Not to mention this deportation policy's massive effects on the economy - who will pick the crops, milk the cows, provide child care when all these working people are removed?
According to an article in--if I remember rightly--the NYT a few months ago, Stephen Miller was asked that question. His response was that (white) Americans would take those jobs, and at a higher salary. But 1) that doesn't answer the question about the immediate effects on the economy; and 2) the higher salaries he says Americans will receive contradicts the policies of Project 2025. A third problem is that Americans have consistently refused to work these jobs, which raises questions about forced labor because this work *must* be done. And another thing: It would probably cause a steep rise in the price of agricultural produce. which would just add to the chaos.
Thanks Rose and this is such a good point. The people who will be carrying these plans out will not be Trump but will be the Stephen Millers that follow in his wake. I may have seen that same Stephen Miller interview (or it may have been another one) and he explicitly said that he was unconcerned if the economy suffered as a consequence of mass deportation. His goal isn't to shepherd the economy and the country but to make it more racial pure even if the consequence is a smaller country and economy as a result.
I agree with you about their goal of racial purity, Henri, but an economic crash this time around might be the end. I'm not sure we'd be able to recover from one, not anytime soon at least, considering the fact that these people don't believe in stimulating the economy by giving Americans cash. One of the reasons the affects of the 2008 crash were so long-lasting is that the Republicans in congress refused to cut more checks for the American people even though interest rates at that time were 0 or near-0%. And the American middle class has never fully recovered from that crash. This time around there would be much greater social unrest, which would require ever-more repression. In addition, there would be consequences for our foreign policy. China would probably not strike the US in such circumstances, but the internal chaos in the US might lead them to think they could invade Taiwan with impunity. There's also Russia and Iran to consider.
What I'm saying is that there might not be much of a US left to rule, long before they even get started with their other policies.
Internal chaos is one of the most important drivers of history. When backs are turned to deal with it, others will strike.
Am now about 2/3 of the way through TS's On Freedom, and on the subject of the crushing of the American middle class in 2008: In 2021 I had a handyman come out to replace the knobs on my front door. He was in his late 20s-early 30s. After he finished we started to chat and he asked me if I minded if he looked at my books. I was delighted and told him to go right ahead and that he could spend as much time as he wanted. When he got to the ones on WWI, he turned around and told me that his father-in-law talks about WWI a lot, and he'd planned on going back to school to get a degree in history so he could teach because he loved history so much. But, he said, the crash came in 2008, and he had to give it up because he could no longer afford to go back to school. 2021 was *13 years* after the 2008 crash. He says that whenever he and his wife visit his father-in-law, all he talks about is history. It makes me sad and pisses me off. What a факінґ waste. What a loss of his freedom. What a loss to what might have been his students.
Indeed, Dr. Gordon, this is something my wife and I have frequently noted. The only people doing landscaping in our upper middle class town are Latino. And they work very hard.
If I am not mistaken, this was the argument used by the slavers against those who wanted to abolish the slave trade.
Also, the argument currently used by the Russians who want to keep Ukraine as a colony whose workers provide the motherland with its food.
The consequences of such argumentation are already being experienced in the UK as a result of Brexit driving so many European workers out of the country. No nurses, no carers, no fruit pickers, no hospitality workers… no domestic servants for the London newly rich on the right side of the wealth divide (think modern slavery here again).
Germany experienced similar problems with its Gastarbeiter policies, where people were brought in to work, but were then expected to go home when no longer needed. Of course, it didn't happen.
In my view, all these arguments are, in the final analysis, immoral. The only argument that really holds is a) equal rights for all citizens by virtue of their shared humanity, and b) reasonable open-minded hospitality to those who want to come. This is an intrinsic morality which issues direct from a conscience. It doesn't need external justifiers.
This is response is perfect and beautiful. One is appalled by the immorality of it all, including and even especially the glee that many Trump supporters experience when they think about deporting these people.
It troubles me that many immigrants who are now citizens support draconian laws against recent refugees! Where’s the humanity; l believe it was left at the border once they entered.
This is a well established pattern. And it ends well.
The first-generation immigrant is insecure and desperate not to lose their new-found citizenship or residence rights. So they identify with the new law-and-order and push back against anything and anyone that seems to threaten it. That includes anyone threatening the borders of their new homeland. At this stage, their psychology is mostly still, fight for survival.
Meanwhile, however, because they come so often from hotspots of trauma and dislocation, inappropriate inherited cultural attitudes all too often unconsciously manifest in the new arrivals, despite their best intentions. Think, automatic resort to authoritarian control, over-the-top exclusive reliance on blood family and tribal bonds, this joined to suspicion of the state.
But—the good news is that the second generation comes out half-adapted in the vast majority of cases. Parental fights with this new generation ensue, especially with the girls. Youth wants its freedom and feels the pulse of individual rights, and free democratic expression of those rights, in its bloodstream, to a noticeably greater degree than the parents who are usually still ensconced in the need for safe haven. The failed ones in this second generation are actually a tiny minority, who for various reasons fail to begin to integrate and instead turn to radicalism and attempted destructive subversion of their parents' new homeland.
