As Greg Sargent points out, the latest CNN poll finds Republicans overwhelmingly want to deport some 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US by a nearly 2-1 margin.
By 56-42, Americans support developing a plan to legalize undocumented immigrants over stopping their flow and deporting those already here. Independents agree by 58-39, and moderates by 59-40.
But Republicans favor stopping the flow of undocumenteds and deporting those already here by 63-34. So do conservatives, by 55-43. “Those already here,” of course, amount to some 11 million people.
Now, it’s certainly possible that GOP support for deportation is inflated somewhat by the inclusion of securing the border on that side of the question. But even when the question is framed a bit less starkly, as a recent Post/ABC News poll did, a majority of Republicans does not think the undocumented should be allowed to live and work here even if they pay a fine and meet other requirements. This should not obscure the fact that a substantial number of Republicans are, in fact, open to legalization; it’s just that more of them apparently aren’t.
And as such, what the CNN numbers again confirm is that there is a deep and intractable divide between the two parties on what to do about the undocumented population. This fundamental underlying difference matters far more than Donald Trump’s vicious rhetoric, which (assuming he doesn’t run as a third party candidate) will likely prove ephemeral.
Indeed, the CNN poll hints at the demographic challenge the GOP will face after Trump fades and the only person still listening to his bluster is his reflection in the mirror. As Brian Beutler recently observed, the GOP effort to grapple with the Trump phenomenon without alienating his supporters throws into stark relief the basic divide among the GOP presidential candidates over how to get to the White House. Some (Jeb Bush) are arguing for a genuine effort to broaden the party’s appeal outside its core constituencies, while others (Scott Walker) are seemingly betting it all on an ability to energize still more Republican-friendly white voters. As Beutler argues, the rise of Trump illustrates in particularly harsh terms that Republicans may have to choose one or the other.
I’m pretty sure Trump’s rise shows that the Republicans can very much win as the party of deportation, demonization, and derangement. The anger stoked by decades of Republican “us vs them” rhetoric hasn’t just magically vanished now that Obama isn’t running, folks.
The appeal to “energize still more Republican-friendly white voters” is absolutely the ticket for these guys. “Those People(tm) are taking your jobs, your health care, your culture, your country, your taxpayer dollars, when will we get rid of them?” has been pretty effective throughout American history, guys.
There’s every reason to believe that this is where the GOP is now and will be for the rest of my lifetime, at least.
JMG
It has been pretty constant,but not particularly effective, as the history of Irish, Italian, Jewish, Eastern European and yes, Latino immigration shows.
Bobby B.
What a pessimistic, misanthropic post. Beefsquatch likey-like!
beltane
This is a pretty consistent position for Republican voters. Even in the days when the party was sane, it had strong nativist elements. The otherwise fairly progressive Teddy Roosevelt, for example, campaigned against Democrats using some very ugly, anti-dirty Catholic furriner rhetoric. Nothing new under the sun here.
Frankensteinbeck
I am surprised that 34% of Republicans do not favor deportation. Racism is the guiding light and true soul of the GOP. That seems awfully high.
It’s lower than the general GOP margin? That makes much less sense. I don’t know what to make of that.
That boat has sailed, Jeb. You are not your brother, and your attempt to quote him on everything and call him your inspiration is not going to fly. Actually, that’s kind of an interesting point. They do desperately need to broaden their party’s appeal to minorities, but how can that work? It will scuttle the rabid voting zeal of the racists, which they depend on, and would take decades to pay off.
EDIT – Holy schnitzel ponies. I just compared Jeb unfavorably to W. It blows me away what a pathetic excuse for a politician and human being Jeb is.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Classic example of a badly worded question. What the Republicans actually want to do is deport every single Hispanic in America, citizen or no.
That also holds true for black people as well, although I’m sure they’d be fine with just re-enslaving them.
Belafon
Latinos, like those here in Texas, need to really watch this and vote next year. If Texas were to go for the Democrat, it would seriously hurt the party, forcing it to look at who it wants to represents. If a Republican wins the White House, the only determination of your nationality will be your skin color. If you look like you should be in Mexico, someone will try to send you there, possibly with a gun.
Belafon
@Belafon: and by the party, I meant the Republican party. (I can’t edit from work.)
Snarki, child of Loki
If the RWNJs *really* want to reduce the number of undocumented immigrants, the solution is easy:
Summary execution of employers of undocumented immigrants
After the first few dozen, the others will get the message PDQ. No more jobs, no more undocumented immigrants.
