had long been off the table) and opened the door to China in 1972, then growing US trade deficit that developed was a feature and not a bug. By 1976 Triffin’s Dilemma had began to expand alongside stagnating US labor real wages. The unintentional expansion of immigration from the Global South to the Global North has become a very convenient scapegoat for the ownership class. I prefer to blame the architects for outcomes rather than the idiots that are swept up in the turmoil. Trump despite his financialized wealth is closer to being an idiot than he is to being an architect although he benefits from the turmoil rather than being swept up by it. The sociopathic personality of Trump is naturally suited for manipulating the vulnerable with lies and deception.