As someone who's been around *that* long: it's amazing to me to see Reagan (whom I despised at the time) looking like an enlightened progressive, by comparison.
Steve, I have somewhat the same reaction. I had the dubious “pleasure” of experiencing Reagan as both my governor and president. I still don’t have any use for him, but will concede that he would never be accepted in today’s GOP.
Excellent. However, one big contrast between the US of the 1920s and Trump2 was attitudes to war and international violence. The Kellogg-Briand pact renounced the use of war to settle disputes or conflicts of whatever nature. "The settlement or solution of all disputes....shall never by sought except by pacific means" Kellogg was the US Sec of State. The Senate voted 85-1 to ratify the treaty.
There seems to be a lot of people in denial about this, but what Trump is doing is gradually reconstructing a variant of the pre-1965 immigration system via executive fiat.
The list of travel and immigration-banned countries is growing every few months. It has to grow in a staggered fashion like this because he is effectively usurping Congress’s legal immigration system using what are supposed to be limited executive powers.
You can see the administration reaching everywhere to justify blanket bans of (mostly non-white) people. Group X is, we’re told, a “national security” threat because someone from Group X stabbed someone last week. Group Y is likely to be a public charge because a group of people from Group Y was caught doing Z, and so on.
These are not reasons; they are excuses.
The arguments we see thrown out there on X, or even here, are the same arguments that were used to justify the 1924 Immigration Act.
In fact, as I discuss in an upcoming essay, Sen. David Reed, one of the Act’s authors, wrote in The New York Times that the Act’s passage would allow the United States to become “a more homogeneous nation” and a “vastly better place to live in.”
In 1891, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge demanded that the US close its borders, claiming that Italian immigrants were all “members of the Mafia…using murder as a means of maintaining its discipline.”
These sound familiar because the arguments remain the same, even if the targeted groups have changed.
Interesting ... I think we (Doug Ford) should run an ad in the US highlighting "Reagan got the Immigration Reform and Control Act passed. Among other things, it gave an amnesty to longtime-resident illegal immigrants so they could get green cards, then citizenship"
This was excellent, many thanks. But is history closer to repeating or will it rhyme? If Trump is so dominant that he can shape America's idealized view of itself then we are back to the races (as in "bloodlines", another favorite word of his) and history is repeating.
But if history is to rhyme then the nation's exclusionary policies will be built around some other organizing principle. It probably will be some definition of "merit" or "value", where persons are reduced to their economic worth. This will have the full backing of the techno-utopians.
At its most extreme, it could mean not only a halt to immigration from much of the "third world" (we see now how obsolete expressions can experience rebirth) but also the wholesale deportation or concentration of the mentally and physically disabled. Not because of they are poisoning the bloodstream of "valuable" Americans but because they are economically useless.
I don't think you know anything about the history, which is why you can't see that it has insights for the present. You think I'm the closed-minded one? You have a conclusion and you don't want it challenged. If that were otherwise, you would be exploring that history, not wasting time arguing with me.
The larger point is third world migration is to me far different than your take that this is just history rhyming. We disagree, we will not convince on another. It’s fine.
Disagreeing is fine if, in fact, each person in a conversation considers the substance of what the other is saying. I am directing you to the history, where you will see poor, dirty immigrants living in slums and all the same things you are saying were said about them. You seem determined to ignore the history and stick with what you started with: a conclusion completely uninformed by history.
You’re right, Somalia is awesome. All cultures are exactly the same. Muslims are just like Catholics. Female genital mutilation is just fine, no different than Mormons wearing pajamas under their clothes. There are no differences, just strengths and peace and love. Bring them all in. https://youtu.be/M76xjVifGPg
First, why don't you try reading about Italian slums at the turn of the century. And read how people just like you said exactly what you are saying now about those other people.
See, that's the thing about history. It teaches that things change and what looks like a fixed equation -- "those people are always dirty and poor so they must be biologically inferior" -- never is.
Brilliant piece connecting the dots between 1924 and today's immigration debates. The Madison Grant connection to Nazi ideology is something most people dunno about, and it really underscores how this wasn't just about economics or overcrowding but literal racial heirarchy. I remember reading somewhere that even the language around 'diluting' national character has this eerie consistency across eras. What gets me is how the science veneer made it respectable then, kinda like how data and metrics can obscure bias now.
As someone who's been around *that* long: it's amazing to me to see Reagan (whom I despised at the time) looking like an enlightened progressive, by comparison.
Yep. I myself am amazed how often his name pops up in the current context as a positive counterpoint.
Steve, I have somewhat the same reaction. I had the dubious “pleasure” of experiencing Reagan as both my governor and president. I still don’t have any use for him, but will concede that he would never be accepted in today’s GOP.
