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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   34008 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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It looks like it is backfiring.

right now, the most common claims on the issue are turning out to be false

And frankly, it should backfire. When most prominent stories that conservatives are sharing are false, then why should I not be skeptical of the whole thing? You'd think the onus would be on them to come up with the most easily-verifiable, most rock-solid claim.

Because there is plenty of evidence for the most important reasons you should be opposed to the mass resettlement of Haitians into your community? Like an 11 year old boy who was killed by a Haitian immigrant in that community?

"The Kitten thing was a Twitter meme, so now I'm not sure there's at all a problem with flooding a town with Haitians" is going to be the response by people like you.

JD Vance's office reports direct eyewitness testimony of residents from local wildlife being abducted by Haitian immigrants. Beleeb witnesses. Although, that's not even a significant reason to oppose this compared to the other reasons.

Do you know what's confirmed? That a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here. That local health services have been overwhelmed. That communicable diseases--like TB and HIV--have been on the rise. That local schools have struggled to keep up with newcomers who don't know English. That rents have risen so fast that many Springfield families can't afford to put a roof over their head.

Are there really ~20k new Haitian immigrants in Springfield though? If so, I didn't know this before, and probably neither did you.

So it's not backfiring.

You don't need to spread fake news in order to get people to be aware of the new Haitian immigrants in that city.

You don't need to get on a plane to get to New York City either, but it's certainly convenient and effective.

That'd be nice if true, but I'm not sure if it is. Vance gave a speech mentioning the immigration itself in early July, and Moreno was not long behind him. Right-wing and especially local media have been focused on it for at least two months.

It's not even the first version of the 'big jump in immigrants compared to local population', if somewhat higher in size, nor the first time it isn't happening turned into its happening and good. It's just that normally the path is local media covers it at all, Red Tribe media talks up some of the actual issues, and then Blue Tribe media has a nice whitewash, no one actually cares except if they're stuck listening to NPR while driving.

That's not a normative thing -- if these claims are false, that is bad! -- but it points to some Bad Incentives. And I'm not sure they can be meaningfully shown to be false, even if they are.

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