It’s been four months since I left the Nazi bar formerly known as Twitter, but that doesn’t mean I’m not keeping up with news about what’s going on there. Increasingly, it seems, the site isn’t just “a bar that lets some Nazis hang out” but rather “a bar where the owner won’t shut up with the Nazi shit, insists we call him ‘obergruppenführer,’ and holds a Weekly Wednesday Wehrmacht Trivia Night.”
Hi Kevin! Haven’t seen you in awhile. Great column, too logical for many, but I appreciate your work and your voice so much. I’ve been thinking a lot about the constant drone of the “immigration” rhetoric with which I was assaulted since childhood in my Rightwing upbringing and adult echo chamber. Believe it or not, that nonstop assault on immigrants via Limbaugh then Fox, is what got me to first pry open the door of my locked chamber. It was ridiculous and mind-numbingly dull & repetitive, not to mention wholly wrong. When I finally ventured outside for some fresh air, a whole new world opened up, much more colorful & complicated. And then I met ppl like YOU who have patiently helped me to see and learn actual history and regain my empathy. And over time, realize how I’d gotten so warped. So keep talking & writing. You never know which seeds will grow. Thank you!
I work for a church in Maryland. Our congregation is mostly West African, but we have a small Latino congregation too.
In the last two years,two different families from our Latino congregation have lost family members who were within months & weeks of qualifying for US citizenship. They’d done everything right; yet in their birth countries they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Left to my own devices, I’d probably be an “open borders” person. But these folks rejected the illegal options, even as their birth countries became more and more dangerous. One person was within weeks of getting their green card.
I look at the Republican behavior over the most recent immigration bill, and I feel nothing but rage.
I will suggest that, even if Elon Musk was right, a one-party in the USA would likely split into pieces. This is what happened at the end of the "Era of Good Feelings" during the presidency of James Monroe. Various party figures jockeyed for position as Monroe's successor, coalescing into the split between the Whigs and the Democrats.
Sometime in the future, could you offer an analysis of how adherents of the Great Replacement Theory feel about Caucasian vs. non-Caucasian immigration? Do they feel differently? Are Christo-fascist American nationalists opposed to Caucasian immigration? Thanks for the insightful article.
If you take the long view of this, it's worth noting how the definition of "white" has steadily expanded -- in the 1920s, GRT types fumed about Italians, Greeks, Slavs and Eastern European Jews, all of whom are now seen as "white" with grandkids of those original targets of GRT panic now spouting off a new one. So the category is elastic, and today they'd welcome European immigrants, I imagine, and one day might even code Latinos as white too.
I just covered 19th c. immigration with my 1301 students this week. We talked about immigrants “becoming white” and looked at political cartoons from the period. They noted that the anti-immigrant cartoons “didn’t even try to hide the racism”. We are in San Antonio and the majority of my students are Latinx; they are attuned to Abbot’s posturing along the border and the discussion really hit home.
It's no wonder that Elon and Ron DeSantis are simpatico. There is a bill, HB395/SB1122, being pushed through the FL Legislature that would return Confederate monuments, and penalized local officials who removed them. At a Sen. Community Affairs committee on Tues., that began at 3pm, then ran into the night because of this bill, several white supremacist made comments that were so blatantly racist that the GOP-dominated committee were visibly appalled, some made comments condemning it. Nevertheless voted up the bill, on party line. The three Democrats on the committee walked out, before the vote. From the bill "The Legislature finds that an accurate and factual history belongs to all Floridians and future generations and the state has an obligation to protect and preserve this history." That is false. It not only evokes language the UDC used on the Confederate monuments, it enables their intent - to perpetuate white supremacy - by forcing local governments who removed the Confederate monuments, to re-erect them! Ironic, the party that claims to be about home rule and local government, is taking away local government authority and giving it to the State, so that false Confederate propaganda can asserted as "accurate and factual history."
