I think people tend to focus on the presidential disaster. But to me the story of American exceptionalism is in the Republican majorities everywhere else. Obama helped me ignore this fact, but dear God are a lot of Republicans elected at the state and congress level, and I don’t think it’s just gerrymandering and disenfranchisement (although I’d like to believe so).
While I like to put those “other people” in a box labelled awful, a tiny bit of honesty requires me to look inward. Do I support open borders? No. Yet, Canada could take in 100 million, and their lives would be massively improved. It would be the greatest possible good that Canada could ever do in terms of increasing human welfare.
Why don’t I support it? Fear, greed and bigotry
Fear - fear that other cultures that are antithetical to mine would dominate the social and political discourse.
Greed - I’m not uniquely competent. Another 100 million Canadians would probably drop by salary to close to the world average for my vocation, say a factor of 3. There’s no ethical reason why I should be earning 3 times what equally competent people elsewhere do. I’m just greedy.
Bigotry - I like my culture. I consider it preferable to many others and want to see it continue. Yet my brand of liberalism is almost unknown outside of urban developed nations. So I’m willing to see millions upon millions continue to suffer simply because I want to preserve my culture. I don’t consider the fact that I am ‘culturalist’ rather than ‘racist’ to be all that different.
The only difference between me and the Republican mentality is not a matter of kind, but only a matter of degree. And to be honest, it’s a matter of degree that 90% of the world would consider invisible.
Of course, that doesn’t stop me from fighting for what I consider right. But it does keep a lid on my righteousness while doing so.
