I've been making phone calls for my local Democratic party committee (I'm the chair). The phone list is generated by our voter database. It consists of registered Democrats who have given to Democratic candidates or party organizations in the past, so I'm not supposed to get a lot of nasty surprises. The idea is to turn out the vote, find people who want to volunteer, and who want yard signs.
Sigh. It turns out some of them have gone down the rabbit hole. Here's an exchange from yesterday. This is a man in his 40s. He likes his congressional representative, but he isn't going to vote for the candidate at the top. Why not? She's a socialist. Why do you say that? Open borders.
[I didn't want to complicate things so I didn't say that the idea of open borders has nothing to do with socialism . . . ] We don't have open borders, the U.S. border with Mexico is one of the most heavily patrolled borders in the world. What about all those illegal immigrants being bused to cities?
They aren't illegal immigrants, they're asylum seekers. Because of international treaties and U.S. law, when people enter the country with a credible claim for asylum we have to give them a hearing. Congress hasn't appropriated money for enough judges so there's a backlog. They're waiting for their hearings, and most of them will have their claims denied and they'll be deported.
[No answer to that.] The economy is terrible.
Why do you say that? The U.S. economy is the envy of the world. We have low unemployment, the highest growth rate in the developed world . . .
Inflation.
[Again, I'm not getting the socialism. I didn't want to overcomplicate by pointing out that the recent inflation was a global phenomenon, actually worse in most of the world than in the U.S., so I just said . . . ] But that's over. Have you been watching Fox News?
Well I'm definitely not going to watch ABC News. Yeah, I watch Fox some.
I think you should try getting information somewhere else. They're lying to you, man.
Well, maybe I'll do some of my own research. [Yep, he literally said that.]
I hope you will and I hope you'll think again about things.
END
So, what's the moral of this story? A whole lot of the blame goes to Rupert Murdoch. That's the necessary condition for this to be happening.
Addendum: This.
3 comments:
Murdoch should have been taken to court decades ago for slander and libel, and Al Franken's book (while entertaining) didn't do much to fix the problem. It was all part of a plan. When infections are allowed to fester, they turn into boils and carbuncles. Our body politic is very sick.
The entire "immigrant" issue doesn't seem to be about immigration at all, but about people of the wrong color. I believe Trump once made a comment about wishing we had more immigrants from Norway. I think that lowers the pitch of the dog whistle to one we can all hear.
Near as I can tell any third generation American, regardless of the origins of their immigrant ancestors is indistinguishable in their Americanism from a tenth generation one. The barriers to getting in should work as a filter to select for drive, self-confidence, and optimism. There seem to be a lot of second generation Americans who are very successful (cough, Kamala).
It occurs to me that the only Americans whose ancestors didn't just horn their way into this country uninvited are the folks descended from Africans brought to this country as slaves. We actually wanted them here. Maybe they should be in charge of deciding what to do those whose ancestors just pushed their way in.
Also, note that almost all of the words used by the MAGA horde are undefined; they can be used to label anything as anything. They all seem to boil down to two terms; "good" and "ungood". (Tip of the hat to George Orwell.)
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