Hi Kevin! Haven’t seen you in awhile. Great column, too logical for many, but I appreciate your work and your voice so much. I’ve been thinking a lot about the constant drone of the “immigration” rhetoric with which I was assaulted since childhood in my Rightwing upbringing and adult echo chamber. Believe it or not, that nonstop assault on immigrants via Limbaugh then Fox, is what got me to first pry open the door of my locked chamber. It was ridiculous and mind-numbingly dull & repetitive, not to mention wholly wrong. When I finally ventured outside for some fresh air, a whole new world opened up, much more colorful & complicated. And then I met ppl like YOU who have patiently helped me to see and learn actual history and regain my empathy. And over time, realize how I’d gotten so warped. So keep talking & writing. You never know which seeds will grow. Thank you!
Thanks for that thoughtful comment, so glad you're listening!
I work for a church in Maryland. Our congregation is mostly West African, but we have a small Latino congregation too.
In the last two years,two different families from our Latino congregation have lost family members who were within months & weeks of qualifying for US citizenship. They’d done everything right; yet in their birth countries they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Left to my own devices, I’d probably be an “open borders” person. But these folks rejected the illegal options, even as their birth countries became more and more dangerous. One person was within weeks of getting their green card.
I look at the Republican behavior over the most recent immigration bill, and I feel nothing but rage.
Elon and Kimbal Musk on The Dinner Program 10 years ago:
KIMBAL: When they did fund us, they realized that we were illegal immigrants.
ELON: Well...
KIMBAL: Yes we were!
ELON: It was a grey area.
Kevin, if you’re looking for more proof of stupidity, You can count on “Meatball Ron” to deliver in Florida. It’s fitting that Musk’s catastrophic launch of the DeSantis campaign, ultimately led to more stunning stupidity. Ron, spent $7,000 per vote he received, in the Iowa caucuses. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fabiola-santiago/article279599409.html
good piece, Kevin, thank you.
I will suggest that, even if Elon Musk was right, a one-party in the USA would likely split into pieces. This is what happened at the end of the "Era of Good Feelings" during the presidency of James Monroe. Various party figures jockeyed for position as Monroe's successor, coalescing into the split between the Whigs and the Democrats.
That's another very good point!
Sometime in the future, could you offer an analysis of how adherents of the Great Replacement Theory feel about Caucasian vs. non-Caucasian immigration? Do they feel differently? Are Christo-fascist American nationalists opposed to Caucasian immigration? Thanks for the insightful article.
If you take the long view of this, it's worth noting how the definition of "white" has steadily expanded -- in the 1920s, GRT types fumed about Italians, Greeks, Slavs and Eastern European Jews, all of whom are now seen as "white" with grandkids of those original targets of GRT panic now spouting off a new one. So the category is elastic, and today they'd welcome European immigrants, I imagine, and one day might even code Latinos as white too.
I just covered 19th c. immigration with my 1301 students this week. We talked about immigrants “becoming white” and looked at political cartoons from the period. They noted that the anti-immigrant cartoons “didn’t even try to hide the racism”. We are in San Antonio and the majority of my students are Latinx; they are attuned to Abbot’s posturing along the border and the discussion really hit home.
It's no wonder that Elon and Ron DeSantis are simpatico. There is a bill, HB395/SB1122, being pushed through the FL Legislature that would return Confederate monuments, and penalized local officials who removed them. At a Sen. Community Affairs committee on Tues., that began at 3pm, then ran into the night because of this bill, several white supremacist made comments that were so blatantly racist that the GOP-dominated committee were visibly appalled, some made comments condemning it. Nevertheless voted up the bill, on party line. The three Democrats on the committee walked out, before the vote. From the bill "The Legislature finds that an accurate and factual history belongs to all Floridians and future generations and the state has an obligation to protect and preserve this history." That is false. It not only evokes language the UDC used on the Confederate monuments, it enables their intent - to perpetuate white supremacy - by forcing local governments who removed the Confederate monuments, to re-erect them! Ironic, the party that claims to be about home rule and local government, is taking away local government authority and giving it to the State, so that false Confederate propaganda can asserted as "accurate and factual history."