By the third generation, integration of old and new identities is normally complete. Youth has its freedom, and nanna and pop are regarded affectionately for their old-fashioned ways. Nanna teaches the grandkids how to cook all the recipes from the old homeland, while pop tells the stories of what it was like back there in their day. Across three generations, living reality transforms into retained memories, to be replaced by the new lived-and-loved reality. Meanwhile, in the middle, the parents are making more and more money and feeling very good about it.
It is an unfortunate fact that on the whole—and this is of course a broad generalisation, and my apologies in advance to those hosts of Muslims who do quietly adapt like everybody else—Muslim immigrants tend to take longer to adapt than those from other religious backgrounds.
There's a peculiar irony in the reasons for this: Islam is a moon religion, and this tends to affect brain formation in particular ways. It was Islam that gave us the entirety of our modern natural science a few centuries ago. And what has led inexorably to the closed minds of modern Dawkinite orthodox atheism is the spawn of the same pond that has produced radical political Islamism.
Here's the need for non-Muslims to check out some history and understand why a bit of flexibility can be extended with good reason. Compare—
* thou shalt have none other god but me
* thou shalt have no other worlds than this one
Human cultures are very different, and we need as broad a church as we can sensibly manage to get along together.
Thank you.
PS See an expansion in my personal history in the following post.
PS I came from England to Australia aged 9 in 1956. I have lived through the successive waves of our successful postwar immigration here: first the very safe English and, at a pinch, grudgingly, the Irish (as long as they behaved themselves). Then, daringly, the Italians, Maltese, Greeks and other southern Mediterraneans. After that, heart-in-our-mouth, the first Turks, Lebanese, and other Muslims and Christians from the Near East and North Africa. Next, a radical departure—the first Vietnamese, fleeing the war in their country. Boat people! The Yellow Peril we had been keeping out for over 7 decades. Accepted… ! All sorts of Asians rapidly followed: Chinese from the diaspora, Chinese from the mainland, Indonesians, Malays, Thais, Laotians, Cambodians, Philippinos, the odd Burmese, fleeing Tibetans, an occasional Japanese. And most recently of all, almost together in a final opening of the gates, refugees from black Africa and Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian Islanders seeking a better life beyond their rising Pacific Ocean waters. And oops! I forgot our Kiwi mates from across the Tasman Sea who, in a latter-day moment of madness, we actually tried for a while to constrain (more fool us). And the South African farmers who, in a moment of blatant pro-rich-white discrimination, we also took in. And last but absolutely not least, the Indians, Nepalese, Kashmiris, Bhutanese, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans who right now are benefitting from a very recent shift in our immigration policy towards this hitherto neglected regional group of nations (if I were cynical, I would say that's to help shore us up against the CCP, Chinese Communist Party of Xi Jin Ping; but howsoever that may be, we're taking them anyway).
So if you want to see how immigration can be done, take a look at us here in Australia: 75 years of it now, and still going strong.
BUT—
We have one appalling colonial crime yet to be erased and replaced with something better in our new-forming national identity: the massacres and genocide of our first peoples, our indigenous Australians. I have confidence we will get there, eventually. I desperately hope sooner rather than later.
When I look back over all this, I am immensely proud of what we have achieved here in Australia in the name of our new humanity.
But honestly, I don't see all that much difference from the US and Canada, where you also have generated amazing stories of forging a new, richer, more developed human population well suited to a progressive future.
So what's the difference? I think you in the US are having one of those classic moments of self-doubt. We all have them. But—BABETTE—take heart, such moments always precede a major breakthrough. Be assured, our thoughts and energies are with you always.
Yes, I get your thought, thank you, but without his eyes to see, ears to hear, I would be wasting my time, wouldn't I? So mine would be a trumpeting out of yet another one-way opinion into the dark void of his non-receptivity.
The economy? I do get that particular concern, but that's the least of it.
Watching squads kick down doors, enter places of employment and elsewhere on a hunt, demanding to see 'papers' anywhere - what does anyone think will happen and does everyone just turn a blind eye? The harm done is not only to those arrested - but to everyone. It would turn many people into 'informers' and we know how that works from history. Vigilantianism will rise, and all of the horrors. Then what is the answer to that? Can you guess? Would you find yourself 'on the wrong side of the law' to protect a family, a neighbour?
The whole idea of mass deportation would be exactly as Prof Snyder describes. A dystopian nightmare.
And few if any of those jobs are what US-born-whites are at all willing to do — which is why migrants are doing them.
Deport illegal’s — prepare for food shortages, prepare for an “imposed diet plan” not of choice but of the consequences of short-sighted hate and fear.
