There is a huge portion of the country, about 1/3, that knows they aren’t living the American dream, but they work hard and don’t understand why.
Then, someone tells them something slightly true. That there’s not enough pie to go around (semi-true), and that the reason there’s not enough pie is all the immigrants and freeloaders who aren’t working and are taking handouts (false).
What they aren’t told is there could be enough pie to go around, if the top 1% was willing to share. They aren’t. And they now control ~35% of wealth in the USA.
And then the top 1% uses that extra capital to tell that 1/3 of people that their Hispanic neighbor is the problem.
I often give the benefit of the doubt towards minorities. My internal hope is that since they are a minority, they surely have experienced bigotry, reflected on it as victims, and rejected that spirit.
That mentality of mine has been completely shattered over the last couple years. The majority of the immigrants I have known have floored me with their bigotry towards so many others. It has made me curious: Are they attracted to that part of our culture? Is this the predominant spirit of the world? What the hell does it mean?
the issue is you thought people were better than they are. they aren’t.
but we can’t make any progress until we are open about who and what we really are. the lefties and the righties are both in total denial about the complexity of the world and put forth this vague bullshit idealism about who and how people are suppose to be.
most the of the rich white enlightened liberal/leftie set are incredibly sexist, racist, and bigoted towards others who aren’t like themselves. their discourse and ideals are mostly about signally to each other they are part of the ‘good people’ and it’s all the ‘bad people’ who are those things. by forming and out-group you get to get to pretend you have ‘purged’ the ‘bad’ by projecting it onto ‘others’ who don’t share your views or lifestyle. but everyone does this. everyone hates some ‘other’ bad group of people in order to claim their group is ‘good’. every immigrant group thinks they are the ‘hard working’ group and the other are ‘lazy exploiters’.
the issue is you thought people were better than they are. they aren’t.
I am very cynical, but my hope is that we can collectively improve our situation. I pull my hair out when people keep playing their tribal games. All they have to do is reason it out.
I have prejudices that are wrong. I know that they are wrong. I know the kind of futures that will never exist if I exercise them. I don’t know, if it’s nature or nurture.
for someone to not be that way takes decades of specific training and a life of abundance. most people are never going to have that. most people don’t perceive their life as being abundant, even if it objectively is.
Before you judge too harshly, remember that they can’t physically vote and probably don’t know as much about politics. It is very easy to fall into right-wing pipeline under these conditons.
More importantly, them not being able to vote means they don’t effect you as much as some people want you to believe.
A lot of democrats blamed immigrants for the 2024 election results and there was a tiktok trend of reporting the unrelated immigrant neighbors to ICE.
Naturalized citizens can vote. First generations can vote, and children mostly align with their parents’ beliefs.
I am not anti-immigration. At all. I am against intolerance. I am against anyone who would abuse a country’s asylum system, because it will lead to end of such lifelines.
I’m becoming more curious about whether there are biases in the type of person who chooses to immigrate (excluding refugees) to the US.
This is how it plays out locally:
I live in a low cost of living town in Northeast PA. Our area has historically not been very diverse. Over the past 20 years they’ve ben building a lot of huge warehouses and distribution centers in our area to take advantage of the low cast of living. The industrial parks in the area all competed with each other to land these “job-creating” warehouses, and they competed by offering tax-free deals for x number of years.
So they build these warehouses, and when they hire, everybody apart from the 4 managers are hired part time, and can only work up to max of 28-30 hrs per week, to prevent the company from owing them any kind of health care retirement. Mostly, the only people desperate enough to move here for those jobs are immigrants, and since there’s no attachment to one warehouse or another, as soon as there’s slightly better offer, they move right on out. Our schools are getting hammered because their tax revenue hasn’t increased, but instead of of 1-2 new students per year in a grade level, they’re dealing with 5-6 new kids per WEEK, and a good number them come in with little to no English. Frequently, the families have to separate to get here, and that just makes everything even harder.
Now, if you’re not paying too close attention, you look at the area compared to 20 years ago, and think,
There are more immigrants
The school have less money and test scores are down
Crime is worse
Wages are unliveably low
…
Immigrants did it
The “nice” thing is if you own a warehouse, you don’t even need to spend any money “convincing” people to blame immigrants, you just make a bunch of money, pay them as little as possible, and watch the nightly news talk about all the danger and crime in the area.
Easy.
There is a huge portion of the country, about 1/3, that knows they aren’t living the American dream, but they work hard and don’t understand why.
Then, someone tells them something slightly true. That there’s not enough pie to go around (semi-true), and that the reason there’s not enough pie is all the immigrants and freeloaders who aren’t working and are taking handouts (false).
What they aren’t told is there could be enough pie to go around, if the top 1% was willing to share. They aren’t. And they now control ~35% of wealth in the USA.
