Peak Wingnut Was a Lie!

*Old shrink joke that applies with a depressingly tight fit to Trump’s Republican Party.

Update: I just noticed I bigfooted Anne Laurie below. Ordinarily, I’d delete this and reschedule it. But my reschedule function has been verklempt lately so I don’t trust that, and I’m about to pass out, so I’ll leave this here on the assumption that the jackals can multitask.

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So here’s the thing.  I heard that the Trump-Pence folks were fundraising w. a push poll on immigration.

I decided to respond, as below:

1. Building a physical wall along the Southern border of the United States.

   • Other, please specify:…is an astonishingly stupid idea that both won’t work and apes the worst of our adversaries in the Cold War. It’s unAmerican, and idiocy to boot.

2. Enacting e-verify programs that stop illegal immigrants from getting hired.

   • Other, please specify:  So, is the GOP National Committee going to pick Alabama’s crops? I thought not. Morans.

3. Ending chain migration.

   • Other, please specify: “If we could make it retroactive to apply to the Trump family, one of the most famous of family migration beneficiaries, I’d think about it. But in fact what you are talking about is anti-family; would have kept my own great grandparents out, and makes America poorer, so yeah, this is a crap idea packaged in hot-button rhetoric for crap ends.”

4. Ending the Diversity Visa Lottery that randomly awards citizenship in order to fill government-set quotas.

   • Other, please specify:  given that this is an overt mischaracterization of the program (a green-card lottery does not award citizenship, as you well know, you dissimulating hacks), then I guess I have to say that this is another terrible idea.

5. Eliminating tax credits for illegal immigrants.

   • Other, please specify:  These do not exist. You are push-polling your own supporters to create hate. If there is an afterlife, you should be very afraid.

6. Reducing visas that take away jobs from capable Americans seeking employment.

   • Other, please specify:  “Show your work. But if this is really an issue, I’d begin by examining the visas issued to foreign workers at Trump properties. If those are legit, they’re all legit. If not…”

7. Limiting immigration during times of high unemployment in America.

   • Other, please specify:  “Just stupidity: political refugees come to escape persecution, and we need to respond to that. Economic migrants don’t come when opportunity does not exist. There’s a reason net migration between Mexico and the US has recently been in the Mexican, not the US direction!”

8. Prioritizing new immigrants who already speak English.

   • Other, please specify:  “My great grandparents spoke Russian and Yiddish. Their children spoke fine English. This is as clear an expression of Republican commitment to racism as it’s possible to find.”

9. Establishing a merit-based immigration system.

   • Other, please specify:  “Define “merit.” Again: my great grandparents worked as they could. Their oldest sons became lawyers and helped launch the movie business in the early 20th c. Their grandchildren fought for the US in WW II and did everything they chose w. their lives. You are looking for ways to institutionalize hate.”

10. Granting American citizenship to illegal immigrants cannot happen.

    • Other, please specify:  “When Dreamers do well, we all do well — become a better country, a richer one etc. Same is true for those who make good lives here however they got here. Denying citizenship for those who work their way to an American dream is a way to make sure that a permanent underclass exists to exploit. No thank you.”

11. (Optional) Please include any other proposals that you want included in a truly responsible immigration reform bill:

    A truly responsible immigration bill is one that does not begin from a premise of ethnic cleansing. Hatred of folks who talk funny and don’t look like you is no way to go through life.

I’m not going to suggest that any jackals should swamp such a poll — and in fact, it’s pointless to do for this one, as it’s just another iteration of crappy digital age fundraising.  But if you want to tell some of the worst people on earthy how shitty they are, here’s the link.

File this one under completely futile gestures that are still, somehow satisfying.

And, more seriously, if anyone doubted that the Republicans are going all in as the party of ethnic cleansing, doubt no more.

This thread? It is open.

Image:  Pigsty and Latrines, earthenware, probably Henan Province, Han Dynasty, between 1st c. BCE. and 1st c. CE.

Yes: You’re Crazy. What? You Want A Second Opinion? OK. You’re Ugly Too*Post + Comments (99)