"would we have the same time for the person who points to accepting white South Africans to the US as springing from the same sort of impulse?"
Russia is not dropping bombs on the heads of white South Africans.
And I'm not sure it's accurate to say there isn't a humanitarian motivation to let those Asian, black, and brown people in, then or now. The safety concern wjca mentions is tangible for many of those folks.
I think the Reagan administration was a negative tipping point for this country, but I absolutely give him credit for the amnesty he granted to folks who were here and contributing. I was living in a predominantly Dominican neighborhood in Salem at the time, and folks were getting booted out who were contributing to the commnity in huge ways.
I'd like to think we have somehow moved past the white supremacist legacy of our history, but I don't think we have. I'm not sure if it's a matter of re-remembering, I don't think it ever went away. Trump just gives it permission to come back out in the light of day.
This is by no means to suggest we not make heroic efforts regarding climate change. Just to say, when it comes to immigration, that’s not going to be part of the solution (supposing that we need one). Economics and safety will. And addressing those is the right thing to do, regardless of your views on immigration.
In a better world, we would be putting our resources into the Global South to help them address climate change. Reducing desertification, creating off grid power, mangrove and rain forest protection and restoration would all have an impact. Unfortunately, the Western model has us look at these sorts of things as extractive, and to be accepted, they have to generate a profit for the people putting money into them.
Open thread, so - this gift article (headlined Americans are Turning Against Gay People) from today's NYT talks about an astonishing resurgence in America of anti-gay sentiment. wj in particular always uses the decline of homophobia in America as an example of social attitudes getting better, and I totally believed that that was the case (not just because of what wj says). This, if true, is pretty horrifying:
I quickly dashed off my comment before bed, so let me expand on it a bit.
I can understand cleek's reaction, and the acceptance of Ukrainians was/is a humanitarian impulse. But would we have the same time for the person who points to accepting white South Africans to the US as springing from the same sort of impulse?
Because of the disjunction of the Trump presidency, anecdotes don't really work here. And with the example of Reagan, who I detest, perhaps the only way to move forward is to turn away from what actually happened and come up with bullshit narratives about our past and how we somehow are 'the greatest" of nations.
nous -- I do worry, however, that this simplification might obscure the degree to which economics and safety are entangled with climate.
Certainly true.
But at this point, we can do something about economics and safety relatively quickly. Not solve them completely by any means, but visibly start making progress. Having solid reasons to hope and expect things will get better, because they are already visibly improving -- that puts a big weight on the side of "I think I'll just stay where I am and work on doing better here." Most people don't like the idea of up and moving to an unfamiliar place, especially one with a different language and a different culture. Give them a reason to avoid it, and mostly they will.
Climate change, on the other hand, is something where we can, at most mitigate some of the damage. But, no matter what we do, it will continue to get worse before it gets better. We can manage "get worse more slowly" and "not get as much worse". But that's the most we can do at this point.
This is by no means to suggest we not make heroic efforts regarding climate change. Just to say, when it comes to immigration, that's not going to be part of the solution (supposing that we need one). Economics and safety will. And addressing those is the right thing to do, regardless of your views on immigration.
WRT the Toni Morrison reference in the title, her "rememory," and my research about trauma has made me aware of how "remember" can be thought of (figuratively, not as a literal etymology) as "re-membering." When we remember trauma we should be thinking about how to restore wholeness to a psyche that has lost a part of itself. It's the psyche's equivalent of an amputation. The old narrative that gave one's life continuity has been severed and a part of oneself that once seemed intrinsic has become an object outside of one's control.
This sort of figurative thinking plays into my focus on restorative justice. People and societies need to be made whole, or be remade or given back a sense of wholeness.
wj - Answering that requires answering the motivation question: Why do they come? The simple answer: economics and safety. Not macroeconomic generalities, but the microeconomics of individuals. Combined with, and overlapping with, the legal environment. There are other motivations, such as moving to be near family members, or even climate. But those are tiny in comparison.
I can understand the desire to simplify the way we talk about immigration in order to reframe the asylum seekers in an empathetic way - to put ourselves in their shoes. That's an essential strategy in this age of tech driven propaganda and outrage.
I do worry, however, that this simplification might obscure the degree to which economics and safety are entangled with climate.
