Comment by keiferski
8 hours ago
I would describe events like that as:
battles of will where one side seeks to defeat the other in toto, not actually arrive at a solution that overcomes the conflict.
The deeper issue is immigration policy, which is a topic that displays the pattern I mentioned: no real attempt to solve the issue by addressing both sides/various parties, and instead boils it into an us-them struggle of political wills.
The responsibility of intellectuals in this case should be IMO to clearly analyze the immigration debate and discuss the benefits, downsides, likely consequences etc. of various actions.
But we don’t get that. Instead everyone just has an opinion already formed, including the intellectuals. And unfortunately unbiased rational approaches seem to lose (in money, attention) to the loud and opinionated.
So as the problem gets more complicated, people get further and further away from actually solving it.
Unfortunately the well was poisoned for this debate when the Republican Party enacted a decades-long campaign of obstructionism and propaganda. No doubt, there are individuals who must be absolutely giddy with excitement that the very “crisis” that they managed to manufacture (both literally through legislative obstructionism, and figuratively through media capture and propaganda) is now the perfect excuse to grab power to enact an authoritarian regressive agenda instead of slowly sliding more progressive due to demographic drift.
So, basically, my point is beware getting dragged into debates that clearly only benefit specific parties with specific agendas without first asking yourself more critical questions about the bigger picture.
I think reasonable immigration debate would benefit the left, or at least the anti-right.
Many people want deportations but don’t like how Trump is doing them. And he doesn’t seem to be going after employers, which would be more effective.
In fact, I think the lack of debate is really hurting today's left.
> In fact, I think the lack of debate is really hurting today's left.
Moderate left voices are not featured in the current media landscape. The Democrat party is, at best, centrist, if not currently undergoing a conservative transformation parallel to the Republican party’s reactionary transformation. And for that reason:
> And he doesn’t seem to be going after employers, which would be more effective.
this is a complete nonstarter.
In any case, there are plenty of calls for reform from the left. “Abolish ICE” (like “Defund the police”) is not equivalent to “end immigration enforcement” (or likewise “end law enforcement”), even though the histrionics across the media landscape would have you believe that. It’s a core leftwing tenet (imho) that organizations that are rotten must be eliminated, and if appropriate, their leadership and members punished. New organizations can then step in to fulfill the role of the previous organization, sans rot.
In that sense, “Many people want deportations but don’t like how Trump is doing them.” see more eye-to-eye with the “Abolish ICE” people than the media wants them to believe.
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