Given the sheer ignorant anger of Trump and his followers, I expect the “error rate” will be much higher, with a very large number of American citizens being deported or worse. MAGA’s ultimate goal is to “purify American blood”, i.e. remove all but the whitest of whites from this country — a radical racial and ethnic cleansing. It will start with Latinos and move on to “Blacks”, “dark Europeans” such as Southern Italians, Asians of all geographic origins, and, of course, Jews.
Isabel Wilkerson, in her book "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents" has a chapter about how, after the Jews had "vanished from German life," the remaining Germans became paranoid about their hair, facial features and family trees and whether they might differ from the Nazi's racial ideals (pp. 279 - 281). "Without a scapegoat to look down upon, the people had only themselves to regard and to distinguish, one from the other, and they scanned their countrymen for someone else to be better than."
Agreed. But we need also to talk about which form of Christianity will prevail in our Christian Nationalist state. History has shown on numerous occasions the ability of one religious sect, whether Christian, Muslim or for goodness sake even Buddhist, to turn on others within the same general religion. I will not lower myself to the level of speculating, but there are at least two Christian groups with long and bloody histories of repressing other ostensibly Christian groups. But I will borrow from Dirty Harry: So you're a white Christian in MAGAland, and you're thinking, "I'm safe" Well, punk, do you feel lucky?
We will not have a robust border security bill because, as Biden said, “Donald Trump thinks it’s bad for him politically.” That sort of twisted thinking is par for the course for Trump, who cannot fathom doing anything for America if it does not suit his needs. He wants the border to remain a mess. He wants the stock market to crash. Trump cannot grasp the meaning of his oath or any other constraint.” ✍🏻 Jennifer Rubin, WAPO
There is another aspect of this problem that I have not seen addressed except tangentially. Think of the logistics, using the large numbers that the Professors started with, how will they be deported, I'm certainly not thinking about any court procedures being employed, so, how exactly do you deport 12 million people. Do you start town by town, throw all those people on buses, planes, boats & then send them, where? We may be the most powerful country in the world but I'm pretty sure we won't be able to force other countries to accept our "throw-aways"! I mean it's not like they can take them all & dump them in Madagascar like Hitler contemplated doing to the Jews.
So, while all these people are awaiting their fate where will they be housed. Will we throw them in huge fenced in grounds with no shelter, will those fences have razor wire affixed to the top, will there be ominous guard towers filled with sharp-shooters or better yet filled with lots of militiamen aiming their AR-15s at the cowering masses?
So, we have all these people congregated in, where? Camps? So, ok camps. You know that contracts will be awarded to high donating sycophants. They'll be receive huge contracts. Now, being the greedy bastards that they are they are not going to hire people to build whatever type of facilities they have in mind, not when they have captive labor just sitting there. This is also known as slave labor.
What about sanitation facilities? We've all seen the refugee camps set up around the world many erected by people/organizations that really care about the refugees. I hardly think the oligarchs chosen to erect "our camps" will be noble.
And how do you feed all those people, many of whom tilled the soil, planted the crops, harvested the crops, butchered and pack the meat we consume. With them "inside" who's going to do THAT work. Will we see potatoes or stale bread thrown at groups of starving people scurrying around trying to get a bit of food. If you haven't seen the footage of what the Russians did to Germany POWs during WWII it's must see TV! Or perhaps, they'll be fed the starvation diet that the Nazis used in THEIR camps
Just a few logistical problems to ponder, that the Greatest Country in the World may be faced with if trump & his cronies & the all important dark monied interests take control.
I’ll just cut to the chase here. Such mass round ups would necessitate extermination camps. No country would take so many and we know they wouldn’t just stop with undocumented immigrants. If their aim is to “purify”, most of us would be included in their round ups. We are more precisely a nation of mongrels by now.
Americanimmigrationcouncil.org gives cost estimates for the logistics. Also the loss of tax revenue, because undocumented households pay taxes - federal, state, and local. Only citizens get federal benefits, though undocumented people pay into Social Security, etc.
Chaotic. That is what can be expected in this planned deportaion effort.
In the midst of the chaos and organized subset of enforcers could easily target anyone who has publically shown opposition to the MAGA movement. Then remove their identification, put them in a locked truck trailer and just park it in the summer sun.
Mistakes like this are easy to make happen amidst an environment of chaos.
The DJ Trump is a pig among many. The master plan is to get him elected and then deem him unfit to serve thus, replacing him with the more miserable JD. The white puppeteers will tell him what to do and what to say to turn our precious nation upside down. Putin then, will march right in and become the leader. See how that works? It’s chilling and frightening! My own parents had to flee Nazism. My maternal grandparents died in a van with 9 others by being gassed. We cannot sit on our laurels! Prof Snyder tells us we would be doomed.
Marlene, I agree the plan is to replace DJT with JD (who is infinitely smoother and more dangerous), but I expect that after a few months DJT will suffer a fatal heart attack (probably with a little hidden medicinal help) or fall or helicopter crash (also engineered). Then a “devastated” JD will be “forced” to step up and try to “follow in the footsteps of his hero”. Only the “unavoidable” death of DJT would avoid the anger of a large portion of the MAGA crowd.