When a Salvadoran farmer can't afford to buy seeds because his crops keep getting ruined, climate is economics. When groups of farmers like him become desperate and have to go to the city where they have no place to live and no aid, they find themselves at the mercy of the gangs in the cities, both economics and safety. To avoid the violence of working for the gangs, they have to find somewhere else to go, which means paying the gangs to take them someplace safer.
But all of that starts with the climate making their rural agricultural lives unlivable. Climate change is a threat and vulnerability multiplier. It's hugely destabilizing. Decarbonization and humanitarian aid work together to reduce threat, and ignoring the ways that they are entangled undercuts our ability to reduce the economic hardship and the political instability that drives mass migration.
Suppose (strictly for the sake of discussion!) that we're being reasonable when worrying about immigration**. (This addresses, but does not require, the Great Replacement Theory.) What's the most effective, the most cost-effective, (not to mention the most humane, because that's apparently of no importance to those worried about immigration) approach?
Answering that requires answering the motivation question: Why do they come? The simple answer: economics and safety. Not macroeconomic generalities, but the microeconomics of individuals. Combined with, and overlapping with, the legal environment. There are other motivations, such as moving to be near family members, or even climate. But those are tiny in comparison.
So, the obvious solution to the assumed problem, is to reduce the motivation. If there are abundant economic opportunities for individuals where they are, most people will not take on the emotional and financial cost to emigrating; basically, they'll stay home. If they can live without fear, of criminal, governmental, or other attacks, people will mostly stay home. TL;DR: remove, or even seriously reduce, the motivation, and your assumed immigration problem goes away.
So, the blindingly obvious answer has two parts: 1) improve the economies of the places your immigrants are coming from. 2) improve the governance, specifically the rule of law, of the places your unwanted immigrants are coming from. Reducing to push to move.
Are we doing anything like that? Not any more.
What we do seem to be doing instead is addressing those issues by trashing our own economy, and simultaneously trashing the rule of law. Removing the attraction. It is, after all, the difference in those which provides the motivation.
If I'm understanding correctly, one big advantage is that this "spends the money here, not elsewhere." At least in the economically ignorant view to those driving it. It's bad for us, too, but either they can't see that or they just assume it won't impact them personally.
Oh, yes. The other motivation for immigration, in some cases, is that other places are just too crowded. If you improve the economy, somewhere population growth drops, or even disappears altogether. We've seen that extremely consistently. When people get richer, they tend on average to have fewer children. Another reason to improve economies elsewhere.
** Immigration has been an enormous economic boon to this country. The people already here have consistently objected to whichever group is perceived as comprising the current bulk of the immigrants. But those immigrants built the country even so. Both physically and economically. Still do.
but when I came back they were letting Ukrainians in but not Asian people, black or brown people waiting on the other side of the border who had traveled to Tijuana trying to come into San Diego and seek asylum or seek refuge.
... because Biden made it easier for Ukrainians to get in - because Russia was and is bombing them - right?
Geography nerds' quiz: Part of Alaska (the panhandle, including the state capital) is not an island, but can only be reached by car by driving thru another country. What other state includes that feature?
Hard to spot, but up in the NE corner of South America, French Guiana is no longer a colony but part of France. The 300,000 residents are French citizens and vote in French elections. Ask someone who thinks they are clever for their opinion on the EU's lengthy land border with Brazil :^) 15-20% of the economy is the Guiana Space Center, owned by the European Space Agency and operated by Arianespace.
They cover the reasoning for Ethiopia in a paragraph towards the end.
Given the source of the map, I'd venture that its inclusion is less a matter of rigorous argumentation and more a means of provoking a conversation. That's not unusual in a prologue - it's the academic equivalent of a clickbait headline.
Any guess (other than Africa being outside their area of study) why Ethiopia isn’t included in the “never colonized” group?
Over about 50 years, Italy claimed it as colonial property and significant numbers of Italians settled there. (See, Italian East Africa.) Post-WW2, it went through much the same sort of protectorate process that other European colonial holdings in Africa did, eventually gaining independence. Sorting out all the borders, many influenced by Italian colonial status, didn't get fully sorted out until the 1990s.
