This. Other than repeating talking points, or trying to justify those talking points, they cannot give specific examples or do any actual logical thinking and come up with a legitimate answer. Because that would represent reality.
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It’s quite possible to control such a border. The Soviet Union managed a border that was even larger and while it wasn’t airtight it was closed beyond the fevered dreams of the most xenophobic isolationist. And while it is considerably smaller the DMZ between the Koreas is plenty big, completely impassable, and the methods used to render it as such are scalable to US/Mexico size.
The trick, of course, is that to do so you must be brutal and merciless. Simply treat anyone in the exclusion zone of the border outside legally defined crossings as someone whose life is forfeit. You can do it with troops but drones and minefields would do it even better.
All that’s required is viewing the people trying to cross as considerably less than human. All that is required is a complete lack of mercy.
Luckily, nobody out there is trying to paint people crossing the border illegally as vermin or anythi… oh.
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Only one candidate last night used the term “refugee” (Swalwell?). That’s who these immigrants are. GOP talking points instead tell a crime story with immigrants being rapists, job stealers and murderers, the victims are the poor American worker and the heroes are Republicans. The villains are, of course, not only the immigrants but the Democrats. There’s no room in that story for the concepts of refugee or empathy.
In a refugee story, the refugee is the victim of violence and grinding poverty in their home country. The villains are the Republicans who separate families, cage children and in general treat their fellow human beings with contempt. The refugee frame, however, opens a whole different empathetic conversation that includes what we might do to help those countries (which we had a hand in wrecking), treating these families with decency and dignity as befits moral beings and crafting a better approach to refugees that treats causes not symptoms.
Because Democrats don’t make framing messages a part of our culture, only a couple of the 20 managed to speak from within a refugee story, only one explicitly, and we again lost an excellent chance to give voters a new lens with which to look at the situation, and at us.
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Cronyism and being considered photogenic among the regressives. That’s pretty much it…
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Perfect example of how the dominant group rewrites the historical narrative.
Because how can you accuse these fine businessmen and politicos of valid instances of rape, theft, and murder when they’re so “good” at bolstering our economy and way of life?
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The power of Julian Castro’s arguments, though, was that it doesn’t matter if they are refugees, at least in terms of how they are treated. Trump and right wing TV have been on a tireless propaganda campaign whose main talking point has been “these people are cynically pretending to be asylum seekers” despite, as you say, the left not even trying that hard to frame them as such. His framing of “Even if they’re not refugees - which some aren’t - they’re still not criminals and shouldn’t be treated like criminals” is fundamental and much harder to poke holes in. His reminder of the crucial distinction between civil and criminal offenses was, I think, the reset we need . People understand the system of determining whether someone is a criminal. The process of deciding whether someone is a “true refugee” is more difficult, and for whatever reason, people see it as easier to game.
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See Also: People on Food Stamps Wastefully Buy Lobster, We Wouldn’t Need Universal Health Care if The Poors Took Care of Themselves, and I Could Afford to Pay My Employees if The Government Would Subsidize My Bottom Line.
It all comes from the same trash bin.
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Megan McCain confuses me. If she’s talking about Trump, or LGBTQ issues, she sounds like that rare Republican who is a decent, rational human. But get her talking about immigration, socialism, gun control or kneeling during the national anthem, and she turns into an irrational hateful “talking point” spewing machine.
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This is White Feminism.
The main feature is you can have things “on the side” (ignore/discount things that don’t apply to you directly) like the co-subject of When Harry Met Sally does.
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Oh, speaking of feminism, I forgot to add that she’s also rabidly, aggressively anti-abortion.
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In my experience, we have a sorta similar phenomenon on the left, except ours plays out as “this is an issue I am passionate about, have knowledge of and can give a meaningful opinion on. This other topic I do not know enough about to opine.” On the right, this second option plays out as “I don’t know enough to opine, so let me spout meaningless talking points that I don’t understand.” But I am sure there are fine people on both sides!
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Thank you for avoiding that Newspeak turd, “pro-life.”
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“Anti-choice” is more accurate still. That’s ultimately what she and the GOP are when it comes to women’s bodies.
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How about the new “anti permission to not reproduce?” (Thanks, Chuck Woolery)
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Because it’s the same crowd looking to limit end of life options.
God forbid (per them) a terminal patient get enough drugs to die peacefully and comfortably.
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That’s strange, I’ve never found it useful to ask for evidence or examples of any kind as they usually just change the subject to something else horrible they remember Hillary did.
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Poor baby. Going from justifying kids literally being in cages to whining about feeling like “being in a cage” where she gets to be paid exorbitant amounts to do the hard work in the fields of commentating.
STFU already.
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Then stop trying to please a dead man.
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Individuation is usually a teenage process. Better late than never, I guess.
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So start your own damn show. Her 19 or so fans would love it.
“Meghan McCain, Unleashed!”
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