Excellent. However, one big contrast between the US of the 1920s and Trump2 was attitudes to war and international violence. The Kellogg-Briand pact renounced the use of war to settle disputes or conflicts of whatever nature. "The settlement or solution of all disputes....shall never by sought except by pacific means" Kellogg was the US Sec of State. The Senate voted 85-1 to ratify the treaty.
A critical distinction. More on that here: https://dgardner.substack.com/p/please-stop-calling-trump-isolationist
This is a wonderful piece Dan
There seems to be a lot of people in denial about this, but what Trump is doing is gradually reconstructing a variant of the pre-1965 immigration system via executive fiat.
The list of travel and immigration-banned countries is growing every few months. It has to grow in a staggered fashion like this because he is effectively usurping Congress’s legal immigration system using what are supposed to be limited executive powers.
You can see the administration reaching everywhere to justify blanket bans of (mostly non-white) people. Group X is, we’re told, a “national security” threat because someone from Group X stabbed someone last week. Group Y is likely to be a public charge because a group of people from Group Y was caught doing Z, and so on.
These are not reasons; they are excuses.
The arguments we see thrown out there on X, or even here, are the same arguments that were used to justify the 1924 Immigration Act.
In fact, as I discuss in an upcoming essay, Sen. David Reed, one of the Act’s authors, wrote in The New York Times that the Act’s passage would allow the United States to become “a more homogeneous nation” and a “vastly better place to live in.”
In 1891, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge demanded that the US close its borders, claiming that Italian immigrants were all “members of the Mafia…using murder as a means of maintaining its discipline.”
These sound familiar because the arguments remain the same, even if the targeted groups have changed.
Interesting ... I think we (Doug Ford) should run an ad in the US highlighting "Reagan got the Immigration Reform and Control Act passed. Among other things, it gave an amnesty to longtime-resident illegal immigrants so they could get green cards, then citizenship"
Lest we forget that Donny carries Friedrich Trumpf's "Aryan" genes.
This was excellent, many thanks. But is history closer to repeating or will it rhyme? If Trump is so dominant that he can shape America's idealized view of itself then we are back to the races (as in "bloodlines", another favorite word of his) and history is repeating.
But if history is to rhyme then the nation's exclusionary policies will be built around some other organizing principle. It probably will be some definition of "merit" or "value", where persons are reduced to their economic worth. This will have the full backing of the techno-utopians.
At its most extreme, it could mean not only a halt to immigration from much of the "third world" (we see now how obsolete expressions can experience rebirth) but also the wholesale deportation or concentration of the mentally and physically disabled. Not because of they are poisoning the bloodstream of "valuable" Americans but because they are economically useless.
If you think third world Muslims tribes “rhyme” with Italians….sorry.
Exactly what your ancestors said about Italians.
Thanks for the lecture. I get the history. I live now. Anyone who disagrees is a bigoted moron. I get it.
I don't think you know anything about the history, which is why you can't see that it has insights for the present. You think I'm the closed-minded one? You have a conclusion and you don't want it challenged. If that were otherwise, you would be exploring that history, not wasting time arguing with me.
The larger point is third world migration is to me far different than your take that this is just history rhyming. We disagree, we will not convince on another. It’s fine.
Disagreeing is fine if, in fact, each person in a conversation considers the substance of what the other is saying. I am directing you to the history, where you will see poor, dirty immigrants living in slums and all the same things you are saying were said about them. You seem determined to ignore the history and stick with what you started with: a conclusion completely uninformed by history.
You’re right, Somalia is awesome. All cultures are exactly the same. Muslims are just like Catholics. Female genital mutilation is just fine, no different than Mormons wearing pajamas under their clothes. There are no differences, just strengths and peace and love. Bring them all in. https://youtu.be/M76xjVifGPg
https://youtu.be/M76xjVifGPg
You started with Muslims. Then went to Somalis. Now it’s all black Africans. Any other untermenschen you’d like to list?
Go to Italy. Go to Somalia. Tell me if you spot any differences.
First, why don't you try reading about Italian slums at the turn of the century. And read how people just like you said exactly what you are saying now about those other people.
See, that's the thing about history. It teaches that things change and what looks like a fixed equation -- "those people are always dirty and poor so they must be biologically inferior" -- never is.
Or you can remain an ignorant pile of prejudice.
A useful reminder of our xenophobic history which has been largely forgotten. It certainly wasn’t taught when I was in college several eons ago.
Everyone seems to forget how close Trump was to Democrats, before Obama.
Brilliant piece connecting the dots between 1924 and today's immigration debates. The Madison Grant connection to Nazi ideology is something most people dunno about, and it really underscores how this wasn't just about economics or overcrowding but literal racial heirarchy. I remember reading somewhere that even the language around 'diluting' national character has this eerie consistency across eras. What gets me is how the science veneer made it respectable then, kinda like how data and metrics can obscure bias now.