This is slightly related, not really enough for a post, but in regards to Tony noting the belief that Christians have a monopoly on decency, there was this Brooks and Capehart segment on the PBS newshour.
https://youtu.be/a2a7_mGi3yA?si=_we14pUU6ZV3FDgb
Brooks' had some audio difficulties, so it was mostly Capehart, but before his mike went out, he had this observation
And I have long thought, if Americans see deportations of respectable families, they will finally rebel against this regime, and not just the progressives and not just Democrats, but normal people who are like, what the heck is going on here? And so that's where we're headed.
I'm hoping that the implication that Progressives and Democrats don't count as normal people had someone in the soundbooth say 'fuck him' and shut off his mic.
Thank you nous. The NYT "transcript" is a totally unformatted wall of text. You have to figure out from context who is speaking any given sentence.
I've been aware of both Talarico and Crockett for a while now. I like them both, and one reason I'm glad I don't live in Texas is that I don't have to chose between them in the primary.
Talarico's Christian schtick (not disparaging it; just can't think of a better word) may be exactly what's needed to win a general election in Texas -- or just what's needed to raise false hopes again. I repeat what I've often said before: I'm done chasing "electability", and anyway Texas Dems ought to be better judges of it than I am in this case.
I have a couple of reservations about explicit appeals to Christianity as a political strategy. First, it reinforces the lamentably wide-spread view that Christians have some sort of monopoly on decency. Second, I worry that Christ-like impulses like "judge not", and "turn the other cheek", and forgiveness of sins, may be impediments to the deMAGAfication the US sorely needs. But I absolutely accept that a Christian like Talarico is better able to weaken the support that Old Testament Christians have garnered from voters who think of themselves as devotees of Jesus.
On “Rememory”
"would we have the same time for the person who points to accepting white South Africans to the US as springing from the same sort of impulse?"
Russia is not dropping bombs on the heads of white South Africans.
And I'm not sure it's accurate to say there isn't a humanitarian motivation to let those Asian, black, and brown people in, then or now. The safety concern wjca mentions is tangible for many of those folks.
I think the Reagan administration was a negative tipping point for this country, but I absolutely give him credit for the amnesty he granted to folks who were here and contributing. I was living in a predominantly Dominican neighborhood in Salem at the time, and folks were getting booted out who were contributing to the commnity in huge ways.
I'd like to think we have somehow moved past the white supremacist legacy of our history, but I don't think we have. I'm not sure if it's a matter of re-remembering, I don't think it ever went away. Trump just gives it permission to come back out in the light of day.
"
But would we have the same time for the person who points to accepting white South Africans to the US as springing from the same sort of impulse?
No. There is no rational justification for making that case, unlike the Ukraine example.
"
This is by no means to suggest we not make heroic efforts regarding climate change. Just to say, when it comes to immigration, that’s not going to be part of the solution (supposing that we need one). Economics and safety will. And addressing those is the right thing to do, regardless of your views on immigration.
In a better world, we would be putting our resources into the Global South to help them address climate change. Reducing desertification, creating off grid power, mangrove and rain forest protection and restoration would all have an impact. Unfortunately, the Western model has us look at these sorts of things as extractive, and to be accepted, they have to generate a profit for the people putting money into them.
"
Edited a comment a second time, and got a note I was going to Spam/moderation. Sorry
[ed: been approved]
On “An open thread”
Open thread, so - this gift article (headlined Americans are Turning Against Gay People) from today's NYT talks about an astonishing resurgence in America of anti-gay sentiment. wj in particular always uses the decline of homophobia in America as an example of social attitudes getting better, and I totally believed that that was the case (not just because of what wj says). This, if true, is pretty horrifying:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/opinion/heated-rivalry-gay-prejudice.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FlA.L4lQ.cS0Hh2JNow0A&smid=url-share
On “Rememory”
I quickly dashed off my comment before bed, so let me expand on it a bit.
I can understand cleek's reaction, and the acceptance of Ukrainians was/is a humanitarian impulse. But would we have the same time for the person who points to accepting white South Africans to the US as springing from the same sort of impulse?
Because of the disjunction of the Trump presidency, anecdotes don't really work here. And with the example of Reagan, who I detest, perhaps the only way to move forward is to turn away from what actually happened and come up with bullshit narratives about our past and how we somehow are 'the greatest" of nations.
"
Certainly true.
But at this point, we can do something about economics and safety relatively quickly. Not solve them completely by any means, but visibly start making progress. Having solid reasons to hope and expect things will get better, because they are already visibly improving -- that puts a big weight on the side of "I think I'll just stay where I am and work on doing better here." Most people don't like the idea of up and moving to an unfamiliar place, especially one with a different language and a different culture. Give them a reason to avoid it, and mostly they will.
