The reason why so many Liberals are happy about the Rachael Maddow memo is that, once again, they have no idea what their strategy is supposed to be. All they have is the limited tactical goal of what they don’t want: the 7-countries Muslim ban should not stand. What they do want, however, is a mystery.
As long as they are not even trying to formulate an affirmative statement of their own in response to “Everybody who wasn’t born here is a potential enemy,” they will lose on this issue. Deporting but pretending like you aren’t, which is what Obama did for 8 years, already gave us a rabidly anti-immigrant new president. How long can we afford not to have our own clear, practical and consistent agenda on immigration?
Clarissa's Blog 
“How long can we afford not to have our own clear, practical and consistent agenda on immigration?”
Liberals dont’ want to say ‘no!’ to anyone they perceive as a victim,
They perceive everyone not in America as a victim (American liberals tend to be massive American supremacists).
This makes them unable to formulate workable policy or a narrative since immigration policy and narrative needs to be built around four questions:
-who do you want to let in?
-who do you want to keep out?
-who do you want to let stay?
-who do you want to remove?
Liberals do have a narrative at present, which is roughly: “Every human on Earth has an inalienable right to immigrate to the US, entirely on their own terms and no one should ever be deported for any reason.”
but it’s one that alienates most Americans (especially those who vote).
What would you propose as a narrative instead of the current muddled mess?
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I don’t agree. I think liberals dislike immigrants even more than conservatives do. It’s an unconfessed but strong dislike. Its roots are in the refusal of most immigrants to accept the victim narrative. Liberals aren’t coming up with a narrative because they are just fine with the existing one.
As for my approach, it’s just as I always said: ditch lottery, promote the professional immigration of people who pay for themselves and demonstrate before they come in that they can do so (like in Canada), no welfare for immigrants in any form until naturalization. In short, bringing in people who will move the economy, the scholarship, the culture forward. Winning the race for who gets to keep the most qualified people.
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Well, although I agree with you, what you are proposing sounds a lot like “America First”. 🙂 🙂
And why should liberal middle class support that? This contributes nothing to treating immigrants as victims and on top of that increases competition for middle-class jobs.
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What Clarissa stated is simple logic and common sense.
It’s what should have always been Immigration Policy from the get-go.
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They should support it because there is an ongoing reconfiguration of global dominance rankings. If the US falls behind, everybody here loses.
And I never concealed that I want to preserve the nation-state. No nation-state means no welfare.
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“promote the professional immigration …. Winning the race”
That’s not a narrative, it’s a wish list. The only narrative I can find there is “Immigration is for winners, bitches!” That is, it becomes just another way for people who are already winners to become even bigger winners. But if immigration just becomes another form of status seeking then how are you going to keep the losers back in their loser countries?
And I don’t like losing the idea of controlled immigration for the ambitious but less well off.
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I don’t find the winners vs losers theory very useful. I entered Canada through the professional immigration with my ex-husband. There is no narrative under which he was a winner of anything at that point. And “status-seeking” was the furthest thing from our minds.
In order to participate in Canada’s professional immigration, nobody needs to be anything even remotely similar to well-off.
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It appears that President Trump favors a “merit-based” immigration system. So do I and so apparently do you.
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I don’t know what he favors. The message changes all the time. And then Bannon begins to speak and I wonder whose position will finally win.
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Reading about evil Trump committing the grave injustice of sending illegal
migrants away emphasized the difference between America and Israel for me.
In my country, sending away illegal migrants would be done as a matter of course.
I do not see any connection between feminism and opening Israel’s borders to every Arab and African who would desire to enter. So, I cannot identify with American feminists on Feministe and other sites, or master much outrage about Trump’s behavior, which is mainly a continuation of Obama’s anyway.
Also, it stressed the advantage of living in Israel for Jews. Here I am not restricted to voting for one party out of two regardless of my views because the other side is (supposedly) antisemitic.
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It makes no sense to compare a tiny country where nobody wants to go with an enormous country where everybody does.
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“Also, it stressed the advantage of living in Israel for Jews”
The lady doth protest way too much. ☺
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The Republicans survived and prospered without any goal except saying “NO!” to President Obama for most of a decade. I think having actual goals (besides opposing tyranny) is also not needed for Democrats now.
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“The Republicans survived and prospered without any goal except saying “NO!” to President Obama for most of a decade.”
” I think having actual goals (besides opposing tyranny) is also not needed for Democrats now.”
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