I hate to state the blatantly obvious, because I'm sure that anyone here is an informed, educated, and perceptive person, but Dr. Snyder is just summing up the smallest effects of a policy like this. (No offense to our host!)
Will that first deportation inspire Trump's base to take matters into their own hands? We know the news will cover it in some way. What will, say, Three Percenters or Proud Boys do when they see "it's finally time"? Would they even begin before he takes office, for that matter? And, being unaccountable, they can use whatever force they want.
There'll be resistance - America is awash in guns, and how's that going to affect the process? Might family or friends refuse to cooperate, violently? Will innocent people get shot in the process? Firefights in the streets? IEDs taking out Guard units? Attempts to assault vehicles transporting deportees? And if the military gets involved their training is to KILL, not detain. Trump and Stephen Miller assert everyone will be happy to see "the illegals" go. We know otherwise.
So the deportations get accomplished, however (and nobody can give a consistent number on how many there'll be). And things don't immediately improve. Well, just deport MORE PEOPLE. Want to punish your neighbor? Report them! Want to grab their property? Report them! At the very least it's going to be a miserable time for them sorting things out.
Deport LEGAL immigrants! (They're ALREADY saying this; Vance and his "Kamala's magic wand" BS.) Deport "troublemakers"! Deport "enemies of the state"! (Already heard they want to deport foreign students involved in Gaza protests.) Deport the "un-Americans"! (Who decides who's "American"? The guys deporting people! There's discussion NOW on the far right about how anyone not "holding traditional American values" isn't a REAL citizen, even if born here.) The country is going to be looking pretty damn empty for all the deportations.
And where does it go from there? ...because things WON'T be better. They never are in these situations. Once the Juggernaut gets rolling, it's impossible to stop and impossible to control.
"There'll be resistance - America is awash in guns...” Of course, people will fight back. It will be brutal and deadly. Thank you for stating the obvious so clearly.
I wonder how long Stephen Miller would last in this brave new Juggernaut? He is a Jew, and this sort of thing seldom works out for us.
On the positive side, think of all the new versions of The Diary of Anne Frank that will be written for future school children to read, but will not be allowed in school libraries because denialists will insist it never happened. (Sarcasm intended!!)
Such an awful nightmare. My state (NC) desperately needs these workers. I stood in line for one hour to vote on Friday because it's the ONE thing I could do to fight back.
The NYT very recently had a long article about how the dairy industry in Idaho is dependent on the work of illegal immigrants. According to the article, this work is hard & often dangerous, & Americans aren't willing to do it. Probably there are many other industries that are dependent on illegal immigrant labor. The poultry industry & all the migrant labor picking crops come to mind.
When a convicted fraudster/rapist wants to use the military against "the enemy within" & fantasizes about Arnold Palmer's junk...demented fascism to the core. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPKtKJBpmbU
Pretty sure we already are a disgrace. Any country that televises a political convention where participants exhibit "Mass Deportations Now," signs & cheers for mass deportation has already passed the threshold of disgraceful! What we are really facing is the contempt of the free world, note that at the point where we start rounding up people to be incarcerated &/or deported we are no longer a free country!
And as Dr. Snyder alluded to, mass deportation of Latinos will only be the beginning. Sooner or later they will begin mass incarceration (or worse) of parents, like me, who give their transgender kids life-affirming care, same-sex couples, "woke" authors, and on and on. Although it's science fiction, the movie "V for Vendetta" is one glimpse at what fascism could look like in a contemporary western society.
Not to mention this deportation policy's massive effects on the economy - who will pick the crops, milk the cows, provide child care when all these working people are removed?
According to an article in--if I remember rightly--the NYT a few months ago, Stephen Miller was asked that question. His response was that (white) Americans would take those jobs, and at a higher salary. But 1) that doesn't answer the question about the immediate effects on the economy; and 2) the higher salaries he says Americans will receive contradicts the policies of Project 2025. A third problem is that Americans have consistently refused to work these jobs, which raises questions about forced labor because this work *must* be done. And another thing: It would probably cause a steep rise in the price of agricultural produce. which would just add to the chaos.
Here's an article I found earlier this week, “Trump’s Proposed Mass Deportations Could 'Decimate' the US Food Supply.” https://itep.org/grist-trumps-proposed-mass-deportations-could-decimate-the-us-food-supply/
Stephen miller could be one character in the Wizard of Oz. No heart, no brain, no moral courage.
"Only Oz never gave nothing to the Tin Man that he already didn’t (didn’t) already have."
Miller? Why is he Bad. Bad. Bad?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uJL8er_tV0
What, you mean there was a Mr. Snake character in the Oz books? Musta missed that one.
Apologies to all snakes.
