So what is the Dem strategy on Border Chaos?
It is clear that the Republicans have decided that ever more chaos on our southern border is a winning issue for them, so what is the Democratic strategy to address this reality?
A standard Democratic response would be to agree with Republicans on most points while trying to explain that Democrats would do everything Republicans would do but do it with less asshole-ishness. That’s the “we are less bad” strategy centrists Dems love to lose with. I’d expect Chris Coons and his prayer breakfast buddies to come out with some statement shortly that concedes that Trump is right on border security, but they’d appreciate him being more kind or some similar shit.
My hope, however, is that the Democratic strategy manages to veer away from the tried and failed centrism of the past. And will be more proactive on the battle economic ground issues that won them their seats in Congress and governorships. If the new members of Congress manage to move Democratic away from the Chris Coons’ of the world, and the defensive crouch that is the go-to posture for Democrats, they will be fulfilling the mandate they won on election day.
Nice shift, Jason330. Trump’s bad on the border and immigration, the Dems need to do something. What? You don’t say, just shift to economic issues.
How about admitting that, for all his bombast, the Obama approach, which is now the real Trump approach (minus the BS about the wall but a tight border nonetheless), is what we’ve got.
Work with Mexico to secure its southern border, even pay them big bucks to resettle the economic and terrorized refugees. It’s an awful plan, but what else is there?
Speak, Sphinx.
Idiot, Did you even read the post? I admit up front that the centrist Dem approach is the Trump approach without televised family separations. And the reason I don’t outline a plan is covered in the headline.
I don’t know what the strategy will be, but I hope it veers away from the Chris Coons preferred defensive crouch.
“the Obama approach, which is now the real Trump approach (minus the BS about the wall but a tight border nonetheless), is what we’ve got.”
Could you provide a link to the stories about Obama tear-gassing asylum seekers? Thanks in advance.
It was pepper spray. But it was actually in reply to a direct confrontation rather than simply against a peaceful crowd.
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-border-patrol-rock-throwing-san-ysidro-2013nov25-story.html
They also weren’t seeking asylum. One of the ironies about increased xenophobia is that Obama drew a harder line than W, who drew a harder line than Clinton, etc. The ebb and flow of illegal immigration has more to do with economic conditions in the two countries than it does with American policy.
Very true. Just documenting the reference.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/26/obama-administration-used-tear-gas-border-once-mon/
In other news the Washington Times reported that Truman dropped Atomic bombs on cities and FDR interred Japanese. Both Democrats!
(If you’d like to chat online with folks who dutifully perform Salat while facing the Obama’s Kenwood home, I think you clicked the wrong URL in your favorites. Begins with BL ends with aware.)
Cool! What’s your plan? I have no idea what to do personally, other than to note over population is for real and this is one aspect of it. I have no doubt Coons will go just the way described as his leadership skills rival those of Tom Carper, who probably runs for the door if anyone mentions the subject.
Let the refugees claim asylum. Schedule a court date. How’s that? If known criminals claim asylum don’t let them in. We good?
Yes, we know refugees were pepper sprayed in 2013. I fail to understand the tactic of bringing up Obama now. FDR opened internment camps! Yes, we’re aware. We live in what we refer to as “the present”. You may be aware of this if you’re sentient.
Repeat after me. This is a fake problem. We could settle all the refugees here very easily. All analysis and facts support this. This is engineered political theatre. Stop acting like it’s some inscrutable riddle. It isn’t.
It is naive to think that every Democrat who is asked about “the caravan” or “the border” is going to be able to shame every clueless TV “reporter” by pointing out those simple truths.
Every Dem is going to be asked about it, so it would be nice to have some coordinated response. One that even the dumbest centerest dummy in the Dem caucus could get out of his mouth.
Seems easy enough for me.
I heard one D talking head on the tv this morning say the only way to fix this is to ‘get to the root cause.’ however he didnt say what the root cause was or how he would fix said root cause.
The Dem’s strategy is to watch the refugees flee North from the the guns and School of the Americas graduates that the US sends South.
Typically incoherent.
Root cause is foreign policy that funds murderers and despots with weapons and and the like to serve American exploitative sociopathic business practices. We need policy that funds stability, jobs and basic humane security in these countries.
Specific Root Cause = 2009 Honduran Coup
Google Hillary Clinton and 2009 Honduran coup.
General root cause. It’s relatively safe here so people want to come here. That’s basically how and why everyone has ever come here. So what? Every wave of immigration has been fought by racist xenophobes. And every wave has only made us better.
Every previous wave served the demands of a voracious industrial expansion. Now the labor market is a race to the bottom, always seeking a new group to exploit so the rest of us can be left even further behind.
“Now the labor market is a race to the bottom, always seeking a new group to exploit so the rest of us can be left even further behind.”
To put it in terms that actually parallel your first sentence, this should read, “This wave* serves the demands of a voracious service-industry expansion.”
Because even in the time period addressed in your first sentence, exploitation of cheap labor was the motivating factor, and they were racing to the bottom, too. Manufacturers simply learned that you don’t have to import the laborers to access their cheap industrial labor. Only service industries require your corporeal presence to perform the job.
The problem isn’t the jobs, it’s the pay.
*The wave crested some years back.
Increasing the supply of workers will reduce worker pay.
This is not true. Never has been. Check the scholarship on this. It’s a propaganda line.
The AMA restricts worker supply and as a result doctors are some of the richest mofos around.
I want everyone to read this and make up her or his own mind.
In all my reading on this topic I’ve never come across this cohort of rich motherfuckers. Guess I’m behind the times.
I do know how doctors make their money and it isn’t because of AMA worker supply limits.
That’s what I mean by intervention. All licensed professions — even barbers and hairdressers — do the same.
Minimum wage levels exist to address this. If all employers had to pay a wage designed to keep workers off government assistance programs we’d all be a lot better off, even if it meant retail prices had to rise.
It always has and always will, absent intervention. How do you suggest we decrease the supply of workers — by building a wall? Or howzabout we use the old standby, a really big war that would produce hundreds of thousands of casualties?
I have no wish to live in Festung Amerika.
I’m in for war, but before we do, I need to move some money around
Man I’d love to see a Dem talk about the war on drugs and how what we’ve done in other nations has created this mess. Imagine actually talking about the problems that we, the USA, cause and how we are going to change X so Y no longer happens.
Or we could just build nicer cages. Which is my guess what Coons will agree too, after he appears on CNN 6 more times though
This is a good one from the Center for Immigration Studies at UVA.
https://cis.org/Report/Wages-Immigration
Results vary widely based on tier of occupation and can be ameliorate by government intervention.
Easier reading.
http://time.com/4503313/immigration-wages-employment-economy-study/
Includes link to report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Somebody needs to primary Chris Coons.