lollol
1d ago
I get the feeling that a lot of these people wanted to speak up more loudly sooner, but it was only once progressives were properly on the back foot that they felt empowered to do so.
Agreed. I think this election is essentially the 2012 election for the Democrats. After 2012, the Republicans started shaking off the neoconservatives (Cheneys, Romney). I think after 2024, the Democrats will start shaking off the social progressives.
The problem will be essentially what other good ideas will be shaken off as well. I think the Republicans unfortunately shook off the deficit hawks. I also think nature conservation really should have been a part of the conservative agenda (I genuinely believe the greatest treasure America has is it's beautiful territory, and that the National Parks & National Forests systems are some of the most beneficial government programs for the the masses). Shaking off neoconservatives also means America becomes more insular and in a way less globally charitable (GWB's anti-AIDs initiatives created a lot of good).
With the Democrats shaking off the social progressives, I do wonder if this means shaking off the environment lobby (again, I really want to preserve nature). I do think police reforms are needed (I am in favor of concepts like "police malpractice insurance" though I haven't explored this much). I am generally in favor of urban planning reforms (though again I don't have any specifics other than more mass transportation).
But who knows how things will really shake out.
In the weeks up to the election, I started listening to the NYT podcast, especially "The Ezra Klein Show" by Ezra Klein, "The Daily" by Michael Barbaro, and "The Run Up" by Astead Herndon. I usually thought of the NYT as this bastion of liberal thinking leftist thinking, uncritical of what they are. I no longer think so. I now think that the best journalists of the NYT (the ones who get to have podcasts) are self-critical, intelligent, and are powerful voices articulating the current problems of the world. Obviously people have flaws and they might not be able to understand their own biases from time to time, look no further than Michael Barbaro's recent interview with Bernie Sanders where Sanders at one point exasperatedly remarks "Michael, you haven't heard a word that I've said, and that's... impressive". But on the whole, I respect individual NYT journalists a lot more after this US election.
For my first top-level post, I want to draw attention specifically to an episode of "The Daily" titled "On the Ballot: An Immigration System Most Americans Never Wanted" which has Barbaro interview David Leonhardt on his investigation on the immigration issue. I thought it was a good look at the historical progression of immigration laws in the United States. And like the journalist on that episode, the conclusion was: "It's the Democrat's fault, and the elites". Whether it was LBJ and RFK (sr) who fought for the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, promising that the country won't be flooded with immigrant worker, but then didn't think to close the loophole that is family immigration, or it was Bill Clinton who couldn't deliver on the findings of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform lead by Barbara Jordan (btw, an absolutely awesome woman), or Biden with his perplexing loosening of the southern border compared to Obama.
The closing was especially poignant, Leonhardt noted:
It simply is not sustainable in a democracy to have our elected representatives promise us one thing and then have it do the exact opposite of what they promised ... I think we're not going to get to a sustainable immigration system until Washington reckons with the past failure to produce what it promised the American people it was going to do.
To be fair, like the video pointed out, there were reasons why the Democrats made such missteps. LBJ/RFK was too idealistic regarding family immigration (they never thought of chain migration) and the opponents of the bill were racist (right message wrong messengers). Clinton had the pulse of the electorate, he set up the commission, but was opposed by both Democrats (pro-immigration idealists) and Republicans (corporate interests in keeping wages low). Biden, worst of all, had Trump-derangement syndrome with regards to immigration and loosened policy.
One might ask "why now? why didn't this become such a huge issue for the American electorate in the last half of century". Well, it's because times were good. Immigration is just another big issue but never one of the biggest. Economic growth smoothens immigration concerns (and there are a lot of upsides to immigration). The crux is this exchange [emphasis mine]:
Barbaro: I guess I don't quite understand why Bill Clinton would have bowed to those pressures David, because it sounds like a bunch of elites activists, business leaders, are the ones trying to torpedo this. But Bill Clinton has many political gifts and one of them is to recognize what gets someone elected or reelected, and it feels like what Barbara Jordan is really telling him is that high levels of immigration, legal and illegal, are a threat to working class America. And Bill Clinton would have understood, I'd have to think, that working class America is really essential to the Democratic party that he leads.
Leonhardt: I think two things are happening here. One the economy just keeps getting stronger over the course of the 1990s, which is a reminder that immigration is just one force among many that shapes an economy and it's not the main one. And the second thing is that political elites really matter. And what has happened over the last few decades is that both of our parties became ever more dominated by college graduates, and people who had the concerns and interests of college graduates as opposed to working class people. And so Democrats become a little bit less focused on what blue collar workers want, and we see this with both trade and immigration. And in the Republican Party those same corporate interests that have long had huge sway over the Republican Party do. And so when you think of official Washington and the people who are making policy and who are lobbying for it, you just have much less pressure for changes to the immigration system than public opinion might suggest that you would.
