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Who Are Our Anti-Immigrants?

Howell Hurst Economy & Finance, People, People Politics, Trump

FROM MY CORNER

Who, I wonder, are the 35 million Americans so passionately antagonistic toward immigrants? One thing is certain: they are the descendants of immigrants.

Other than Native American Indians, all of us are the descendants of immigrants, and even they immigrated originally from Asiatic lands. So if you think about it, it is astounding that these 35 million are such ardent despisers of immigrants.

They claim to feel left behind economically, and to blame their condition somehow on refugee immigrants from other countries – past, present, and future. This puzzles me because as I still roam about America, I see daily everywhere sign after sign: “Help Wanted.”

If so many jobs are available, why are these 35 million not filling them?

The answer commonly given is that they are low-level jobs that do not pay enough. Or that the jobs are too demeaning, too degrading, too humble, of inadequate social status. In other words, below the acceptable social stature of the 35 million.

If that is the case, is it not appropriate to theorize that perhaps these immigrant abusers share a degree of responsibility for their own economic condition?

Let me explain.

The capitalism that these people still so clearly admire and aspire to, given the leader they support, is a highly competitive discipline. It is Darwin’s survival of the fittest taken to the modern marketplace. And it is a hard game to play.

But, those low-paying jobs at the bottom have always been – and remain – the entranceway to capitalism’s battlegrounds where the struggle for acceptable riches live. Historically, this trickle-down economy has never paid off for most poor.

My father began as a young man as a stone mason, and my first job at the age of 10 was as water-boy in his masonry construction job. I held the position of stone laborer until the age of 18, when I decided to be the first ever in my family to go to college. I worked four and one-half years nearly fulltime to acquire a degree.

This is not to praise me; it is to point out that decisions we make regarding work dare not be made on the basis of seeking social stature. Capitalism requires one bite many hard bullets. It just is the way things are in America.

If you are against socialistic support systems, you have to be personally hardy in America. And regarding work and income, you have to be humble and do what has to be done to sustain yourself.

What is my point?

I ask the 35 million why they blame immigrants? Why do they not walk, if necessary literally on foot, from their present locations to where these low-level jobs are, and take them in order to regain a toehold in the rapaciously greed-driven American economy they claim to so admire?

California, where I live, is presently complaining that its farm community desperately needs field workers they cannot find to take in the current harvest of produce. And this while our national government is blocking immigrants worldwide who would willingly fill the jobs.

The present Federal administration is trying to build a wall to block immigrants eager to work low-paying jobs in order to gain some personal freedom, while our 35 million choose to support a dubious capitalist economic Savior for their financial salvation.

Does this compute? Am I missing something? I don’t want to be hardnosed toward the discouraged poor. I personally am not at all fond of our hard-shell capitalism, our alleged survival of the fittest. I favor a mix of capitalism and socially supporting social policies. Such was a clear option in the last election.

We need to assess this situation closely. The present administration wants to give the top wealthiest capitalists of the country a massive tax cut, claiming that will financially help its disadvantaged political supporters. But it actually appears to hold labor in contempt. And it largely blames immigrants.

Either the 35 million or the opposing 60% are confused in the extreme about their thinking. Who is it really? It’s a question worth mulling over as we block desperately needy people worldwide from our shores while giving the wealthy another bonus.

It’s a provocative question to reflect upon, to say the very least.

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2 thoughts on “Who Are Our Anti-Immigrants?

  1. I don’t believe there are 35 million Americans who are seriously “anti-immigrant.” Not even 1 million. Maybe a few thousand at the most. The rhetoric and campaign rally talk that Trump used to attack Mexicans, and his administration’s interest and activity to deport Mexicans is nothing more than a political strategy, modeled after George Goebbels’ methods to build support for the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1930s. The American people, as a whole, do not support this policy.

    1. You may believe that, but I do not think the facts justify it. The 35 million of so heard his campaign and they see his actions, but they stick with him. He is a dissembling person, unreliable intellectually, and they stick with him. A lier, and they stick with him. You may think what you will. Too many are actively demonstrating their fear and dislike, hate, of immigrants and others different from their idea od what is right for America to give them so much leniency. America is about inclusiveness. If they want to b4 included themselves, they had best get on the right train track. Hal

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