Thanks Rose and this is such a good point. The people who will be carrying these plans out will not be Trump but will be the Stephen Millers that follow in his wake. I may have seen that same Stephen Miller interview (or it may have been another one) and he explicitly said that he was unconcerned if the economy suffered as a consequence of mass deportation. His goal isn't to shepherd the economy and the country but to make it more racial pure even if the consequence is a smaller country and economy as a result.
I agree with you about their goal of racial purity, Henri, but an economic crash this time around might be the end. I'm not sure we'd be able to recover from one, not anytime soon at least, considering the fact that these people don't believe in stimulating the economy by giving Americans cash. One of the reasons the affects of the 2008 crash were so long-lasting is that the Republicans in congress refused to cut more checks for the American people even though interest rates at that time were 0 or near-0%. And the American middle class has never fully recovered from that crash. This time around there would be much greater social unrest, which would require ever-more repression. In addition, there would be consequences for our foreign policy. China would probably not strike the US in such circumstances, but the internal chaos in the US might lead them to think they could invade Taiwan with impunity. There's also Russia and Iran to consider.
What I'm saying is that there might not be much of a US left to rule, long before they even get started with their other policies.
Internal chaos is one of the most important drivers of history. When backs are turned to deal with it, others will strike.
Am now about 2/3 of the way through TS's On Freedom, and on the subject of the crushing of the American middle class in 2008: In 2021 I had a handyman come out to replace the knobs on my front door. He was in his late 20s-early 30s. After he finished we started to chat and he asked me if I minded if he looked at my books. I was delighted and told him to go right ahead and that he could spend as much time as he wanted. When he got to the ones on WWI, he turned around and told me that his father-in-law talks about WWI a lot, and he'd planned on going back to school to get a degree in history so he could teach because he loved history so much. But, he said, the crash came in 2008, and he had to give it up because he could no longer afford to go back to school. 2021 was *13 years* after the 2008 crash. He says that whenever he and his wife visit his father-in-law, all he talks about is history. It makes me sad and pisses me off. What a факінґ waste. What a loss of his freedom. What a loss to what might have been his students.
"Could". Could, maybe, possibly, perhaps, might. Many things fall into this category.
Indeed, Dr. Gordon, this is something my wife and I have frequently noted. The only people doing landscaping in our upper middle class town are Latino. And they work very hard.
Dozens of our best and brightest Nobel laureate economists predict a massive recession if TFG is reelected.
If I am not mistaken, this was the argument used by the slavers against those who wanted to abolish the slave trade.
Also, the argument currently used by the Russians who want to keep Ukraine as a colony whose workers provide the motherland with its food.
The consequences of such argumentation are already being experienced in the UK as a result of Brexit driving so many European workers out of the country. No nurses, no carers, no fruit pickers, no hospitality workers… no domestic servants for the London newly rich on the right side of the wealth divide (think modern slavery here again).
Germany experienced similar problems with its Gastarbeiter policies, where people were brought in to work, but were then expected to go home when no longer needed. Of course, it didn't happen.
In my view, all these arguments are, in the final analysis, immoral. The only argument that really holds is a) equal rights for all citizens by virtue of their shared humanity, and b) reasonable open-minded hospitality to those who want to come. This is an intrinsic morality which issues direct from a conscience. It doesn't need external justifiers.
This is response is perfect and beautiful. One is appalled by the immorality of it all, including and even especially the glee that many Trump supporters experience when they think about deporting these people.
It troubles me that many immigrants who are now citizens support draconian laws against recent refugees! Where’s the humanity; l believe it was left at the border once they entered.
Babette—
Do not panic! Or, panic slowly!
This is a well established pattern. And it ends well.
The first-generation immigrant is insecure and desperate not to lose their new-found citizenship or residence rights. So they identify with the new law-and-order and push back against anything and anyone that seems to threaten it. That includes anyone threatening the borders of their new homeland. At this stage, their psychology is mostly still, fight for survival.
Meanwhile, however, because they come so often from hotspots of trauma and dislocation, inappropriate inherited cultural attitudes all too often unconsciously manifest in the new arrivals, despite their best intentions. Think, automatic resort to authoritarian control, over-the-top exclusive reliance on blood family and tribal bonds, this joined to suspicion of the state.
But—the good news is that the second generation comes out half-adapted in the vast majority of cases. Parental fights with this new generation ensue, especially with the girls. Youth wants its freedom and feels the pulse of individual rights, and free democratic expression of those rights, in its bloodstream, to a noticeably greater degree than the parents who are usually still ensconced in the need for safe haven. The failed ones in this second generation are actually a tiny minority, who for various reasons fail to begin to integrate and instead turn to radicalism and attempted destructive subversion of their parents' new homeland.
By the third generation, integration of old and new identities is normally complete. Youth has its freedom, and nanna and pop are regarded affectionately for their old-fashioned ways. Nanna teaches the grandkids how to cook all the recipes from the old homeland, while pop tells the stories of what it was like back there in their day. Across three generations, living reality transforms into retained memories, to be replaced by the new lived-and-loved reality. Meanwhile, in the middle, the parents are making more and more money and feeling very good about it.
