On the immigration front, the “Open Sesame” magical phrase that gets you into polite, conservative company is J. D Vance’s “True ‘Compassion’ Requires Secure Borders and Stopping Illegal Immigration.”
Banal. Puke. Yawn.
“True ‘Compassion’ Requires Secure Borders and Stopping Illegal Immigration” is the typically bankrupt, conciliatory, “conservative” argument we’ve come to expect from these quarters, regarding America’s promiscuously loose immigration policy, under Republicans and Democrats alike.
First, the “moral” preening component: “All’s I’m saying, you folks, comes out of the goodness of my hillbilly heart.”
For the second point, allow me to excerpt from my “Immigration Scene,” written in 2006 (has anything changed? why vote?):
Everyone (and his dog) currently concurs that we have no problem with legal immigration, only with the illegal variety. It’s now mandatory to pair an objection to the invasion of the American Southwest with an embrace of all forms of legal immigration.
Vance opposes the rot of our immigration reality simply because he’s so kind, diverse and open, but still law-abiding.
Note the name-dropping from our hoedown Hillbilly, a member of the elite by any other name:
“… my friend (and my wife’s former boss) Brett Kavanaugh [of the] Supreme Court...”
Ooh. Impressive. While Vance forgot to brag directly about having married an Indian-American lady, who “Rid Him of His Hillbilly Ways“; he brought her up indirectly while touting his elite credentials.
Then there’s the shtick that is the constant mentioning of his “working-class background.” Once they’ve “arrived” in the power zone; conservatives like Vance are as good at lefty elitists at assuring us of their (manifestly fake) authenticity.
By the way, Appalachian folks, whom Vance depicted in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, say justifiably that “Vance was not an authentic hillbilly or an example of the working class.”
Cassie Chambers Armstrong, an Appalachian and author of Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains, tells why her Aunt Ruth didn’t think much of JD Vance’s endeavor:
portrayal of Appalachia is designed to elevate Vance above the community from which he came. Remember that it seeks to tell his story in a way that aligns with a simplistic rags-to-riches narrative. Think critically about how that narrative influences the way we are taught to think about poverty, progress, and identity.
When all is said and done, J. D. Vance utters the code words at the door of the Establishment, Left and Right, when discussing immigration–and has been allowed in.
The right answer, the one J.D. Vance wouldn’t dare give, is this:
Vance and his phony conservative friends misplace compassion. Their job is not to flaunt their virtue to The World currently on its way to America.
True compassion demands that American politicians and policy makers stick strictly to their mandate—and that is looking out ONLY for their American constituents, and sending all the rest THE HELL HOME. These politicians are hired hands: hired by the American electorate to do its bidding, alone.
Except for a tiny elite, Americans are struggling. But the political class, Dem & Republican, has developed crooked ways of virtue signaling about immigration, using these safe words: Humanitarian crisis! The Kids are in cages. Trafficking. Cartels. Sex.
See:
Do We Still Have A Country? Part I
“We Aren’t Americans; We ARE The World (Part II)”
UPDATE:
The GOP is RIP to me: Typically, Sen. John Kennedy, with his contrived Southern act (he’s Ivy League) and rehearsed, overwrought cracks, puts Trump’s party back decades, tells “Fox News Primetime” host Trey Gowdy that Americans love 1 million legal immigrants coming in annually, object ONLY to illegal, Biden-created chaos on border. (3/9/021)