Now, why wouldn’t they like that solution? It is a puzzlement.
Redshift
This is true on any number of issues, not just immigration. In order to win in the long term, they need to re-brand, but they can’t do that without alienating their current base and losing in the short term (and probably the medium term.) No generation of politicians are going to sacrifice their own careers for that, so they keep producing reports saying it needs to be done (while ignoring the pain involved) and all their current politicians, if they accept the prognosis, quite reasonably decide someone else should be the one to do it.
(And even worse, it would require sacrificing wins at the levels of government where they do win now for the hope of doing better nationally.)
So until they actually start losing even with voter suppression and gerrymandering, the strategy if whipping up the bigots and dividing the country even more is never going to end.
Bobby Thomson
You know who else wanted to get rid of those people?
Redshift
@Frankensteinbeck:
It probably just means there are still conservative Democrats.
jnfr
David Atkins had a great post over the weekend at the Political Animal blog.
The GOP Isn’t Choosing a President. They’re Choosing a Rebel Leader.
Well worth reading.
Belafon
@Redshift: Or people who call themselves independent.
Laertes
They’re building a powerful sense of entitlement. Should they lose the political struggle, I’d expect a pretty ugly campaign of domestic terrorism.
We know exactly what happens in the US when entitled and heavily armed white people are enraged at politically powerless minorities and have some reason to expect that law enforcement is broadly sympathetic to their cause. Bodies everywhere.
NorthLeft12
I just returned from a trip through Central Europe [Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic] and England. Anti-immigrant feelings seem to be running high in all of those countries, at least among the right wingers.
My daughter may have to leave England in a couple of years if she cannot get her earnings up over $60K due to some new legislation pending in the UK. She should be very close and her profession [High School Science and Math Teacher] is in demand in the UK as they estimate they are about 15% short of qualified people in those subjects. She was recruited from Canada three years ago…..and now she faces the real possibility of having to leave. Crazy.
MattF
Well, what we’re seeing is that ‘rebranding’ is a euphemism for ‘shutting down and starting over.’ And that’s not going to happen– certainly not while their voters have no place else to go.
cmorenc
The Republican approach to their looming demographic problem seems to be to use their momentary advantage at state and congressional levels gained during off-year elections to permanently build sufficiently high barriers to prevent being flooded out by demographic changes in the electorate. The deeper they carve scars of alienation into those non-white demographics, the more fiercely urgent and motivated they are to erect stronger, higher, more impermeable and more permanently lasting barriers, and they seem to feel restrained by no scruples or shame over how they go about this. Further, both aside from this threatening demographic tide (but especially against the possibility that their barriers will sooner or later no longer be able to hold the tide back) – they are Hell-bent on using their intervening period of control to destroy, insofar as possible, all existing progressive institutions of government going back all the way to the New Deal, and to make their successful revival impractically difficult for several decades at least, even if progressives regain a clear electoral dominance. Think what SCOTUS comprised of seven Scalia think-a-likes could do, even in the face of a series of two-term democratic presidents and democratic control of both houses of congress.
C.V. Danes
My feeling is that the hope that Trump is going to flame out is nust that: hope. Trump is resonating pretty well with the base, and he’s got the money to keep going no matter what. Personally, I think he’s going to be around for awhile.
Jeffro
Semi-OT, semi-not: here’s Ted Cruz’s response to being berated by his fellow GOP senators after he called Mitch McConnell a liar on the Senate floor
Why do I have a feeling that Glenn Beck is a big Cruz fan, and vice-versa?
Jeffro
@jnfr: From Atkins:
B.I.NGO.
rikyrah
not shocked in the least.
Trump is feeding them filet mignon.
this is who they are.
Gin & Tonic
But Republicans favor stopping the flow of undocumenteds and deporting those already here by 63-34.
I guess Republicans have decided they don’t like strawberries anymore.
rikyrah
@Belafon:
they are already refusing to issue birth certificates to the American born children of the undocumented in Texas.
they want to challenge the 14th Amendment.
gene108
In 2012, if Santorum or Gingrich had a half-way competent field operation and were not solely relying on the generosity of a billionaire sugar daddy, they could have mounted an actual challenge to Romney.
They won primaries and caucuses. The Republican base supported what they were selling.
If Trump actually puts real work into campaigning, he’s not going away.
