Every time I run across another reference to Rep and GOP leader Stefanik (R-NY) refusing to see a connection between her comments on immigration and the reported motivations of the Buffalo mass murderer (alleged, of course), to wit, replacement theory, which is best summarized as “The Democrats are letting all those non-white immigrants in in order to replace us Republicans!”, I simply want to scream.
I want to scream,
Immigrants are neither liberal nor, for that matter, conservative by virtue of their being immigrants!
Seems obvious, no? But it’s not just a theoretical wave of the hand, meant to trick naive Republicans into denouncing a murderer who acted on a message which should be confined to the far-right fringe, but is actually advocated by Fox News personality Tucker Carlson – or so I’m told. No, no, no – which applies to taking Carlson seriously or my point as theoretical.
One of the factors that has made the Democrats position less stable than they’d like is that certain immigrant groups, such as Latinos originating from socialist, or so claiming to be socialist, nations don’t want to be in a socialist nation again. Ask former Cubans in Miami. Heck, I know a former Cuban, I should ask her. The point being that they came here seeking freedom to work, freedom to live, and a word they associate with a less salubrious environment is thrust upon them.
Similarly, there are other Democratic ideologies that are known to grate on immigrants’ nerves – with Latinos, again, the entire LatinX replacement for Latina and Latino is a well-known friction point.
And then add in a certain thread of autocracy that seems to run, ever so delicately, in the Democrats. We’ve seen it with their botching of the transgender issue. They seem to have grown a tendency to want to impose their views, large and small.
And, to some extent, that’s a governmental operational characteristic. But when it comes to public policy, it shouldn’t be.
Oh, sure, when faced with the fourth-raters that make up the opposition, it can be hard to have a serious discussion. The last time what passes for conservatives tried to have a discussion – the gay marriage issue – they were positively creamed. Nowadays they find some nasty word to scream and otherwise refuse to engage.
But that doesn’t make the Democrats look any better. When 25% of the gay community votes conservative, you can bet that the Democrats and their left wing has a problem.
But neither left nor right seem to understand that immigrants are neither liberal nor conservative, which is odd.
