Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

Ideas, WSJ

Hillary’s “Deplorables.”

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As Hillary herself has said,

she was definitely mistaken, if not wrong, to have used the expression  “basket of deplorables…. racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic,deplorables“ to describe one half of the supporters of Donald Trump.

Mistaken (although perhaps not wrong) because the expression, if she were to hold onto it, would not help her campaign to be President of all Americans, including the deplorables.

During the most recent Republican Party primaries, Donald Trump received more votes than any previous candidate, some 16 million. (He also received some 15 million votes against him during those same primaries.) Half of 16 million, that’s a basket of 8 million “…racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic deplorables.”

Is that what they mostly are, Trump’s supporters, or at least a good number of them? I don’t know, but is that what we should be afraid of? An army of racist, sexist, homo- and xenophobics? I don’t think so.

In any case how would you ever make from the outside the determination of what they are inside? Are there racist, sexist or other characteristic colors and shapes that would enable us to make that determination? Black or White?

I don’t think that it’s this army of deplorables that we should even be talking about. And if there even were such, that we should be afraid of them. Much more fearful, much more frightening, more serious, is the fact that Trump’s supporters, not just half of them probably, but most of them are ignorant members, if there were still one, of a know-nothing political party.

For they seem to be going along quite contentedly, with Trump himself at their head, ignorant, for example, of the benefits of free trade. These people would no longer trade with the world, that foreign, unfriendly consortium that they are convinced is out to cheat them, to take their jobs, and instead they would put up a wall of tariffs to prevent their imports from ever reaching us (to cheat them back?), much as their leader Trump would put up a wall on our southern border to stop the flow of illegals from Mexico and other Central and South American countries.

That’s trade.  Then there’s immigration, the bête noire of the Know-Noting Party of 1849. Hasn’t our open immigration policy (or policies) throughout the few hundred years or so of its existence always been for us an enormous benefit? Millions of immigrants to our shores, along with the richness of our land and resources, have enabled us to become the leader of the free world, if not the whole world.

And a kind of open immigration, although less open than in years past, is still going on. There is still an endless line of people and families from other lands who come here wanting to have what we have, and for the most part are ready themselves to work to achieve it.  It is immigration (meaning people) and natural resources together that have most of all enabled our country to grow and prosper.

And what’s happening now? Well Donald Trump and Trump’s deplorables, would slow down, if not in certain cases stop the flow of immigrants. This could be lamentable, tragic for the country, for the immigrants are even more important now than earlier given that the natural resources of the land are no longer as plentiful as they once were.

Immigration will help us to go on prospering, replacing diminished supplies of coal, oil, land and water with human resources in the form of immigrants to our shores. Trump himself and his followers, being know-nothings , don’t seem to know this fundamental fact.

So there is much to say about the real deplorables within the party of Donald Trump. And if ever he does win the presidency we’ll hear much more from and about them. That which we trust will never be.

Perhaps the very  greatest lack among Trump’s supporters is a practical knowledge of the world, due probably mostly to their abysmal ignorance of the findings and achievements of modern science.

One might even say that most of all they are deplorable (lamentable, shameful, inexcusable) in that they still hold onto ancient tribal beliefs, to ways and customs of the Middle Ages. The Bible, much as the Koran for their fellow believers, is the book where they go to learn about the world, and worse how to live. From that it follows just how insane is their world.

Can you imagine that? That somehow these millions have remained  ignorant  and unaware of the writings and discoveries of the great men and women of the physical and biological sciences? Have you ever heard them even mention either evolution or global warming? Except to say that neither one is real? And these people, the followers of Trump, still living in the past, would lead our country into the future. That is deplorable.

Ideas

On immigration Hillary has it just right.

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In regard to Immigration policy Republicans are stuck, not even in the past, but in their own past, which is not at all the real past of immigration in the United States. Would that they abandon their own past and join us and Hillary Clinton in the present and do the right thing.

In today’s Times in response to recent statements of Hillary Clinton regarding immigration the editors write;

There is a pressing need to lift the burden of fear and separation from families, to unshackle workers who are chained to exploitive jobs by fear of deportation. Mrs. Clinton has shown that she understands this. But meanwhile, the Republicans are stuck in the early 2000s, still talking of border security and illegal invaders. They forget that the 11 million are on this side of the border, and have children, and roots, and jobs, and dreams, and their plight needs to be confronted. Here is a tip: When you hear candidates talking about securing the border — a border that is as secure as it’s ever going to get — that is the sign that they are not interested in a serious conversation.

And how many of the Republican presidental candidates are continually harping upon securing our borders?

Then just yesterday, also in the Times, there was this;

Open Up, Europe! Let Migrants In

by Philippe LeGrain, an economic adviser to the president of the European Commission from 2011 to 2014. He might also have had said, Open Up, America! Let the Migrants In and let our Immigrants who are here stay!

“What if Europe,” LeGrain asks, — [or, I would add, the United States]— “allowed people to come and go freely?… what would be the impact if there were a big increase in immigration, either through an open-door policy or because more foreign workers and refugees were admitted?”

His conclusion, and that of the the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, is:
“that migrants tend to be net contributors to public finances. Educated abroad, they are typically young and healthy, and unlikely to be eligible for a pension if they leave again. Far from being a threat to Europe’s [or America’s] welfare programs, increased migration could make them more sustainable. An influx of new taxpayers would also alleviate the debt burden of the existing population….

“Better still, diverse and dynamic newcomers can help spark the new ideas and businesses that would lift Europeans’ [and Americans’] living standards. In Britain, migrants are nearly twice as likely as locals to be entrepreneurs. Like starting a business, migration is a risky venture that takes hard work to make it pay off.

“The biggest benefit of all, of course, is that the Mediterranean Sea would no longer be a watery grave. [Nor would the Southwestern deserts be a dry one]. And people much poorer than ourselves could enjoy a bigger leap in living standards than any foreign aid would achieve.”

[Both America and the Republican Party, in addition to] Europe should have the courage to open up.

My own additions to Philippe Legrain’s statements, meant to extend, not to alter in any way his meaning, are placed within [brackets].