Edit: He has the money to stick around.
Amir Khalid
@Frankensteinbeck:
OMG. You’re Robin the Boy Wonder!
Frankensteinbeck
@gene108:
That’s the question, isn’t it? Bloviating narcissists are rarely willing to put in the work of organization. If he doesn’t, he’s dead in the water. All I know is, the winner will be someone with a decent campaign organization, and it won’t be Jeb unless nobody else has one.
boatboy_srq
@JMG: Precisely.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Interesting to note that Those People are what makes 1%er lives easier: they’re the construction labor, agricultural labor, domestic labor, food service labor and (in not a few cases) the high-tech and medical skilled labor that fuel the economy. This came up at the GOP convention in San Diego in 1996, which for those of us not party to the Party thought grimly laughable. Who knows what the delegates said in front of the chauffeurs, maids, waiters, valet attendants, groundskeepers, etc etc, many of whom were likely in the country extralegally; and there was absolutely no recognition that the event was held in a locale that would be nearly unlivable without the assistance of some at least questionably-legal folks in the economy to keep it running.
Imagine, too, what a colossal freakout the Reichwing would experience if the US deployed the level of law/immigration enforcement required to detain and deport all 11 million. If Jade Helm was bad, this would be unimaginably worse.
Frankensteinbeck
@Amir Khalid:
I write children’s books. Same thing.
Chris
@Jeffro:
They know they’re being screwed, but are committed to believing that it’s the darkies and furriners who’re robbing them of their well-earned safety net, rather than the people who’re actually tearing up their pensions, busting their unions and refusing to raise their wages.
White Trash Liberal
Immigration is what broke California for the GOP. Pete Wilson ran the nastiest campaign in my living memory centered on nativism. The initial win from this strategy was enormous. Since then, however, the GOP gets its clock cleaned.
I want the boil lanced. I am hoping for this continuation where every candidate adopts the most vocal and angry appeals to language, border and culture, and whomever walks away will have no choice but to go all in on a blatant fascist platform.
It will be scary, but necessary. And then we can confront the monster and beat it within an inch of its life.
boatboy_srq
@Frankensteinbeck: JEB always was W without the “affable idiot” shtick.
Woodrowfan
or any fruits or veggies, or the cut-up meats they get in the supermarket.
Chris
@boatboy_srq:
You mean “amiable dunce?”
Sherparick
@Frankensteinbeck: The 34% represents the business interest of the GOP, which does not particularly care for idea of citizenship or legalizing status, but is dead set against deportation of work force where the employers have so much power on their side the equation (look at the example H-2 Visa program and how “legal” immigrant workers are treated. We really don’t have any grounds to look down at Qutar, Dubai, or Malaysia do we have far a modern slavery is concerned. Of course this Blade Runner future is for us all if our Galtian overlords have their way: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicagarrison/the-new-american-slavery-invited-to-the-us-foreign-workers-f#.opMdz642J)
boatboy_srq
@Chris: That too.
Josie
@rikyrah: This is such an ugly move on the part of Texas Republicans. I can’t understand why activists and pundits are not pushing this to the front of the political conversation.
boatboy_srq
@Woodrowfan: Not to mention the clean hotel rooms with freshly-laundered linens, the hot restaurant meals, the new McMansions with immaculate lawns and pretty flowerbeds…
Jeffro
@Chris: Oh, absolutely. One wingnut friend of mine’s issue du jour today (per his FB page) is arguing against a $15 minimum wage, his point being – get this – that a) if the minimum wage goes to $15 an hour, b) fast-food companies will automate most of those jobs and fire workers, resulting in c) more people on welfare, who d) he’ll then have to support w/ his hard-earned tax dollars.
I don’t even know where to begin with that. McDonalds paid out $6.4 billion-with-a-B in dividends and stock buybacks last year – maybe their workers could have a share of that? Perhaps that particular rising tide could lift all boats? I’m sure he’d tell me if they want some of that sweet, sweet dividend cash, they should buy shares(!)
boatboy_srq
@rikyrah: Actually they want to challenge every amendment from the 11th onward. They’re just focusing on the 14th Amendment here. Not that that makes it any better.
Frankensteinbeck
@Sherparick:
Can’t be. There aren’t that many of them. The 1% are 1% of the population. The people who directly gain from cheap immigrant labor don’t make anywhere near 34% of the Republican party.
