No one thinks billions in theft by anyone is good for anyone but the perpetrators of said theft. Where are you seeing that argument being presented? Are you familiar with the logical fallacy of the straw man?
The Federal Reserve has been a big reason for slow economic growth. It is led by crooked Deep State loyalist Jerome Powell, who has sabotaged the US economy in order to try and help to return Deep State politicians to power.
The left's silence is its consent. Additionally, the left is violently opposing the arrest and deportations of those engaged in fraud. Why does the left prefer Somali criminals over poor and middle-class Americans?
Again, ever heard of the straw man? I see you left that sentence out of your reply, which is some rather revealing subtext.
Jesus christ man you MAGATs @ROXRAN are some of the most brainwashed people in the world. It was Trumps own BLS that showed the worst job growth in decades. You cultists are sincerely some of the dumbest people in the world Yall cultists claimed for years that mass deportations would lead to some job boom and it was the dirty illegals who were stealing everyone jobs. Low iq individuals
We had higher interest rates in 2024 yet we had double the job growth than what happened under Trump. Again youre just a extremely low iq individual cosplaying as something youre not.
Immigration is a really complex subject. I think there have been two reactionary threads pulled over the last 10-15 years that are a function of our polarized two-party system: humanitarian-based liberalism and nativist-based conservatism. One side pulls in one direction and the other pulls further toward their own as a reaction. As a liberal-leaning guy, I am not opposed to the idea of voter ID. I am opposed to requiring photo ID if the government doesn't provide for one in both expense and time. I'm cool with the state saying "you need to go to the DMV in order to get an ID for voting" if the state also publicizes the requirement, waives all associated fees, compensates workers and businesses for the time it takes to go to the DMV, extends operating and processing hours, and facilitates ID drives in areas that don't have convenient DMVs. The right to vote is inherent and I disagree with enacting procedural or logistical roadblocks to the ballot box because our history suggest that the state cannot be trusted to add voting requirements in good faith. If the state wants to verify that all of its voters are citizens via photo then it needs to make it easy for the citizens to provide that proof, not more difficult. I would say that most liberal opposition to voter ID is because it's a solution in search of a problem. President Trump's own DHS has found that "there is no evidence of widespread fraud... Out of 49.5 million voter registrations that have been checked, the department referred around 10,000 cases to Homeland Security Investigations for further investigation of noncitizenship, or roughly .02 percent of the names processed... Even that number could be inflated. The verification tool has mistakenly flagged some people who appear to actually be citizens, according to some local election officials." I would be vehemently against ICE at polling stations. Nothing about their behavior suggests they're trained to be poll watchers. Given that the Trump administration has found illegal voting to be a non-existent problem, ICE would only be an unnecessary and inflammatory presence at the polls. I've also never understood the accusation that Democrats want to create a permanent voting bloc via immigration because it assumes two things: That's what the left wants to begin with That conservative ideas wouldn't appeal to immigrants. The latter kind of gives up the ghost about modern conservatism: it's less about individual rights, personal liberty, and small government, and more about cultural identity. What's ironic is that many immigrants from Latin America would, demographically-speaking, be inclined to support a culturally-conservative party. They're predominantly Catholic (although evangelicalism is growing there), place a strong emphasis on family and community, and Donald Trump only lost this demographic by 3 points in 2024 after losing it by 25 in 2020. That's a massive swing. You are totally correct. The Biden administration failed at the border. Biden wasn't interested in the subject and outsourced it to, well, nobody. This episode of The Daily is instructive: his advisors didn't foresee the worst-cast scenario prior to taking office, he wasn't focused on it, and his administration was fearful of "the groups" that influence Democratic politics. Many of "the groups" became more extreme during the Trump era and embraced a maximalist approach to immigration as a response to Trumpism's crackdown. They exert force during the primaries and fundraising so candidates don't want to cross them. As always, money is the root of all evil. Border apprehensions started to drop once Biden finally took action on the border and continued to fall after Trump took office. Trump's rhetoric alone is enough to chill illegal immigration and his ICE raids add to the deterrence. The Republican party has fought against fair wages, housing, and social support for citizens for decades. I agree that the optics of generosity toward illegal immigrants are bad. But, I do not believe that the GOP is interested in providing the things you think citizens should receive over illegal immigrants. Even if the public were supportive of improved immigration laws and pathways to citizenship, the GOP wouldn't go along with it. We tried that in 2013 and it failed because of two dueling imperatives within the modern conservative coalition: a nativist bloc who does not want to change the demographics of the country and a business wing that loves cheap illegal labor.
