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Yes. This infamous discussion between Bernie and Ezra Klein gives away the game. Not everyone is a Kleinian, but you would be a fool to believe that people like that are driven by purely pragmatic calculus about the benefits to Americans.
It also doesn't help that one side maintains a final card they can play: false consciousness.
Feminists do this all of the time: feminism is good for you too and, where you disagree, it's because you simply haven't had enough feminism.
I simply don't believe some of these claims. I've heard a few economists blithely write off the downsides of immigration as "an allocation problem", as if that makes it a matter of a couple of dials for some bureaucrat to fiddle with. Let's grant that immigration has been great for Canada. That doesn't change that the fundamentally political Gordian knot of increasing housing supply still exists so everyone feels squeezed. It's not going to be dissolved by an efficient market because it's a matter of geography,regulations and the interests of some groups over others. Hanania is a libertarian so he does get this, until he doesn't want to.
And, even if I did believe them, I know no nationalist has ever won the debate by saying "I'll take the tradeoff". They just get written off as ignorant.
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