That’s the underlying premise of their politics. The immigrants Hilary Clinton wants to bring to the country aren’t any less “deplorable” (from her viewpoint) than rural white Americans. They are just don’t feel the same ownership over the society, and are willing to support people like Clinton in return for being allowed to come here.
Immigrants can't vote so this logic is bizarre. The people who make the most money off illegal immigrants in the US are rural land owners, meat packing plant owners, etc. They don't want illegal immigration to stop they just want to keep those laborers cheap which wouldn't happen with a reform that makes them comfortable seeking a new employer.
It sounds to me like you've got some kind of self loathing thing going on. Political arguments are mostly about whether illegal immigrants should get at best a gradual path to citizenship which doesn't mean they will be a tool to win the electoral college.
Quite the opposite: as I have become more established in this country, I’m less inclined to reject my parents’ values. E.g. JD Vance and my dad are kind of on the same page about childless people. That was never politically motivating for my parents, because they could just tell me “you can’t do what your white friends do.” I can’t realistically tell my own kids that. I have to care about the direction of American culture in a way my parents didn’t.
Almost 10% of the potential electorate is foreign born naturalized citizens like me and my parents. Most of these folks aren’t liberal. They are in a political alliance which is based on white liberals supporting immigration and certain welfare systems, and non-white immigrants looking the other way on cultural issues.
At the same time, I found other studies showing that second generation immigrants support many left wing social policies, such as gay marriage and multiculturalism, but that recent first generation were slightly less inclined to support gay marriage.
It would seem that on the balance, naturalized immigrants (many of which are considered second generation in that study) are on the left socially but not necessarily economically.
> At the same time, I found other studies showing that second generation immigrants support many left wing social policies, such as gay marriage and multiculturalism, but that recent first generation were slightly less inclined to support gay marriage.
What country are you originally from? I’m a first generation immigrant from South Asia, and in my experience, support for socially liberal policies in these communities is often based on compartmentalization. For example, Hindu Americans may support multiculturalism, insofar as they are religious minorities in a Christian majority country. But 70% also support Modi, who definitely doesn’t have a multicultural vision of India: https://theprint.in/india/49-of-indian-americans-back-pm-mod.... One rule for their own country, different rule for someone else’s country. Similarly, most Muslim Americans support gay marriage. But not in their own families: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/28/us/lgbt-muslims-pride-progres....
That’s why liberals like immigrants. When they seek to change American culture, immigrants like my parents think “well let the Americans do what they want.”
I'm from MENA. I can't speak to South Asians, but the immigrants I know overwhelmingly support secularism, multiculturalism and other progressive policies in their original countries. In fact, the biggest reason why they tell me they wouldn't go back is because they take issue with cultural attitudes and politics there, not because of economics as most feel they might be more prosperous back home.
I don't see how it is a criticism of a rainbow coalition that they are able to redirect people away from intolerance even if the only motivator is self interest.
This is in fact why the republic is structured as it is, should we pretend people are inherently good and switch to a simple democracy that can vote for its first genocide next week?
In a democracy, it absolutely is a criticism of a political party that it can’t win elections among an electorate that is securely rooted in the country, and must instead rely on newcomers who will put aside their own values because of their precarious circumstances. Democracy is about allowing people to create the society they want to live in, not maximizing individual freedom from moral regulation. Using immigration to enact social change that is undesired among both the people already here and people coming here undermines democracy.
So at what point did immigration become unacceptable instead of part of our system with natural political consequences? Do we need to take the vote away from Irish Americans and re-examine whether the Know Nothings should have won elections and controlled the shape of America so that it might please the majority of white rural Americans? Of course not the portion that would be dragged behind pickups for seeming too queer or having a possibly black grandfather.. But the majority.
> In a democracy, it absolutely is a criticism of a political party that it can’t win elections among an electorate that is securely rooted in the country, and must instead rely on newcomers who will put aside their own values because of their precarious circumstances.
It can be useful to think of immigration as a species of (or perhaps just analogous to) the Monte Carlo method [0].
> Hilary Clinton would consider most of the people in my community “deplorables.”
From Time magazine's summary of Clinton's remarks — which are spot-on:
<quote>
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” Clinton said. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”
She said the other half of Trump’s supporters “feel that the government has let them down” and are “desperate for change.”
“Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well,” she said.
</quote>
The Time piece includes the transcript of the full remarks.
Those who "believe the same things about nationality, gender roles, same sex marriage, etc., as even pretty liberal Bangladeshis" are free to practice their beliefs. But they should expect forceful pushback if they try to compel others to conform to those beliefs as well.*
* With the usual caveat of assuming that nonconformance to those beliefs doesn't cause harm to other "people" — and on that, Blackmun got it more or less right in Roe.
Both evangelicals in Wisconsin and Bangladeshis tend to believe that society can regulate individual morality for the common good. They don’t embrace your libertarian view. You’re welcome to it, but you’re merely proving my point. Social liberals use immigration to advance minority positions they couldn’t achieve otherwise.
> Social liberals use immigration to advance minority positions they couldn’t achieve otherwise.
Isn't that like a losing team saying, "we'd have won the championship if only our star player hadn't gotten hurt"? Or, "I've got mine, so pull up the ladder." Immigration is a fact, and beneficial in so many ways — including, IMHO, a more-liberal electorate. If MAGA types want to shut the gate to try to preserve their political power, they need to offer better reasons than they have so far.
> It’s a more fragmented electorate, with fault lines liberals can use to bypass the need to achieve consensus for social change. It’s an end-run around democracy that ultimately frays our system of self governance.
Methinks you have an overly-idealized notion of how democracy works (or at least its U.S. variant).
The proles by definition don't own capital, social or otherwise. I find the focus on Clinton a bit short-sighted. She certainly bought into the Reaganite neoliberalism (her husband cemented it into American zeitgeist for a generation by embracing it), but I'd hardly call her the source of it. And I'd take more offense at being called a "dumb, cousin-fucking terrorist"[0] than a "deplorable", but either way these people will not be served by either side.
I find it odd that you perceive this as a new thing. I'd call it an American trope that long predates me. For instance, "The Beverly Hillbillies" was a 1962 sitcom that played off of it.
> The Clampetts bring a moral, unsophisticated, and minimalistic lifestyle to the swanky, sometimes self-obsessed and superficial community. Double entendres and cultural misconceptions are the core of the sitcom's humor. Plots often involve Drysdale's outlandish efforts to keep the Clampetts' money in his bank, and his wife's efforts to rid the neighborhood of "those hillbillies". The family's periodic attempts to return to the mountains are often prompted by Granny's perceiving a slight from one of the "city folk".
That’s an illustration of my point. It’s a Hollywood criticism of Beverly Hills’ departure from the “moral, unsophisticated, and minimalistic lifestyle.” When Mrs. Drysdale calls the Clampett’s “deplorables” the audience is expected to see her as the villain.
Ah, is it the "openly" part that you're focusing on? I can imagine that, but it always seemed pretty open to me. I suppose I'm attuned to the dog whistles that they've long used. I'm pretty sure George Bush didn't spend much more time clearing brush off his ranch than it took to finish the photo op for instance.
Or maybe I just spent too long on calls with executives who were trying to find the best place to source "non-value added labor" (the ideal proles are interchangeable cogs, ideally without any benefits) that I forget that they sometimes try to hide these things.
To be fair, I don't think those people think about any concept of "ownership" of society or culture, except perhaps that they 'own' society and you will do as you are told. They presumably look at everyone else as cattle to be herded, and as long as the prevailing culture does not involve anything about guillotining the elites, we can do whatever we want, especially if it's something from which these 'elites' can profit.