Barbaro: this is reminding me so much of what happened with NAFTA, with the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is that elites, powerful entrenched forces in Washington, increasingly disconnected from working class America, see nothing but upside in globalization and free trade, and don't anticipate the ways in which NAFTA will hurt working class America. there's not much dispute that it does.
Leonhardt: I think that's exactly right. And I think one of the real mistakes that proponents of immigration have made, and this is both business conservatives who want more immigration, and it's progressives who from a justice perspective want more immigration, I think one of the real mistakes they've made is they tend to argue that immigration is a free lunch and in fact immigration just benefits everyone. And the research doesn't support that idea nor do people's everyday experiences support that idea. Immigration has trade-offs, it has enormous advantages for an economy, but it also has some costs, and those costs do tend to be borne disproportionately by working class people and that's part of why so many people are so anxious about it.
As an aspiring US immigrant myself, how Leonhardt interpreted the findings of Barbara Jordan keeps ringing in my head:
there's a fundamental difference between being pro-immigrant and being pro-immigration and she says we are a nation of immigrants but at the same time she says that doesn't mean we should always want higher and higher levels of immigration in fact sometimes having higher and higher levels of immigration can hurt immigrants immigrants who came here several years ago are often the ones who compete for jobs with the very most recent immigrants and when immigration gets too high it can lead to a political backlash that hurts people who came here often legally several years before.
Or as Barbaro summarizes:
if you're to pro-immigration it will undermine the position of being pro-immigrant
Or as how I would put it:
Being pro-immigrant does not mean pro-immigration
In the end, I have a growing sympathy for the anti-immigration argument (irregardless of how much more stress or heartbreak this is going to cause me the next few years), a new respect for the journalists of the NYT, and at least three more podcasts I look forward to every week.
I suppose my question to kick off discussion are:
- How have your thoughts changed on the issue of US immigration after this election season?
- Who are the people/pundits that you've changed your opinions on?
lollol
11d ago
For years now (since at least 2018), whenever my parents ask me "who's going to win?", I point them to Nate Silver and says I trust whatever he says. And I don't think I have been proven wrong yet. For this election, my gut was telling me Harris was gonna win, I won't deny that I was only reading stories and news from very left-leaning-space, but I have very incredibly high stakes in this election but no responsibility (still on work visa) and venturing into right-leaning-space meant more mental energy than I could bear. Even on election night, while scrolling through fivethirtyeight's prediction thread, I keep telling myself "how can these guys think Trump is gonna win?". The only voice of reason in my head was Nate Silver (and on some level Ezra Klein and that Astead/Run Up podcast from the NYT). Silve himself said "Don't trust your gut" a week or two before the election and look at that, my gut was wrong. This election has proven to me once again that polling works, and that data doesn't lie, it's the people that read the data that lies to themselves and others.
lollol
1yr ago
Hi, long time lurker, but I have a few questions regarding the Vault. The Vault is near and dear to me because it was some random High Quality contribution crosspost, idk bestof or something, that brought my attention to TheMotte years ago. I like the Vault because it gives me a full list right away of writing to checkout/read. But I do have a few concerns.
- Is it updated every month? or is it like a yearly thing because currently I'm seeing HQC from July 2022 and not June 2023 on the Vault. Maybe I missed a detail somewhere that says that.
- Is there a way to capture and display the context surrounding a HQC? I think the quality contribution is best read in-context. If it's a reply, it's the dialogue/interplay that really highlights the quality of a HQC. Even if it's a top-level comment, the replies/inspirations/counter-arguments that spawn off the HQC are worth noting because a HQC already made me, the reader, keep wanting to read more on that topic. Maybe a) only direct replies to the HQC, b) only parents up to 3 levels of the HQC, c) any children threads of the HQC that includes replies from the HQC's author.
Thanks for linking that Scott's post, I haven't seen that one. I personally have not struggled with the result of this election, and unlike Scott, I'm ready to accept the boring solution as mentioned:
For me, really yeah, it is the economy. People won't be able to pay attention or give energy to higher-ordered causes if their basic needs aren't met. My household have a reasonably good income for our living area and I remember the sticker shock I had going grocery shopping in 2023 where prices seemed to increase 25% overnight. I can't vote, but I can imagine how people more unfortunate than I am would react accordingly and just want change. For better or worse, the electorate blamed Biden for inflation and Harris did not distance herself from that enough.
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