Covid does complicate things and it’s very complicated to just post the change in any given measure as numbers of arrests, deportations, removals and other categories have all tracked somewhat differently. It’s probably better to just look at the laws and the Border Patrol budget, which is worse for Biden than Trump and, for me, the biggest problem and disappointment.
You seem more up on this issue than me, but my understanding is that in absolute numbers Biden has deported more (maybe even on a percentage basis), but he has also let a lot more in in absolute numbers. Is that accurate. If so doesn’t that mitigate a lot of your criticism.
American Centrists are not good people.
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There have been a lot more arrests at the border. Bad. There have been fewer internal deportations. Good. I think it really is better to look at the law and the budget. Budget for cops going up is bad. The biggest disappointment though, and infuriating really, is how he promised to end Title 42 because it was some Trumpian awful unfair thing and then immediately, same day, replaced it with something worse (barring asylum applications from the many many people who traveled through a second country).
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The media has a lot to do with this, the corporate interests that own most of the outlets stymie public discussion on things like universal healthcare and other “leftist” policy positions that would effect their bottom line.
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I can’t find anything definitive, but the only cite I do find refers to the Red Star Caucus as having 30 members.
Red Star is a small caucus of around 30 members
The DSA has like 80000 members. Imagine reading that tweet and then saying something about “American Leftists”. Not addressing anything about the content of that tweet, just about how dumb you have to be to post that as evidence about whether or not American Leftists are serious.
I know 100% for sure that Ikes thinks I was doing the same thing with the Bloomberg post rather than making fun of him. He’s not smart enough to understand that.
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And interesting question though is why is that coming to Ikes’ attention? Surely from some kind of conservative outrage source/feed. Like it was retweeted by Ben Shapiro or something as an example of dumb libruls.
Sure, but I don’t think the American people are hidden progressives just waiting to be unleashed by the right news climate. Barriers to entry aren’t that high for media or commentators in the modern age and fewer people get their news from network TV or major newspapers or other mass market sources.
We can’t blame it all on media, there are plenty of other reasons we lean conservative. Our country is more religious than Europe which leads to social conservatism. We have our pro gun culture which is somewhat unique in the developed world. And most importantly, we look back with fondness to times in the past (immediately post WWI when Europe and Asia were rebuilding) when US was a clear hegemon of the world order. We’re now a declining empire and that means our people look back to the good old days which is an inherently conservative perspective.
Progressives even love to talk about how a blue collar worker could support a family and buy a house on a single income in the 1950s, as if that was some byproduct of that time’s more socialist tax policies and not a historical aberration caused by the second world war. Others look back to those times and think it’s the social change that’s driven our relative decline, I just think it was never sustainable as the world became more mobile and interconnected
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Agree on the law. However, if more people are coming in, it would seem that the effects of the law and its application are net positive even if actual verbiage isn’t great. Obviously, the ending of Title 42 to replace it with something worse is complete shit.
Budget is tough. Even if Biden really opened things up you would probably have to have more people working at the border just to process them all. So budget would have to go up. Obviously things like spending on cops and cages is bad. But even if you look at cop budget, it would depend on what exactly those cops are doing. I am sure it is a pretty safe assumption they are going to do shitty things, but at least in theory they might just be there to maintain some order.
I think budgets are more important than laws. Once the cops have money you don’t even know what they are going to do with it. There have been plenty of things cited where money that wasn’t supposed to ended up buying military style equipment. Laws can change any time. Infrastructure lasts. All that shit about how Biden was going to put people up in hotels? They ended up in jail and mostly private detention centers. Keeping as much money out of the hands of cops, prisons and defense contractors is the most important thing.
There’s zero chance the country isn’t net better off with a parakeet as president rather than Trump
Your only limit is your imagination
Did you watch the most recent Last Week Tonight about how funds from the opioid settlement are going to buy stuff for cops rather than to actually help addicts?
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Maybe a better measure of their relative power is what percentage of the National Political Committee they control.
AQ has posted more than his fair share of doozies over the years, but did you catch this one where he argues that the media rubber stamps Biden but will provide meaningful opposition to Trump? Hoooooooooooooooooooo boy. That’s how anyone can know he doesn’t even believe the bullshit he’s peddling.
I mean, not only can I remember 8 years ago, but we also just had evidence presented in court of a New York Times reporter doing stenography and PR work on behalf of Trump’s criminal dealings. Resistance!
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Did not. Sounds depressing.
They have no power at all. The question relevant to Ikes’ proclamation is how representative they are of the “American Left”.
If you want to let a lot more people in, I don’t see how you can do it without increasing budget. There are certain logistical necessities that arise when you have more migrants crossing. I suppose you could argue that we could literally just make it completely open with no checkpoints or anything, and while that is not an untenable position, that’s never going to fly in today’s environment, with Republicans or even relatively progressive Democrats.
I don’t disagree that someone can take money that was well-intended and use it do shitty things. I’m not sure I see away around it though. If you want to let more people in, it is going to cost more. If you want to keep more people out, that is also going to cost more. It’s the nature of the beast.
I want people to be able to move freely about the planet. It’d be best if that’s legal, but if it’s illegal and unenforced, that’s better than nothing.
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Of course they have no power. They are utter morons who self destruct any time more than 5 of them get together. That’s why the DSA is damn near broke and ineffectual