And then the top 1% uses that extra capital to tell that 1/3 of people that their Hispanic neighbor is the problem.
a big chunk of that bloc is first gen immigrants themselves.
all my 2nd gen immigrant friends have parents who hate new immigrants and support ICE type policies and are big Trump fans.
First gen immigrants are affected by new immigrants, they’re in direct competition with the new guys and many are quite happy to pull up the ladder.
If that was all that was going on, it would be pretty understandable for that subset.
What I don’t get are the white ones with first gen immigrant partners.
most of the immigrant women I have dated wanted a conservative white guy boyfriend. probably because they were looking for a guy like their dad.
I often give the benefit of the doubt towards minorities. My internal hope is that since they are a minority, they surely have experienced bigotry, reflected on it as victims, and rejected that spirit.
That mentality of mine has been completely shattered over the last couple years. The majority of the immigrants I have known have floored me with their bigotry towards so many others. It has made me curious: Are they attracted to that part of our culture? Is this the predominant spirit of the world? What the hell does it mean?
No. they are just people. everyone is like that.
the issue is you thought people were better than they are. they aren’t.
but we can’t make any progress until we are open about who and what we really are. the lefties and the righties are both in total denial about the complexity of the world and put forth this vague bullshit idealism about who and how people are suppose to be.
most the of the rich white enlightened liberal/leftie set are incredibly sexist, racist, and bigoted towards others who aren’t like themselves. their discourse and ideals are mostly about signally to each other they are part of the ‘good people’ and it’s all the ‘bad people’ who are those things. by forming and out-group you get to get to pretend you have ‘purged’ the ‘bad’ by projecting it onto ‘others’ who don’t share your views or lifestyle. but everyone does this. everyone hates some ‘other’ bad group of people in order to claim their group is ‘good’. every immigrant group thinks they are the ‘hard working’ group and the other are ‘lazy exploiters’.
I am very cynical, but my hope is that we can collectively improve our situation. I pull my hair out when people keep playing their tribal games. All they have to do is reason it out.
people like it when collective improvement benefits people that look like them. they don’t when the people don’t look like them.
the scandanvian models works because of the lack of diveristy. it’s starting to break down due to the influx of immigration.
people are hardwired this way. it is incredibly difficult to change it.
Is it hardwired, or trained?
I have prejudices that are wrong. I know that they are wrong. I know the kind of futures that will never exist if I exercise them. I don’t know, if it’s nature or nurture.
hardwired and trained.
for someone to not be that way takes decades of specific training and a life of abundance. most people are never going to have that. most people don’t perceive their life as being abundant, even if it objectively is.
Before you judge too harshly, remember that they can’t physically vote and probably don’t know as much about politics. It is very easy to fall into right-wing pipeline under these conditons.
More importantly, them not being able to vote means they don’t effect you as much as some people want you to believe.
A lot of democrats blamed immigrants for the 2024 election results and there was a tiktok trend of reporting the unrelated immigrant neighbors to ICE.
No Democrats blamed illegal immigrants, if that’s what you mean. That just did not happen because it makes no sense.
They DID blame the people who voted for Trump, even if they were from a community with a lot of immigration. Rightfully so.
Naturalized citizens can vote. First generations can vote, and children mostly align with their parents’ beliefs.
I am not anti-immigration. At all. I am against intolerance. I am against anyone who would abuse a country’s asylum system, because it will lead to end of such lifelines.
I’m becoming more curious about whether there are biases in the type of person who chooses to immigrate (excluding refugees) to the US.
This is how it plays out locally: I live in a low cost of living town in Northeast PA. Our area has historically not been very diverse. Over the past 20 years they’ve ben building a lot of huge warehouses and distribution centers in our area to take advantage of the low cast of living. The industrial parks in the area all competed with each other to land these “job-creating” warehouses, and they competed by offering tax-free deals for x number of years.
So they build these warehouses, and when they hire, everybody apart from the 4 managers are hired part time, and can only work up to max of 28-30 hrs per week, to prevent the company from owing them any kind of health care retirement. Mostly, the only people desperate enough to move here for those jobs are immigrants, and since there’s no attachment to one warehouse or another, as soon as there’s slightly better offer, they move right on out. Our schools are getting hammered because their tax revenue hasn’t increased, but instead of of 1-2 new students per year in a grade level, they’re dealing with 5-6 new kids per WEEK, and a good number them come in with little to no English. Frequently, the families have to separate to get here, and that just makes everything even harder.
Now, if you’re not paying too close attention, you look at the area compared to 20 years ago, and think,
The “nice” thing is if you own a warehouse, you don’t even need to spend any money “convincing” people to blame immigrants, you just make a bunch of money, pay them as little as possible, and watch the nightly news talk about all the danger and crime in the area.
If magas could read a post this long they might get it
Not a chance.
You are now banned from Piefed. Please lay down while the death squadron comes for you.
This pretty much
Once you get down to the bottom half they are all together possessed of only a single digit share of wealth between them