by liberal japonicus
I can’t imagine the bravery required for this student to stand up in the middle of a Turning Point agit-prop rally. Also take note of Vance’s oleaginous reply. The fact that it is at Ole Miss, while unsurprising, is the bit that makes me truely ill.
Zing!
What more can be said? How he copes with the cognitive dissonance, how his family copes, is a mystery.
So however many years ago some dude told him immigration would weaken organized labor, which means liberals are stupid. Well, sh*t … I guess that settles it.
Vance is setting himself up to the next Trump by going all in on the hatemongering for the Other. That’s probably why he’s publicly distancing himself from his wife’s religion, saying he’s trying to get her to convert to Christianity. I wonder if she regrets the marriage.
Sociopaths don’t suffer from cognitive dissonance.
What’s funny (not “ha ha”) to me is that the notion of immigration undermining organized labor is based on an unstated assumption that Americans are too racist to join a labor union with “those people.” But, at the same time, people who think this way will tell you that racism is no longer a problem worthy of addressing through public policy.
Couchie would very much love to be the heir to the Charlie Kirk throne, and judging by the way that he sidesteps the questions, reframes them, gaslights, and performs entirely for the audience while refusing to engage with any of the actual questions being asked of him, I’d say that he’s learned the patter needed to try to be the paterfamilias of TPUSA.
I don’t think his performance is all that convincing for the people outside the room, but it’s probably reassuring for those in attendance who were hoping to be a part of the moment when we all watched the triumph of Couchie’s will.
Since we seem to be in the worst possible timeline, I expect Juicy Divan to convert to Ye Olde Mormonism, and take Erika Kirk as his new 2nd wife.
Snarki, that’s nonsense. No believing Christian fundamentalist accepts that Mormons are real Christians. Farther outside the pale than even Catholics.
wj – a surprising number of evangelical fundamentalists have embraced their catholic co-religionists in the name of Christian Nationalism and being pro-forced-birth. They are also very positive where the various Orthodox denominations are concerned. They can all get along so long as there are no gays, women belong to their men, and none of the Catholics support these last couple Marxist Anti-Popes.
And they will be polite and keep their mouths shut on the whole Mormon thing for the sake of politics so long as no one presses them to affirm that Mormons are Christians.
But the JWs are still on the outs.
Gotta make concessions if you want to have your Christian Red Caesar.
I have to admit I was very curious to know what Usha thinks of this when I saw the video, particularly because when he first rose to prominence as possible VP pick all the stuff about her seemed to show that she was a) bright and b) fairly liberal. It’s a mystery.
But yes, his response to that amazingly brave student shows how sneaky and tricksy he is in evading questions, and turning them round to say exactly whatever populist claptrap will play best with his audience, and how well that plays with such audiences. Horrifying is exactly the right word. And, as nous upthread remarks, very reminiscent of Charlie Kirk.
No believing Christian fundamentalist accepts that Mormons are real Christians. Farther outside the pale than even Catholics.
Consider that Italians and Irish were considered black around 140 years ago. 60 years ago, people doubted that a president could be Catholic while at the same time not accepting that Martin Luther King represented actual Christian beliefs. Never underestimate the ability of Americans to do backflips on points of cognitive dissonance.
So, first, an observation.
The US has consistently swung back and forth between more or less open door immigration policies, to highly restrictive ones. And we tend to swing back to restrictive policies when the number of immigrants in the US reaches about 15% of the overall population.
See here: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-population-over-time
So, for example, in the later 19th C. we wanted folks to come because we wanted their labor. That’s how my Italian great-grandparents come – great-grandpa was recruited to come dig holes for the NYC subway system.
Beginning at the turn of the 20th Century, folks began freaking out about it all, and by the 20’s that resulted in the Immigration Act of 1924, which basically said no more immigrants from Asia at all, and far fewer from Eastern and Southern Europe. No more slant-eyes or swarthy garlic-eating weirdos. Right? Sound familiar?
So now we’re back at around 15% and everybody is freaking out, like we always do. And Trump et al are riding that train.
Next, a question.
What “American culture” do we expect people to “assimilate” into? There are probably a couple dozen “American cultures” in play. I won’t try to enumerate them, because we don’t have all day here, but suffice it to say that there are *very many* places in this country where people speak different languages, practice different religions or no religion at all, listen to different kinds of music, eat different food, have different family structures.
It would appear from Vance’s speech that what he would like is for everyone to speak primarily or exclusively English, be Christian (and preferably Catholic or evangelical Christian), and belong to a two-parent nuclear family with a male and female parent. I guess this is based on the idea that “English language”, “Christian”, and the “Leave it to Beaver” nuclear family are somehow “more American”.
About 1 in 5 people in this country speak a language other than English at home. Are they “unassimilated”?