It is an unfortunate fact that on the whole—and this is of course a broad generalisation, and my apologies in advance to those hosts of Muslims who do quietly adapt like everybody else—Muslim immigrants tend to take longer to adapt than those from other religious backgrounds.
There's a peculiar irony in the reasons for this: Islam is a moon religion, and this tends to affect brain formation in particular ways. It was Islam that gave us the entirety of our modern natural science a few centuries ago. And what has led inexorably to the closed minds of modern Dawkinite orthodox atheism is the spawn of the same pond that has produced radical political Islamism.
Here's the need for non-Muslims to check out some history and understand why a bit of flexibility can be extended with good reason. Compare—
* thou shalt have none other god but me
* thou shalt have no other worlds than this one
Human cultures are very different, and we need as broad a church as we can sensibly manage to get along together.
Thank you.
PS See an expansion in my personal history in the following post.
THIS FOLLOWS ON FROM MY PREVIOUS POST
PS I came from England to Australia aged 9 in 1956. I have lived through the successive waves of our successful postwar immigration here: first the very safe English and, at a pinch, grudgingly, the Irish (as long as they behaved themselves). Then, daringly, the Italians, Maltese, Greeks and other southern Mediterraneans. After that, heart-in-our-mouth, the first Turks, Lebanese, and other Muslims and Christians from the Near East and North Africa. Next, a radical departure—the first Vietnamese, fleeing the war in their country. Boat people! The Yellow Peril we had been keeping out for over 7 decades. Accepted… ! All sorts of Asians rapidly followed: Chinese from the diaspora, Chinese from the mainland, Indonesians, Malays, Thais, Laotians, Cambodians, Philippinos, the odd Burmese, fleeing Tibetans, an occasional Japanese. And most recently of all, almost together in a final opening of the gates, refugees from black Africa and Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian Islanders seeking a better life beyond their rising Pacific Ocean waters. And oops! I forgot our Kiwi mates from across the Tasman Sea who, in a latter-day moment of madness, we actually tried for a while to constrain (more fool us). And the South African farmers who, in a moment of blatant pro-rich-white discrimination, we also took in. And last but absolutely not least, the Indians, Nepalese, Kashmiris, Bhutanese, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans who right now are benefitting from a very recent shift in our immigration policy towards this hitherto neglected regional group of nations (if I were cynical, I would say that's to help shore us up against the CCP, Chinese Communist Party of Xi Jin Ping; but howsoever that may be, we're taking them anyway).
So if you want to see how immigration can be done, take a look at us here in Australia: 75 years of it now, and still going strong.
BUT—
We have one appalling colonial crime yet to be erased and replaced with something better in our new-forming national identity: the massacres and genocide of our first peoples, our indigenous Australians. I have confidence we will get there, eventually. I desperately hope sooner rather than later.
When I look back over all this, I am immensely proud of what we have achieved here in Australia in the name of our new humanity.
But honestly, I don't see all that much difference from the US and Canada, where you also have generated amazing stories of forging a new, richer, more developed human population well suited to a progressive future.
So what's the difference? I think you in the US are having one of those classic moments of self-doubt. We all have them. But—BABETTE—take heart, such moments always precede a major breakthrough. Be assured, our thoughts and energies are with you always.
Thank you for reading this…
Thank you, Rose.
Any successful positive communication is priceless right now! I do appreciate your taking the trouble to respond.
Our thoughts are with you…
I suggest you write to Stephen Miller expressing your opinion.
Yes, I get your thought, thank you, but without his eyes to see, ears to hear, I would be wasting my time, wouldn't I? So mine would be a trumpeting out of yet another one-way opinion into the dark void of his non-receptivity.
The economy? I do get that particular concern, but that's the least of it.
Watching squads kick down doors, enter places of employment and elsewhere on a hunt, demanding to see 'papers' anywhere - what does anyone think will happen and does everyone just turn a blind eye? The harm done is not only to those arrested - but to everyone. It would turn many people into 'informers' and we know how that works from history. Vigilantianism will rise, and all of the horrors. Then what is the answer to that? Can you guess? Would you find yourself 'on the wrong side of the law' to protect a family, a neighbour?
The whole idea of mass deportation would be exactly as Prof Snyder describes. A dystopian nightmare.
And few if any of those jobs are what US-born-whites are at all willing to do — which is why migrants are doing them.
Deport illegal’s — prepare for food shortages, prepare for an “imposed diet plan” not of choice but of the consequences of short-sighted hate and fear.
And here I thought the H-2A visa covered those who harvest fruits and vegetables.
Trump was asked that directly in the Univision town hall and, of course, didn’t respond to it.
First they came for the
Latinos and I did nothing.
Then they came for the
Asians and I did nothing.
Then they came for the
Blacks and I did nothing.
Then they came for me
because I finally spoke up.