Mike in NC
To be honest, Republicans would prefer to execute as many undocumented workers as possible, just to keep them from re-entering. But they’d settle for shipping them out packed in cattle cars as an alternative.
Uncle Cosmo
@Frankensteinbeck:
It’s worse than Dumb & Dumber–it’s Dumb & Dumbed-Down. John-Boy is reputed to be intelligent enough to know better. Instead he’s shoved a metaphorical icepick into his metaphorical eye-socket & wiggled it around. But hey, what Thuglican gives a shit what s/he says to the unwashed so long as it wins the election, amirite?
Uncle Cosmo
@rikyrah:
Naaw–he’s feeding them cowpats soaked in Texas Pete & smoked over a slow tire-fire & they think it tastes better than that thar Frenchified crap.
Chris
@Jeffro:
“They’ll fire their workers and automate?” LOL! Those companies would already have fired those workers if they could have. Contrary to what Republican public statements would lead you to believe, the 1% are not in the charity business. These companies’ policies is to minimize their expenditures as much as humanly possible, which, when it comes to the peons actually distributing their product, means hiring as few of them as possible and paying them as little as legally possible (it would be less if there was no minimum wage law). There’s not a single restaurant position at McDonalds right now that wouldn’t have been cut already if they thought they could do without it.
Would that it were only right wingers who went for this shit; the last “you don’t deserve $15.00 an hour” I saw earlier this week was from a Facebook friend, normally a raging SJW, but who, doncha know, had to work hard to get to where she is on a lot less than $15.00, so you’d better buck up and tuck your shirt in and work exactly as hard for exactly as little and exactly as long as she did, young man, because the world doesn’t owe you a living… etc.
Judge Crater
@boatboy_srq: Were those 11 million undocumented immigrants to disappear one morning, the country would get quite a shock. When ‘Snow-maggedon’ struck DC several years ago the city was paralyzed. But somehow the hispanic workers who clear the sidewalks in my condo complex were able to arrive at around 4 a.m. and dig us out. How they got here I have no idea. Were it not for these workers – whom I don’t know weather they were ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’ – life, as most urban middle class citizens know it, would cease to exist.
It’s just one more example of right-wing (basically Republican) magical thinking that every piece of human and material infrastructure in the country came into existence through their individual efforts. That bridges and roads and airports require no collective (and therefore governmental) action. They just live in a world where freedom is free. They built everything and they don’t want Mexicans free-loading on the libertarian paradise they created by not paying taxes. They ignore that basic fact that immigrants and a strong central government built this country from the Louisiana Purchase to the GPS system that lets them know where the closest McDonalds is.
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
Don’t they? Maybe not all the way up to 35%, but how many businessmen, not 1%ers but small to medium sized businessmen running much shakier operations than WalMart, hire illegal immigrants to keep the costs down?
Frankensteinbeck
@Chris:
They’re still 1%, maybe 2%. 1% starts around 350k. Throw in, oh, 2 or 3% and you have even the smallest businesses hiring undocumenteds. You’re still one tenth of 34%. The whole point of the Reagan economy was that we have less and less rich people, and they’re richer and richer.
Patrick
And the forefathers of our nation were also undocumented immigrants at one point in time. And now they are heroes. The sheer hypocrisy…
Furthermore, is there any doubt that these folks have not thought about consequences regarding deporting 11 million people. They do work for below the market wages. Prices WILL go up as a result of their deportation.
Frankensteinbeck
@Patrick:
They have thought about it extensively. Their racism makes them sincerely believe that once you kick all the Mexicans (a catch-all label for them) out, the US will turn into a utopia, and any problems left will be black people’s fault. They believe immigrants, illegal or otherwise, are a drain on the economy and taking money out of their pockets. Hate makes you believe the damnedest things, and no amount of facts will budge that.
Jeffro
@Judge Crater: If you could boil this down to a t-shirt or bumper sticker, you’d make a gazillion bucks. Righteous.
Jeffro
@Chris: It’s the same thing w/ friends/relatives who rant about teachers, government workers, or really any job w/ benefits other than free oxygen. They’d all rather rail against other people doing ok and getting anything more than slave wages as opposed to supporting workers in general (much less unions). Their adoration of those holding the whip is truly remarkable.
LWA
Inevitably the argument from the right is that deportation is not about race, its about jobs (or even more hilariously, the environment).