About 62% of people here identify as “Christian”, but only about 3 in 10 people here attend church once a week or most weeks. About 28% of us identify as “religiously unaffiliated”. The remaining 10% or so encompass all of the other faiths.
Are just that 3 in 10 “assimilated”?
Almost a quarter of American children live in single-parent households. Which is very high when compared to the rest of the world, but is not function of our rate of immigration. Are all of those families “assimilated”?
What is this “American culture” Vance et al are on about? What does it mean to be “assimilated” into that culture, whatever it is? Which of the variety of cultures that exist here get to be officially sanctions “American” ones?
What is “American culture”? Who gets to decide?
What is “American culture”?
Here are some of the basics.
“American culture is diverse, shaped by history, immigration, and regional differences, but several core tenets recur across sources like sociological studies (e.g., Hofstede’s cultural dimensions), historical analyses (e.g., Tocqueville’s Democracy in America), and contemporary surveys (e.g., Pew Research on American values). These are not universal—exceptions and debates exist—but they form a widely recognized foundation.”
Core Tenets of American Culture
Maybe a compromise could be found (call SCOTUS!) by creating ‘metic’ and ‘helot’ as new legal categories. His Orangeness already claims the right to revoke citizenship (iirc it’s already in the works to get it to SCOTUS). If he could reduce non-Aryans to helots, the employers, who currently employ the swarthy ‘illegals’, would have their practices legalized and the base could be persuaded that legally abusable ‘not really Americans’ could be a boon instead of a nuisance. As a plus the new categories would allow the reintroduction of miscegenation laws: Race defilers would lose their full citizenship status which would be OK with SCOTUS since it would not technically make mixed marriages illegal but just discourage them and also further reduce the number of residents eligible to vote. For the privileged their non-Aryan wives could get the legal status of concubine (I think His Orangeness would appreciate that).
As a plus the new categories would allow the reintroduction of miscegenation laws.
As a small bit of pedantry, what we had were anti-miscegenation laws.
At least this time around it would be possible (maybe not feasible as a general rule, but possible) to use DNA testing to determine if those laws had been violated. Although there might be an issue with the fact that some (whisper it!) expertise is required to run such tests and interpret the results.
Core Tenets of American Culture
The “rugged individualist” myth has been the source of more suffering in America than almost anything else.
And tends to be an enthusiasm of people whose “understanding” of the American frontier is limited to Hollywood movies and old TV westerns. When the reality was that, in the Old West people cooperated to survive. And those who didn’t didn’t.
I doubt that DNA testing would do what the racists want, since by the old “one drop rule”, we’re ALL africans, and the thing that gets them riled up is “melanin content”, which is only weakly related to DNA.
Now, some of us have more Neanderthal DNA than others, but that miscegenation is long, long in the past. Probably.
Oh, I expect that they would be satisfied with establishing whether there had been miscegenation in the last generation or two. The old 1 drop approach having died of all the mixing in the century and a half since owners could, and did, rape their slaves with impunity.
One could try just going by melanin, except that would restrict testing to late winter and early spring. Otherwise summer tans start confusing the issue vs permanent sun tans.
Core Tenets of American Culture
The “rugged individualist” myth has been the source of more suffering in America than almost anything else.
And Grok cites Locke to support the claim that it’s a “core American value”.
You can persuade me that Locke argues for fundamental human rights, belonging to each individual.
I am… less than persuaded that Locke argued for “rugged individualism”. If anything, Locke argued for a social contract, where we all agree to surrender some personal liberties in order to live in society, as opposed to in a state of nature.
Grok needs to read the Second Treatise on Government. Also the preamble to the Massachusetts Constitution, which preceded and was a model for the US Constitution.
russell – Grok needs to read the Second Treatise on Government. Also the preamble to the Massachusetts Constitution, which preceded and was a model for the US Constitution.
I’m sure that Grok has been fed those things, but what it “thinks” about those things is just a matter of remixing what others have said about those texts.
Now, some of us have more Neanderthal DNA than others, but that miscegenation is long, long in the past.
There are far fewer men who self-identify as Neanderthal than there are women who claim that they’re married to one.
Also, as a comment on the “work ethic” thing:
Is there anyone in the US who has a stronger work ethic than immigrants?
Maybe it’s just me, but every time I see someone who looks “immigrant-ish” – which usually means cafe au lait skin tone and an accent – they are working their asses off.
You know those “how many X does it take to do Y” jokes? Here is mine.
How many immigrants does it take to… oh wait, never mind, they’re done.
Just saying.
Is there anyone in the US who has a stronger work ethic than immigrants?
In pretty much any country, no group has a stronger work ethic than immigrants. About the only exceptions are places where most of the immigrants are retirees or the idle rich.
The US is unusual only in the numbers of immigrants that we have been blessed (and we have been blessed) with. Not unique, certainly, but unusual.