Climate change, on the other hand, is something where we can, at most mitigate some of the damage. But, no matter what we do, it will continue to get worse before it gets better. We can manage "get worse more slowly" and "not get as much worse". But that's the most we can do at this point.
This is by no means to suggest we not make heroic efforts regarding climate change. Just to say, when it comes to immigration, that's not going to be part of the solution (supposing that we need one). Economics and safety will. And addressing those is the right thing to do, regardless of your views on immigration.
"
WRT the Toni Morrison reference in the title, her "rememory," and my research about trauma has made me aware of how "remember" can be thought of (figuratively, not as a literal etymology) as "re-membering." When we remember trauma we should be thinking about how to restore wholeness to a psyche that has lost a part of itself. It's the psyche's equivalent of an amputation. The old narrative that gave one's life continuity has been severed and a part of oneself that once seemed intrinsic has become an object outside of one's control.
This sort of figurative thinking plays into my focus on restorative justice. People and societies need to be made whole, or be remade or given back a sense of wholeness.
"
wj - Answering that requires answering the motivation question: Why do they come? The simple answer: economics and safety. Not macroeconomic generalities, but the microeconomics of individuals. Combined with, and overlapping with, the legal environment. There are other motivations, such as moving to be near family members, or even climate. But those are tiny in comparison.
I can understand the desire to simplify the way we talk about immigration in order to reframe the asylum seekers in an empathetic way - to put ourselves in their shoes. That's an essential strategy in this age of tech driven propaganda and outrage.
I do worry, however, that this simplification might obscure the degree to which economics and safety are entangled with climate.
When a Salvadoran farmer can't afford to buy seeds because his crops keep getting ruined, climate is economics. When groups of farmers like him become desperate and have to go to the city where they have no place to live and no aid, they find themselves at the mercy of the gangs in the cities, both economics and safety. To avoid the violence of working for the gangs, they have to find somewhere else to go, which means paying the gangs to take them someplace safer.
But all of that starts with the climate making their rural agricultural lives unlivable. Climate change is a threat and vulnerability multiplier. It's hugely destabilizing. Decarbonization and humanitarian aid work together to reduce threat, and ignoring the ways that they are entangled undercuts our ability to reduce the economic hardship and the political instability that drives mass migration.
"
Suppose (strictly for the sake of discussion!) that we're being reasonable when worrying about immigration**. (This addresses, but does not require, the Great Replacement Theory.) What's the most effective, the most cost-effective, (not to mention the most humane, because that's apparently of no importance to those worried about immigration) approach?
Answering that requires answering the motivation question: Why do they come? The simple answer: economics and safety. Not macroeconomic generalities, but the microeconomics of individuals. Combined with, and overlapping with, the legal environment. There are other motivations, such as moving to be near family members, or even climate. But those are tiny in comparison.
So, the obvious solution to the assumed problem, is to reduce the motivation. If there are abundant economic opportunities for individuals where they are, most people will not take on the emotional and financial cost to emigrating; basically, they'll stay home. If they can live without fear, of criminal, governmental, or other attacks, people will mostly stay home. TL;DR: remove, or even seriously reduce, the motivation, and your assumed immigration problem goes away.
So, the blindingly obvious answer has two parts: 1) improve the economies of the places your immigrants are coming from. 2) improve the governance, specifically the rule of law, of the places your unwanted immigrants are coming from. Reducing to push to move.
Are we doing anything like that? Not any more.
What we do seem to be doing instead is addressing those issues by trashing our own economy, and simultaneously trashing the rule of law. Removing the attraction. It is, after all, the difference in those which provides the motivation.
If I'm understanding correctly, one big advantage is that this "spends the money here, not elsewhere." At least in the economically ignorant view to those driving it. It's bad for us, too, but either they can't see that or they just assume it won't impact them personally.
Oh, yes. The other motivation for immigration, in some cases, is that other places are just too crowded. If you improve the economy, somewhere population growth drops, or even disappears altogether. We've seen that extremely consistently. When people get richer, they tend on average to have fewer children. Another reason to improve economies elsewhere.