Vote BLUE up and down
ballot. Take the presidency
and both Houses of
Congress.
Thank you Professor Snyder.
100%
Thank you, Dr. Snyder for this inspiring post. I wish every single voter in America had access to it.
AND, would read past the first 2-3 sentenced
Agreed
Given the sheer ignorant anger of Trump and his followers, I expect the “error rate” will be much higher, with a very large number of American citizens being deported or worse. MAGA’s ultimate goal is to “purify American blood”, i.e. remove all but the whitest of whites from this country — a radical racial and ethnic cleansing. It will start with Latinos and move on to “Blacks”, “dark Europeans” such as Southern Italians, Asians of all geographic origins, and, of course, Jews.
Isabel Wilkerson, in her book "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents" has a chapter about how, after the Jews had "vanished from German life," the remaining Germans became paranoid about their hair, facial features and family trees and whether they might differ from the Nazi's racial ideals (pp. 279 - 281). "Without a scapegoat to look down upon, the people had only themselves to regard and to distinguish, one from the other, and they scanned their countrymen for someone else to be better than."
Agreed. But we need also to talk about which form of Christianity will prevail in our Christian Nationalist state. History has shown on numerous occasions the ability of one religious sect, whether Christian, Muslim or for goodness sake even Buddhist, to turn on others within the same general religion. I will not lower myself to the level of speculating, but there are at least two Christian groups with long and bloody histories of repressing other ostensibly Christian groups. But I will borrow from Dirty Harry: So you're a white Christian in MAGAland, and you're thinking, "I'm safe" Well, punk, do you feel lucky?
We will not have a robust border security bill because, as Biden said, “Donald Trump thinks it’s bad for him politically.” That sort of twisted thinking is par for the course for Trump, who cannot fathom doing anything for America if it does not suit his needs. He wants the border to remain a mess. He wants the stock market to crash. Trump cannot grasp the meaning of his oath or any other constraint.” ✍🏻 Jennifer Rubin, WAPO
There is another aspect of this problem that I have not seen addressed except tangentially. Think of the logistics, using the large numbers that the Professors started with, how will they be deported, I'm certainly not thinking about any court procedures being employed, so, how exactly do you deport 12 million people. Do you start town by town, throw all those people on buses, planes, boats & then send them, where? We may be the most powerful country in the world but I'm pretty sure we won't be able to force other countries to accept our "throw-aways"! I mean it's not like they can take them all & dump them in Madagascar like Hitler contemplated doing to the Jews.
So, while all these people are awaiting their fate where will they be housed. Will we throw them in huge fenced in grounds with no shelter, will those fences have razor wire affixed to the top, will there be ominous guard towers filled with sharp-shooters or better yet filled with lots of militiamen aiming their AR-15s at the cowering masses?
So, we have all these people congregated in, where? Camps? So, ok camps. You know that contracts will be awarded to high donating sycophants. They'll be receive huge contracts. Now, being the greedy bastards that they are they are not going to hire people to build whatever type of facilities they have in mind, not when they have captive labor just sitting there. This is also known as slave labor.
What about sanitation facilities? We've all seen the refugee camps set up around the world many erected by people/organizations that really care about the refugees. I hardly think the oligarchs chosen to erect "our camps" will be noble.
And how do you feed all those people, many of whom tilled the soil, planted the crops, harvested the crops, butchered and pack the meat we consume. With them "inside" who's going to do THAT work. Will we see potatoes or stale bread thrown at groups of starving people scurrying around trying to get a bit of food. If you haven't seen the footage of what the Russians did to Germany POWs during WWII it's must see TV! Or perhaps, they'll be fed the starvation diet that the Nazis used in THEIR camps
Just a few logistical problems to ponder, that the Greatest Country in the World may be faced with if trump & his cronies & the all important dark monied interests take control.
I’ll just cut to the chase here. Such mass round ups would necessitate extermination camps. No country would take so many and we know they wouldn’t just stop with undocumented immigrants. If their aim is to “purify”, most of us would be included in their round ups. We are more precisely a nation of mongrels by now.
I guarantee you that CoreCivic and GEO Group, who currently hold about 90% of detained immigrants, and who lobby congress and candidates BIG TIME, will gladly do trump's bidding. https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/private-prison-behemoth-is-first-corporation-to-max-out-to-trump/.
Americanimmigrationcouncil.org gives cost estimates for the logistics. Also the loss of tax revenue, because undocumented households pay taxes - federal, state, and local. Only citizens get federal benefits, though undocumented people pay into Social Security, etc.
Chaotic. That is what can be expected in this planned deportaion effort.
In the midst of the chaos and organized subset of enforcers could easily target anyone who has publically shown opposition to the MAGA movement. Then remove their identification, put them in a locked truck trailer and just park it in the summer sun.
