Interesting lens on birtherism: the racism is submerged into the ostensibly more defensible anti-immigrant logic, where anti-immigrant sentiment is a proxy for "people like that aren't part of this polity."
This pinpoints the quandary of current public discourse. None of the right's political claims––the election was stolen, the FBI, DOJ, and deep state are politicized, social justice concerns are really "grooming" and antifa violence––are actually substantive claims. They are just rhetorical machines for generating stories and memes whose underlying meaning is that *those people* are due no rights or protections because they are external to we the people. All the fact-checking and editorial debunking in the world doesn't matter, because these are not public debates about actual claims.
Yes, this has been a long running narrative thread in their politics around cities especially once Black elected officials began gaining prominence post-CRA. The recent moves to supersede city governments on education, elections, and policing fit neatly within this thinking once seen in this light and neatly fuses the calls to throw out votes in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Atlanta with long standing narratives around crime, and fitness to govern. Buckley's arguments against the people of Mississippi being able and worthy to govern themselves are echoed in the core logic of the Great Replacement Theory as well. I think a key question in the current moment will be how much recognition will be given to these latent tendencies how forcefully they can be addressed given the number and influence who hold them as common sense beliefs even if they wouldn't draw these conclusions to the point modern conservatives have been comfortable taking it.
FWIW, in the late 1860s, when the 14th Amendment was written and ratified, the states managed immigration. For example, Castle Garden in New York City, was run by New York.
So, if a rightie says "well they didn't imagine that it (birthright citizenship) would apply to "illegal" immigrants," it's true, because there was really no such thing as an "illegal." States might prevent entry to a person who was ill, but the 14th Amendment predates the Chinese Exclusion Act by more than a decade, fear of political "radicals" by at least a decade, and fear of mass migration from Latin America by about a century.
the 14th is clear. Unless your parents were diplomats on duty in the US, if you are born here, you're a US Citizen.
A poignant comment. From a leftist or more specifically Marxist perspective it is interesting to see the kind of base-superstructure/material-ideological dimension intersect here (without any clear causal hierarchies). On the one hand, the material benefits included, or rather aspired to, in citizenship a central to the whole right-wing rhetoric. On the other hand, there is of course the element of crude racism that underlies this whole line of thinking. These two elements are often treated, as if the materialistic arguments are just some kind of pretext to gain a culturally more acceptable discursive admission for essentially racist politics. At the same time (and not just by the same actors) the concrete material benefits of citizenship are actively being attacked and have been, in their egalitarian core, eroded to a very substantial degree.
MAGAs like John Eastman focus on the "jurisidiction thereof" passage or clause of the 14th Amendment, and they try to disinter arguments from old cases like Elk v Wilkins (1884) to animate their arguments. The Elk case held that a Winnebago man (John Elk) was not an American citizen despite being born on US soil; he had primary or "immediate allegiance" to his tribe, which remained even after he voluntarily separated from it. This is a clear example of the "denationalization" mentioned by Arendt above, and it's interesting to see that the first personification of it was in a case concerning an Indigenous man. Such is the logic of settler colonialism!
I will write about all this over at the Unmuted Posthorn.
"...there is no guarantee for human rights outside the political community...Human rights lose all their signification as soon as an individual loses her political context...The right to have rights should be recognized as a precondition for the protection of every human right...."
The really disturbing part is that we so desperately need immigration reform to address very real problems with uncontrolled immigration due to our porous border. This may not be a priority for many on the left, but there is legit grievance, imo, that it amounts to flooding the labor market with low skill workers depresses lower income wages, also presents insecurity, and is also unfair to other would-be immigrants. The longer the system carries on so obviously broken, the more extremism will result. The more extremism, the more appealing this fascistic messaging is to the masses.
2013 was the last serious attempt at immigration reform. At that time, the reasonable, negotiated bipartisan proposal passed the Senate easily, but was held up by populist House Republicans.
This monster feeds itself. The way to defang it is to solve the problems. Its just the monster gets in the way of that too.
American Citizenship for migrants is very fair and civil. Here in italy According to Italian law, those born to non-citizen parents can acquire citizenship if they were born in Italy, have had uninterrupted residence until turning 18. It’s unfair law. Children should be proud citizens from young age. I believe more migrants feel proud to be American. In Italy we need to do much more to make more migrants proud citizens. Desantis has Italian grand parents, he should be proud of what America offered to these migrants.
For me, pulp writer Robert E Howard, of all people nailed it: barbarism is the natural state of man. And our right wing has been fighting hard for decades to reduce the nation to same. No need for anything better than show elections because the strong should lead. Like the Founding Fathers wanted, there should be no state interference with one -- well, a white man -- accumulating wealth by any and all means available. If a global pandemic strikes, the proper response is for the state to do nothing. And so on and so forth. The reader can come up with their own examples, I’m sure.
And here we are. Reverting to barbarism is relatively easy -- our conservatives have done it primarily with lies and secondarily with corruption.
And here we are. This civilizational collapse is what we’re facing and it looks like it’s on the edge of becoming a fixed reality.
They will use this to deport as many undocumented immigrants as possible. It's quite simple. Most of them will support Democrats or vote for them when they can. Get rid of these people. Elect Republicans. Power to the chosen few!
Interesting lens on birtherism: the racism is submerged into the ostensibly more defensible anti-immigrant logic, where anti-immigrant sentiment is a proxy for "people like that aren't part of this polity."