** Immigration has been an enormous economic boon to this country. The people already here have consistently objected to whichever group is perceived as comprising the current bulk of the immigrants. But those immigrants built the country even so. Both physically and economically. Still do.
"
I took it as allowing the Ukrainians on the background of keeping out all the rest.
"
... because Biden made it easier for Ukrainians to get in - because Russia was and is bombing them - right?
that's not racism. that's humanitarianism.
On “An interesting map”
"Alaska, Minnesota, North Dakota, Vermont, and Washington are the US states with parts that can only be accessed by road through Canada."
US States Accessible Only Through Canada
"
"What other state includes that feature?"
Isn't there a piece of Washington State that also has that?
"
Minnesota
"
Geography nerds' quiz: Part of Alaska (the panhandle, including the state capital) is not an island, but can only be reached by car by driving thru another country. What other state includes that feature?
"
Hard to spot, but up in the NE corner of South America, French Guiana is no longer a colony but part of France. The 300,000 residents are French citizens and vote in French elections. Ask someone who thinks they are clever for their opinion on the EU's lengthy land border with Brazil :^) 15-20% of the economy is the Guiana Space Center, owned by the European Space Agency and operated by Arianespace.
"
I went looking for the references. The actual source for the map is here:
https://www.vox.com/2014/6/24/5835320/map-in-the-whole-world-only-these-five-countries-escaped-european
They cover the reasoning for Ethiopia in a paragraph towards the end.
Given the source of the map, I'd venture that its inclusion is less a matter of rigorous argumentation and more a means of provoking a conversation. That's not unusual in a prologue - it's the academic equivalent of a clickbait headline.
"
Any guess (other than Africa being outside their area of study) why Ethiopia isn’t included in the “never colonized” group?
Over about 50 years, Italy claimed it as colonial property and significant numbers of Italians settled there. (See, Italian East Africa.) Post-WW2, it went through much the same sort of protectorate process that other European colonial holdings in Africa did, eventually gaining independence. Sorting out all the borders, many influenced by Italian colonial status, didn't get fully sorted out until the 1990s.
"
Any guess (other than Africa being outside their area of study) why Ethiopia isn't included in the "never colonized" group?
On “Talarico”
This is slightly related, not really enough for a post, but in regards to Tony noting the belief that Christians have a monopoly on decency, there was this Brooks and Capehart segment on the PBS newshour.
https://youtu.be/a2a7_mGi3yA?si=_we14pUU6ZV3FDgb
Brooks' had some audio difficulties, so it was mostly Capehart, but before his mike went out, he had this observation
And I have long thought, if Americans see deportations of respectable families, they will finally rebel against this regime, and not just the progressives and not just Democrats, but normal people who are like, what the heck is going on here? And so that's where we're headed.
I'm hoping that the implication that Progressives and Democrats don't count as normal people had someone in the soundbooth say 'fuck him' and shut off his mic.
"
This seems to be a pretty reasonable (if edited) and readable transcript of the Talarico interview. Gift link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-james-talarico.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FFA.H4qd.fA8B5EQEiib4&smid=url-share
"
Thank you nous. The NYT "transcript" is a totally unformatted wall of text. You have to figure out from context who is speaking any given sentence.
I've been aware of both Talarico and Crockett for a while now. I like them both, and one reason I'm glad I don't live in Texas is that I don't have to chose between them in the primary.
Talarico's Christian schtick (not disparaging it; just can't think of a better word) may be exactly what's needed to win a general election in Texas -- or just what's needed to raise false hopes again. I repeat what I've often said before: I'm done chasing "electability", and anyway Texas Dems ought to be better judges of it than I am in this case.
I have a couple of reservations about explicit appeals to Christianity as a political strategy. First, it reinforces the lamentably wide-spread view that Christians have some sort of monopoly on decency. Second, I worry that Christ-like impulses like "judge not", and "turn the other cheek", and forgiveness of sins, may be impediments to the deMAGAfication the US sorely needs. But I absolutely accept that a Christian like Talarico is better able to weaken the support that Old Testament Christians have garnered from voters who think of themselves as devotees of Jesus.
--TP
"
nous, ooo, nice catch! Thanks!
"
If you don't have access to the NYTimes, you can find a transcript here:
https://podscripts.co/podcasts/the-ezra-klein-show/can-james-talarico-reclaim-christianity-for-the-left
...scroll down.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.