iew YouTube video Tucker Carlson: Is an
Tucker Carlson is having a field day (actually, at least two of them) talking about Martha's Vineyard. This video is 21 minutes long, but I recommend watching it. He makes the Trumpian point very clearly, though please remember that he's an entertainer first (a very good one) and a political pundit only second. He points out the stunning hypocrisy of the Vineyarders (who sport signs saying "hate has no business here") as they arranged for the military to escort all 50 brown faces off their precious island within 24 hours. One resident said it was "like taking out the trash" (though he apparently intended his remarks to be attributed to DeSantis, but that was not clear from his context. The tweet was removed).
In a previous video Tucker suggests the Vineyarders should be joyful that 50 Venezuelans were sent to join them. After all, the island is 89% white, and since "diversity is our strength," welcoming 50 diverse Venezuelans should be a cause for celebration. But no joy--diversity was gone by military escort the following day.
So Mr. DeSantis has learned trolling from the master himself. And it's worked like a charm. It wiped Trump completely off the front pages for at least two days--important since the Dems want the election to be all about Trump. It makes the Dems left look ridiculous and hypocritical, reduced to phony accusations like "kidnapping" and "human trafficking, and asserting that everybody else is racist except for the enlightened denizens of Martha's Vineyard. Apparently Mr. DeSantis' trick forced the Biden administration to actually admit to a high-level meeting about immigration. Until now they've publicly ignored the issue.
Though I've read enough commentary to realize that the Dem counterargument isn't entirely off-base, though it's clear Republicans won the news cycle by a country mile. The best Dem talking point was that the islanders' reception was not as hostile as Tucker will have you believe. (His "Froot Loops" segment is by far the weakest part of the video.) There were islanders who worked hard to make sure the Venezuelans got fed, showered, clothed and put up for the night. Yet it's odd that they couldn't persuade even 5 or 6 of them to stay on the island. Surely, with the nationwide labor shortage, there'd be more than enough work for them to do. And with the off-season island now full of empty hotel rooms, the purported lack of housing doesn't ring true either.
It was noted (I read this somewhere) that while the seasonal residents are the privileged, ultra-wealthy Obama-types, the year-round residents of the island are not like that at all. Instead, they're the servant class: the housemaids, groundskeepers, cops, chauffeurs, local officials, etc. Thus they responded as do similar workers in red states, i.e., with hostility to a large group of people who are coming to compete with them for jobs. (Not sure I believe that, though it could be part of the story.) As Tucker points out, red-staters in such circumstances are accused of being deplorable, bitter clinging racists. Obviously the Dems can't charge their own servants with such crimes--and hence the embarrassment.
But both Tucker and the Dems miss the elephant in the room. They both conflate the Venezuelans with our American homeless population. And perhaps that's understandable, for they are, at least for the moment, homeless. They sleep on sidewalks, they haven't showered in weeks, they walked through the Darien Gap jungle, etc. The only thing missing are the hypodermic needles sticking out of their arms.
But the refugees are as different from our mentally-ill, addicted homeless people as night is from day. For the Venezuelans were, until a few years ago, solidly members of the middle class. Recall that their country used to be the richest in South America, until Hugo Chavez (enthusiastically cheered on by Progressives everywhere) put Venezuela on a path toward economic suicide. So these poor people have now spent the very last of their assets to come to the United States.
But, lack of money notwithstanding, these aren't really poor people. They're people with substance and middle class attitudes. They will do very well in America--like the Cubans before them.
- In three months they'll have a job and a place to live.
- In two years they'll speak English and own a car.
- In five years they'll have professional jobs and some of them will be buying houses.
- In fifteen years many of them will be citizens and they will vote.
None of these people will ever vote for anything that even remotely smells like socialism! That's why I call them the Future Republicans of America. Tucker sells them short--he thinks they're gonna be indigent indefinitely (as is likely true of many Salvadorans). He's afraid that they'll never assimilate into American culture and will change the country for the worse. He is just wrong!
The Dems are also wrong--though maybe deep down they realize what's happening. Inviting a whole bunch of incipient Republicans to NYC and DC (not to mention Martha's Vineyard) puts Democratic urban machine politics at risk. That's perhaps why they actually hate the immigrants so much that they have to get rid of them as fast as possible.
Tucker is wrong in another way as well. He shows a clip of Joe Biden saying that a country of 330 million can afford to bring in another two million immigrants. For once I'll side with Joe--he's right. Not only can we do it--we have to do it. American total fertility rates since the pandemic have dropped to about 1.7--well below replacement rate. We're not having enough babies. If red-staters really are worried about being "replaced," then part of the problem begins at home, specifically in the bedroom.
So we need a lot of new immigrants--but they shouldn't have to come this way. Why should a family have to traipse through the Darien Gap, and pay their very last coin to the Mexican Drug cartels in order to come the USA? There is absolutely no reason for that. We need the immigrants, and they want to come. We have to find a way to allow for legal immigration. There is more support for that than our media (left and right) are willing to admit.
But there are some conditions. The wall is a prerequisite. Before we can accept any large number of legal immigrants, we have to stop the illegal sort. We have to get control over our southern border. Second, we can't just accept low wage immigrants--that's unfair to our domestic workers. For every Honduran and Salvadoran, we need to also accept somebody with genuine skills, like nurses (e.g., more Filipinos).
Biden, by irresponsibly and incompetently stopping the wall, has set back the cause for a higher rate of legal immigration by at least a decade. This, along with the disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan, will mark his administration with shame.
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