Mistakes like this are easy to make happen amidst an environment of chaos.
excellent points
The DJ Trump is a pig among many. The master plan is to get him elected and then deem him unfit to serve thus, replacing him with the more miserable JD. The white puppeteers will tell him what to do and what to say to turn our precious nation upside down. Putin then, will march right in and become the leader. See how that works? It’s chilling and frightening! My own parents had to flee Nazism. My maternal grandparents died in a van with 9 others by being gassed. We cannot sit on our laurels! Prof Snyder tells us we would be doomed.
Marlene, I agree the plan is to replace DJT with JD (who is infinitely smoother and more dangerous), but I expect that after a few months DJT will suffer a fatal heart attack (probably with a little hidden medicinal help) or fall or helicopter crash (also engineered). Then a “devastated” JD will be “forced” to step up and try to “follow in the footsteps of his hero”. Only the “unavoidable” death of DJT would avoid the anger of a large portion of the MAGA crowd.
The suggestion that a Mega Mob can be contained is a fallacy.
The have already been “deputized” and are “ready to rumble.”
Look, Danielle, I wished that on Kissinger and that SOB lived until this year! He was 100 years old!
I think that this is quite likely lurking in the thought shadows
When Tim Snyder writes about "some will try to run away..." I am reminded of Eliza escaping the clutches of the slave masters in Uncle Tom's Cabin
Or George Washington’s slave that he hunted for relentlessly.
Thank you Dr. Snyder. All I can say is that our enthusiasm to be free better outmatch MAGA’s to own and subjugate us.
I hate to state the blatantly obvious, because I'm sure that anyone here is an informed, educated, and perceptive person, but Dr. Snyder is just summing up the smallest effects of a policy like this. (No offense to our host!)
Will that first deportation inspire Trump's base to take matters into their own hands? We know the news will cover it in some way. What will, say, Three Percenters or Proud Boys do when they see "it's finally time"? Would they even begin before he takes office, for that matter? And, being unaccountable, they can use whatever force they want.
There'll be resistance - America is awash in guns, and how's that going to affect the process? Might family or friends refuse to cooperate, violently? Will innocent people get shot in the process? Firefights in the streets? IEDs taking out Guard units? Attempts to assault vehicles transporting deportees? And if the military gets involved their training is to KILL, not detain. Trump and Stephen Miller assert everyone will be happy to see "the illegals" go. We know otherwise.
So the deportations get accomplished, however (and nobody can give a consistent number on how many there'll be). And things don't immediately improve. Well, just deport MORE PEOPLE. Want to punish your neighbor? Report them! Want to grab their property? Report them! At the very least it's going to be a miserable time for them sorting things out.
Deport LEGAL immigrants! (They're ALREADY saying this; Vance and his "Kamala's magic wand" BS.) Deport "troublemakers"! Deport "enemies of the state"! (Already heard they want to deport foreign students involved in Gaza protests.) Deport the "un-Americans"! (Who decides who's "American"? The guys deporting people! There's discussion NOW on the far right about how anyone not "holding traditional American values" isn't a REAL citizen, even if born here.) The country is going to be looking pretty damn empty for all the deportations.
And where does it go from there? ...because things WON'T be better. They never are in these situations. Once the Juggernaut gets rolling, it's impossible to stop and impossible to control.
"There'll be resistance - America is awash in guns...” Of course, people will fight back. It will be brutal and deadly. Thank you for stating the obvious so clearly.
I wonder how long Stephen Miller would last in this brave new Juggernaut? He is a Jew, and this sort of thing seldom works out for us.
On the positive side, think of all the new versions of The Diary of Anne Frank that will be written for future school children to read, but will not be allowed in school libraries because denialists will insist it never happened. (Sarcasm intended!!)
Such an awful nightmare. My state (NC) desperately needs these workers. I stood in line for one hour to vote on Friday because it's the ONE thing I could do to fight back.
The NYT very recently had a long article about how the dairy industry in Idaho is dependent on the work of illegal immigrants. According to the article, this work is hard & often dangerous, & Americans aren't willing to do it. Probably there are many other industries that are dependent on illegal immigrant labor. The poultry industry & all the migrant labor picking crops come to mind.
You can Google the NYT article.
When a convicted fraudster/rapist wants to use the military against "the enemy within" & fantasizes about Arnold Palmer's junk...demented fascism to the core. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPKtKJBpmbU
Thank you. We are on the verge of national disgrace.
Pretty sure we already are a disgrace. Any country that televises a political convention where participants exhibit "Mass Deportations Now," signs & cheers for mass deportation has already passed the threshold of disgraceful! What we are really facing is the contempt of the free world, note that at the point where we start rounding up people to be incarcerated &/or deported we are no longer a free country!
And as Dr. Snyder alluded to, mass deportation of Latinos will only be the beginning. Sooner or later they will begin mass incarceration (or worse) of parents, like me, who give their transgender kids life-affirming care, same-sex couples, "woke" authors, and on and on. Although it's science fiction, the movie "V for Vendetta" is one glimpse at what fascism could look like in a contemporary western society.