Yet the question is, why is it that shutting down a factory in Pittsburgh and sending the widjit jobs to Mexico is a good and healthy thing, while firing the workers and bringing in Mexican workers to do their jobs is a bad and terrible thing?
The fact is, the overriding goal of globalization is to reduce the cost of labor, where “labor” is defined as your paycheck. As long as reducing your paycheck is the primary goal of our economic policy, this sort of economic anxiety and inchoate rage is only going to grow.
Over at LGW Eric Loomis has been doing great work on discussing the slave labor conditions to where our jobs are going in the globalized economy.
Whether the white blue collar Republicans are conscious of it or not, they are scrambling to compete with slaves in China and Bangladesh.
Any discussion of immigration can only make sense by tying it to globalization- it doesn’t matter even if we did deport all 11 million workers, their jobs would simply follow them home.
As a bit of an olive branch to the xenophobes- the best way to staunch the flow of immigrants is to have a global system of minimum wages and worker rights.
Crouchback
@Jeffro: OK, for the umpteenth time, there is little evidence for white working class voters as the core of the GOP. White voters are more likely to be Republican as income rises and that relationship is stronger in the South. The ideal Republican voter is an affluent older white Southerner. Lack of a college education does not automatically make you working class and bear in mind that older voters are both more likely to be Republican and have less formal education than younger voters. And according to the latest Yougov/Economist poll, Trump does well with older voters.
pseudonymous in nc
@Chris:
How many rule-of-law Republicans who think they’re six months hire cash-in-hand, no-questions-asked workers to do the shit jobs for cheap on their own Mini McMansions? It isn’t the rich, it’s the wannabes.
Anyway, this is not dissimilar to the abortion, where there’s a sliver of absolutism but a large lump of vocal “only for rape, incest and my daughter” types. Lots of conservatives like the idea of a whiter America in theory, and like being able to shout about it, but they don’t like the idea of $10 lettuce.
Chris
@Jeffro:
What I love about this is that it inevitably ends up cast in terms of “you didn’t earn that” – that these people don’t work hard enough or aren’t vital enough to justify their salaries.
When this argument is made (correctly) against billionaires, we’re told that we don’t have the right to judge these things – clearly they were able to get to a position where they were paid that much money, and who are you to decide what the true value of a service is? Which, whatever – but when we bring up, say, fast-food workers, we’re treated to a whole host of comparisons with cops and firefighters and teachers and asked, is it really fair that fast-food workers should be paid the same as them?
To which the answer is, “when did you start giving a shit what’s fair?” If fast-food workers are able to push, pull, cajole, and convince enough people to give them a $15.00 an hour deal, who are you to object? Maybe the cops and teachers and firefighters can do the same thing and have their salaries raised as well.
Yeah. Americans believe in lavishing the boss with all the goods in the world in the belief that someday they’ll be the boss, and that anyone who doesn’t manage to be the boss isn’t worth worrying about anyway. And in so doing, make life hard enough on Not The Boss to make it less likely that they will, in fact, one day become the boss (our social mobility is one of the lowest in the developed world, I believe). I really don’t know what to do about it.
Goblue72
@LWA: You’ll never see a mainstream Democrat support that – which is a core part of the problem. The Democratic establishment is solidly free trade. Look at TPP & Obama.
For the voter in the lower middle class getting eaten alive by globalization you have the Democrats doing nothing at best. At least with the GOP, they give voice to that rage.
Goblue72
@White Trash Liberal: unfortunately, the vast middle of the country is not going to Latinoize like California. It will remain largely white and each of those states gets two Senators.
NCSteve
Republicanism is nearly synonymous with innumeracy. You see it at work in belief after belief, policy after policy.
Jeffro
@Chris:
I think those on the right see this as an extension of their ‘makers and takers’ argument…that, somehow, organizing and demanding better wages is just more “taking” from those who do the “making” (and in the case of the federal minimum wage, using the force of law to do so. Horrors.)
And you’re completely correct: folks with this worldview see it as the boss’s job to decide how much of that pie’s gonna get shared…”not you people”. Here are some things you can ask such people – it almost certainly won’t change their minds, but causing them cognitive dissonance is always a plus in my book:
1) Was there something that prevented you specifically from being able to follow the steps towards being a teacher (or policeman, or fireman, or any other occupation they feel has too many benefits/pensions/etc)?
2) Assuming these $15/hr initiatives pass (either locally or federally) – that is about $30k/year for a full-time job. Would you like to help me sketch out a budget for a family of four on that?