This pinpoints the quandary of current public discourse. None of the right's political claims––the election was stolen, the FBI, DOJ, and deep state are politicized, social justice concerns are really "grooming" and antifa violence––are actually substantive claims. They are just rhetorical machines for generating stories and memes whose underlying meaning is that *those people* are due no rights or protections because they are external to we the people. All the fact-checking and editorial debunking in the world doesn't matter, because these are not public debates about actual claims.
The people who were surprised when all the immigrants weren't gone the day after Brexit
This is the next front in the battle over the Great Replacement fear/theory
Yes, this has been a long running narrative thread in their politics around cities especially once Black elected officials began gaining prominence post-CRA. The recent moves to supersede city governments on education, elections, and policing fit neatly within this thinking once seen in this light and neatly fuses the calls to throw out votes in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Atlanta with long standing narratives around crime, and fitness to govern. Buckley's arguments against the people of Mississippi being able and worthy to govern themselves are echoed in the core logic of the Great Replacement Theory as well. I think a key question in the current moment will be how much recognition will be given to these latent tendencies how forcefully they can be addressed given the number and influence who hold them as common sense beliefs even if they wouldn't draw these conclusions to the point modern conservatives have been comfortable taking it.
FWIW, in the late 1860s, when the 14th Amendment was written and ratified, the states managed immigration. For example, Castle Garden in New York City, was run by New York.
So, if a rightie says "well they didn't imagine that it (birthright citizenship) would apply to "illegal" immigrants," it's true, because there was really no such thing as an "illegal." States might prevent entry to a person who was ill, but the 14th Amendment predates the Chinese Exclusion Act by more than a decade, fear of political "radicals" by at least a decade, and fear of mass migration from Latin America by about a century.
the 14th is clear. Unless your parents were diplomats on duty in the US, if you are born here, you're a US Citizen.
A poignant comment. From a leftist or more specifically Marxist perspective it is interesting to see the kind of base-superstructure/material-ideological dimension intersect here (without any clear causal hierarchies). On the one hand, the material benefits included, or rather aspired to, in citizenship a central to the whole right-wing rhetoric. On the other hand, there is of course the element of crude racism that underlies this whole line of thinking. These two elements are often treated, as if the materialistic arguments are just some kind of pretext to gain a culturally more acceptable discursive admission for essentially racist politics. At the same time (and not just by the same actors) the concrete material benefits of citizenship are actively being attacked and have been, in their egalitarian core, eroded to a very substantial degree.
MAGAs like John Eastman focus on the "jurisidiction thereof" passage or clause of the 14th Amendment, and they try to disinter arguments from old cases like Elk v Wilkins (1884) to animate their arguments. The Elk case held that a Winnebago man (John Elk) was not an American citizen despite being born on US soil; he had primary or "immediate allegiance" to his tribe, which remained even after he voluntarily separated from it. This is a clear example of the "denationalization" mentioned by Arendt above, and it's interesting to see that the first personification of it was in a case concerning an Indigenous man. Such is the logic of settler colonialism!
I will write about all this over at the Unmuted Posthorn.
This is a fine essay. I wish it were not needed.
"...there is no guarantee for human rights outside the political community...Human rights lose all their signification as soon as an individual loses her political context...The right to have rights should be recognized as a precondition for the protection of every human right...."
https://criticallegalthinking.com/2019/07/12/hannah-arendt-right-to-have-rights/
This got me thinking: has anyone ever done a comparison of Strasserism and the idea of the Welfare Queen in conservative thought?
🔥🔥🔥 thats it, indeed.
The really disturbing part is that we so desperately need immigration reform to address very real problems with uncontrolled immigration due to our porous border. This may not be a priority for many on the left, but there is legit grievance, imo, that it amounts to flooding the labor market with low skill workers depresses lower income wages, also presents insecurity, and is also unfair to other would-be immigrants. The longer the system carries on so obviously broken, the more extremism will result. The more extremism, the more appealing this fascistic messaging is to the masses.
2013 was the last serious attempt at immigration reform. At that time, the reasonable, negotiated bipartisan proposal passed the Senate easily, but was held up by populist House Republicans.
This monster feeds itself. The way to defang it is to solve the problems. Its just the monster gets in the way of that too.
American Citizenship for migrants is very fair and civil. Here in italy According to Italian law, those born to non-citizen parents can acquire citizenship if they were born in Italy, have had uninterrupted residence until turning 18. It’s unfair law. Children should be proud citizens from young age. I believe more migrants feel proud to be American. In Italy we need to do much more to make more migrants proud citizens. Desantis has Italian grand parents, he should be proud of what America offered to these migrants.
For me, pulp writer Robert E Howard, of all people nailed it: barbarism is the natural state of man. And our right wing has been fighting hard for decades to reduce the nation to same. No need for anything better than show elections because the strong should lead. Like the Founding Fathers wanted, there should be no state interference with one -- well, a white man -- accumulating wealth by any and all means available. If a global pandemic strikes, the proper response is for the state to do nothing. And so on and so forth. The reader can come up with their own examples, I’m sure.
And here we are. Reverting to barbarism is relatively easy -- our conservatives have done it primarily with lies and secondarily with corruption.
And here we are. This civilizational collapse is what we’re facing and it looks like it’s on the edge of becoming a fixed reality.
They will use this to deport as many undocumented immigrants as possible. It's quite simple. Most of them will support Democrats or vote for them when they can. Get rid of these people. Elect Republicans. Power to the chosen few!