Fair enough, but as I said in my last post, my focus is on democratic governance. If 'pragmatic' solutions mean to take a short cut past legislative deliberation and consensus by relaying on authoritarian dictates from the president, I'm not interested in pragmatism. I understand it's faster. But, I don't think it is better. Because voter ID creates a predictable outcome that more minorities will be excluded from voting than majoritarians, because the majoritarians have wider access to ID. As @mtbrays alludes to, this can be solved be free and accessible IDs. For me personally, voter ID isn't a big issue. But, I don't think we need to construct a grand conspiracy theory about importing liberal voters when we already know liberals are focused on fixing racially-prejudicial outcomes, and that this is one of those cases. Same deal, really. We have history (both in the US and the world) of putting officers or 'observers' at polling stations to intimidate voters. Brown people, justified or not, might suspect that an ICE agent will harass them and not harass the white people. Again, creating racially-prejudicial outcomes. Again, no grand conspiracy necessary to explain this policy preference. I'm not aware of this voter fraud. Can you please provide a link to educate me? I am very frustrated by the poverty of our data on illegal immigration. I was asking AI recently about what percentage of asylum seekers who apply at the border are allowed into the country and it told me that that metric isn't published by the government. And I have to wonder why not -- sounds easily quantifiable. Almost as though they don't want us to have clarity on the situation. Border Patrol encounters and apprehensions are rough proxies of what is going on, but there is plenty of space for misunderstanding and of manipulating the metrics to tell a story. When encounters go up, is it because more immigrants come or because more border patrol does, for example. If there are more apprehensions, is it because there are more migrants or more vigorous enforcement? I'm sure it is a combination of those and many other factors, but the impression of what are the main drivers of those metrics are highly susceptible to propaganda. I'm not saying the data is worthless, but I'm pretty suspicious of arguments built on this data. I'm not clear to what extent this problem is fixed, but the fix itself looks like a problem. Trump's method of deterring attempts at border crossing is to be so cruel and inhumane as to make migrants afraid to try. The deterrence isn't a problem, but the violation of human rights and civil rights is. I would guess the reason past presidents have not been able to create this culture of fear to deter migrants from coming is that they were not willing to so grossly transgress people's rights, ignore the spirit of the laws they enforce, or to treat people so barbarously. Guess you can say this is pragmatic, but I think there are probably ways to deter illegal migration and observe civil rights at the same time. What is the allegation here? That Walz is rewarding Somali-American voters by turning a blind eye to the fraud perpetrated by some of them? Honestly, I don't know the allusion you're making. Why not? Sure, look after citizens. No argument there. But, we do have a constitution that requires we balance the needs of the many and of the state with the inalienable rights of the individual. Illegals don't have a right to obamaphones and hotel stays or whatever bs Fox is complaining about. But right now we are operating under this paradigm that being in this country illegally is a bureaucratic condition and not a criminal one and therefore all the rules by which we treat criminals (presumption of innocence, right to an attorney, right to reasonable bail, right to humane treatment in custody, etc) don't apply to them and we can treat them however cruelly we'd like. This is the shame of the Trump era, that we justify treating immigrants worse than we allow ourselves to treat prisoners or animals. As I said last time, it really isn't about immigration for me; it is about democracy and fascism. And denying people their constitutional rights behind a legal facade is fascism.