3) That $6.4B that McDonalds paid out in dividends and buybacks last year – what do you think would have changed in stockholders’ lives if that had been, say, $5.4B (w/ $1B going to workers as a bonus?) Conversely, what if McDonalds were to cut workers’ pay by $1B…those dividends and buybacks would have been $7.4B…wouldn’t that have been great?
boatboy_srq
@Chris:
They start the moment someone suggests that the Righteous Xtian Elect (translation: 0.01%er wealthy) have to part with some minuscule portion of their Divine Blessings (translation: wealth) to make Those People’s lives less of a preparation for Last Judgment (translation: slightly less uncomfortable, which will challenge the righteousness of the Gun-Totin’ Capitalist Jeebus’ anointing of His Blessed Elect with the billions they have). This is the problem: wealth is a sign of being Right with Gawd, since Election has discernible effects on Earth including the bestowal of riches, and Poverty is of course the converse. So giving those evil sinful deserving-their-poverty fast-food and janitorial workers more pay makes then less Damned, while forcing the Elect/Superwealthy to dig into their pockets for a few pennies for the sinful paupers lessens their Blessedness. For the Objectivist Libertarians (Ayn Rand), the same holds true, except wealth is justly accrued by the Job Creators – the folks whose wealth makes the world turn – and anything that helps those less fortunate rewards Sloth (the most evil of vices); the effect, however, is much the same. “Fair” in this context is a convenient term, valued by the people the Righteous/Objectivists wish to oppress, that makes them look around at their peers and inferiors, instead of up at their betters, for the villains gaming the system.
@Jeffro: The trouble is, that really does translate to “you didn’t build that” – and IIRC that backfired rather badly.
NorthLeft12
@Chris:
Reminds me of attending a Christmas party [about 1987] with the people who she worked with [part time] at a bank. All the employees [all women] bought a gift for the Bank Manager, and got nada from him. I think I ground about a quarter of an inch off my teeth to keep from saying something during that party.
I was a supervisor myself and would be completely embarrassed if the guys who worked for me had done that and I did not give them anything in return. And besides, the Bank Manager was a smug a**hole who treated the women who worked for him awfully.
I knew my wife had bought a small gift, but had just assumed it was one of those secret Santa deals. My wife and I talked about it later. It was one of my earlier lessons on the inequities of power in her world [ie. woman/part time worker/banking industry].
boatboy_srq
@Jeffro: Lochner is definitely in play: the presumption of the “right to contract” pervades these discussions. Buried under the maker/taker talk is the presumption that workers take jobs based on some objectively understood principles, including their understanding of their worth in the marketplace and their understanding of – and acceptance of – the baggage that goes with the employment contract. Nowhere does it enter these people’s heads that a worker may be taking the only employment available or that the contracts are so full of legalese that even the skilled workers (professionals with advanced degrees and specialized training) can’t always say for sure what’s in them, so agreeing to a incomprehensible contract as a preventative to unemployment/poverty/starvation/homelessness is arithmetic they cannot grasp. They have no understanding that “if you don’t like it, get another job” is neither practical nor in any way recognizing that the employment market is always – always – skewed in favor of the employer.
What’s especially galling is that even the brilliant businessperson who is able to found and grow a successful enterprise almost never manages the entire business lifecycle as a sole proprietor; at some point investors are required (who won’t have the same business acumen but will have respect for it and the funds to support it), employees are needed, a team assembled – so that sooner or later the successful one-person-shop becomes an enterprise employing thousands. The employees disappear into the background when makers/takers discussions occur because the proponents of the m/t POV can never distinguish the person from the business: demand more from the business and you’re hurting the Guy Who Started It All, and suggest that the GWSIA had help and you’re blaspheming against Righteous Job Creators. Slightly OT: I suppose this is part of what drives Reichwing sympathy for Hobby Lobby – the idea that the business’ management is the business, even though “ownership” has devolved to the shareholders and the “management” is now employee.
catclub
@Snarki, child of Loki:
Conflicts with the Texas law that had a carve out for maids and lawn guys.
schrodinger's cat
@Snarki, child of Loki: No need to execute, just put them in jail instead of making them pay a fine.
Jeffro
@Chris: btw here is a link I send my right-leaning friends so eager to put the unemployment screws to minimum wage workers
http://goodjobsseattle.tumblr.com/post/73392635091/you-know-that-story-about-mcdonalds-ordering
Jeffro
@boatboy_srq: All in the wording…just go with “We built these things together” (no use of ‘you’ or phrasing in the negative =)
catclub
@Frankensteinbeck:
But not in detail. Ask what the INS budget for deportations was this year, and how many people were deported and I bet they will not know. Then multiply it up to get to the total and ask if they are willing to raise taxes to do that.
ICE deported about 350k people and its budget was $5B. Multiply by 30, assuming that deporting the last one is as easy as getting the first.
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
We say that but are also amazed that the conservative daily talking points are all out about 30 minutes after any event that they think they can take advantage on. And those points all have the same or similar content. The hard right wing will coalesce around whomever starts to win. They may hold their noses when they do but they want something at least close to their ideal rather than any liberal. They don’t care about substance, words are enough. T Rump has words. That will carry him far in the primaries. And who do they have better? Or worse? Jeb? Walker? Those are their front running politicians and T Rump has vocal power over them by a mile.
To summarize: Liberals as a group want a candidate who is willing to actually get in the trenches and do the work. Conservatives want one to use the pulpit to yell and scream the loudest because that’s how they see things get done.
LWA
@Goblue72:
Right, which is why we the base have to mobilize about this. Right now the loudest anti-globalization voices are the xenophobes and fringe left.
Tying working class anxiety to globalization, making the corporations the enemy instead of the brown skinned workers is the path most consistent with progressive principles.
PaulW
Wonder how many people will agree to an “immigrants tewk our jobs” argument when there’s open evidence corporations are shipping most jobs overseas?
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/news/2012/07/09/11898/5-facts-about-overseas-outsourcing/
Marmot
Thanks for that, Zandar.
I was saying something similar when Obama was newer, but all anyone could grasp was racism as the ultimate Republican motivation. They hate US — anyone who’s not them. And sure, that includes minorities.
NorthLeft12
@Patrick: Things are the same all over the world. Immigrants seem to be getting the blame for the dysfunctional economy [for the middle and working classes, not you know who] everywhere. Up here in Canada, my own father [a refugee from Poland during WW2] went on a couple times about how these new immigrants are coming here to just live the easy life on his and my dime. Of course the immigrants that came to Canada in his day were completely different.
He and I had it out on that topic and I know he knows enough now not to ever bring it up when I am around. I would like to think that I made him reconsider his opinion, and realize how unfair and racist it is, but I just think he avoids it around me.
mike in dc
Anti-immigrant sentiment is nothing new in the States, though invoking it with this degree of vituperation is a bit of a throwback to the early and mid-20th Centuries(early for European immigrants from Germany, Italy, Ireland, et al; mid for non-white immigrants). It does help explain why immigration reform initiatives spearheaded by various party darlings keeps falling apart.
I think it probably will take something like losing Texas to give the “reformers”(loosely used and relatively speaking) the upper hand within the GOP. God, Guns, Gays…and Gringos, apparently.
someguy
Who cares about what white voters think? They are basically irrelevant at this point thanks to changing demographics. The Democratic Party should start acting that way and stop catering to them and their racist butthurt over immigration.
Marmot
@someguy: You haven’t read the post.
boatboy_srq
@Snarki, child of Loki: Not going to happen. Far too much of the US domestic market relies on questionably-legal labor: it’s agricultural, domestic/childcare/eldercare, sanitation, hospitality, programming and software development, medical and plenty of other fields. I haven’t seen statistics on undocumented demographics but I’d bet a significant portion are skilled or professional and an equally significant portion are South Asian or East European (and not “Mexican” as Huck’n’Trump would have us believe). Your proposal would probably take a few heads, but would halt the moment the Teahad sees its prices for nearly everything go through the roof as availability plummets and US citizens (or documented immigrants) take the jobs but demand more reasonable pay and working conditions.
Once the impact of the lost workforce is felt the shrieking will die down to a murmur until the next cycle. Look what happened in GA in 2011/12: brutal immigration law yields mass flight out of state yields minuscule labor force for agro yields a near-total crop loss.
mclaren
Howzabout we keep the undocumented Mexicans and deport the senate and house of representatives?
Theodore Wirth
If all undocumented immigrants were deported, idiot Trump would lose half of his work force and be forced to pay their replacements a higher wage and the associated taxes for SS plus workman’s comp and unemployment insurance that he’s not paying now.