After the truly awful shooting in Buffalo last week, “replacement theory” is in the mainstream news more than I’ve ever seen before. The “theory” is an incredibly noxious stew of bad ideas, and I’ve referenced it in a post last last year. But this piece from 2017 from Thomas Chatterton Williams was incredibly informative and fascinating (in that messed up way). I personally feel that dismissing it as flat-out crazy and racist—even though it IS crazy and racist—really does you a disservice if you’re someone who wants to, you know, fight racism. You have to understand the beast to learn how to slay it. And most importantly, you have to understand the beast to discover if you’ve been inadvertently feeding it all along.
Williams' piece has his signature, non-inflammatory tone that I find generous and calming.
What jumped out at me was the term "racialist." radicals on the left and right sound the same on issues of identity: the claim is we are bound to our ethnic/racial groups and the differences are both good and unbridgeable. The defining feature is instead which group is given positive status. The left gives preference to "people of color," the right to white people. Some of the men Williams interviewed insisted what they are concerned about is preservation of culture--don't erase our identity! Where have I heard that song before?
To me, the biggest cultural and political issue the first world faces is the primacy being placed on identity.
This is such a good point. You can't talk about race constantly, and say "everyone gets to be proud of their identity except you (white people)" and expect it to work. At best, whites will be resentful, and at worst they go full white nationalist. I support TCW's vision of making race less important--his book on this is incredibly persuasive.
I loved his book. He gets criticism for not "embracing" his blackness enough, much the way Coleman Hughes does, and Glenn Loury, and John McWhorter, etc etc but really their message is that nobody wins by continuing the fiction of race essentialism. The activists who use this against them use it against white liberals as well: that white people embrace racelessness because it lets us off the hook. In fact I embrace Sheena Mason's Theory of Racelessness in part because no amount of punitive performance art is going to make people any more unified.
There are a couple of things I'd like to see distinguished, both in the conversation about this issue and generally (although FWIW, I think the people in this thread are already doing a damn good job of talking about this topic):
~~Great Replacement Theory~~
1. "Great replacement theory" [as in, "The Jews and the liberal elites are orchestrating a massive conspiracy of illegal immigration in order to eliminate the white American population entirely."]
and
2. "Great replacement theory" [as in, "Many politically engaged people on the left have a negative association with 'white American' as a concept and culture, and they're pleased with the idea of America becoming more multicultural, 'less white', and less closed off to immigrants from non-white / non-Western / developing / Global South / whatever term you prefer countries and cultures. Most also support more lenient immigration policy and a small but vocal minority loudly cheer when data suggests the white population is decreasing or people in the 'dominant group' (cis white rich men, etc.) lose power/status or suffer public defeats/failures."]
~~The Left~~
3. "The Left" [as in, "The median person who identifies as left-of-center, liberal, or a Democrat. Probably has moderate to strong left views on most issues, but is generally not extremely dogmatic, hysterical, and insane about culture war issues, at least not when questioned in good faith and allowed to answer in the privacy of their own mind or a nonadversarial one-on-one conversation. On this issue, holds beliefs that basically approximate what you, @Marie, articulated in your other piece on replacement theory, ie. 'No, I am not actively working to see the white population in America diminished, and that's not even something I really have any desire to see happen. Sure, I'd like to see people who come here legally from other countries succeed and flourish, and I hold multiculturalism as a value, but I also care about the well-being of native-born and white Americans, duh.'"]
and
4. "The Left" [as in, "People who use Twitter, read Ibram Kendi and Robyn D'Angelo, went to elite colleges, or are surrounded and strongly influenced by people who have those attributes. Ie. woke people, the 'Progressive activists' of More In Common's report. Both a small minority (numerically) of people left of center AND a powerful and increasingly influential force (culturally, politically, socially) in most major American institutions (media, academia, art, business). On this issue, express opinions consistent with the belief 'It would be better if there were more POC and fewer white people in America, or at least if many (perhaps most, maybe all?) of the white people gave up their positions of power or had them taken away so that POC (and women, and trans people, and non-dominant groups, etc.) could have them instead.'"]
~~American Culture~~
5. "American culture" [as in, "White people, who are the only real and true Americans, unlike those foreign brown people who can't actually ever be American because they didn't come from England or Europe originally and don't speak our language (English, duh) and don't share our values and eat weird food that isn't normal. Under threat as a concept because it should be, because it's parochial and narrow and foolish and mean."]
and
6. "American culture" [as in, "A set of shared values, ideas, norms, and principles originally incarnated by, yes, a group of white people (mostly men) with primarily Anglo origins, Christian/Judeo-Christian religious or spiritual beliefs, a meritocratic entrepreneurial/capitalist ethos, a deep reverence for the "Western tradition" (as defined by the thread of philosophy tracing back to the classical period--Plato, Socrates, etc.), and deeply individualistic / anti-authoritarian leanings. An evolving body of ideals which includes a deeply felt commitment to justice and liberity (better delivered late than never), an appreciation and respect for the valuable contributions to human intellectual, spiritual, artistic, and moral development by people and ideas from people of ALL kinds of different backgrounds, still loving being the best / working hard to achieve excellence, and, of course, the old "melting pot"-- or even better, "fruit salad": not a homogenous mixture of all cultures into one, indistinguishable soup, but rather the combination of distinct cultures which simultaneously retain their original integrity to varying degrees while also integrating into the whole and forming a beautiful dish, which includes BOTH Mexicans and Guatemalans and Russians and Nigerians and Koreans who immigrated AND "white people" who descended from Europeans AND "black people" who descended from African slaves, all co-existing with each other as Americans. Under threat because people who saw flaws (some real, some imagined) in this culture are themselves fallible human beings prone to throwing the baby out with the bathwater and getting caught up in moralizing outrage, rather than holding the nuances of complex systems and appreciating things in context.]
I think I smuggled all my commentary into the descriptions, but I basically believe if we disentangle those we're well on our way. Curious for critiques or reactions!
Yes, agreed, people have some wildly different ideas buried in those two or three word phrases!
(I, for one, am in favor of beginning to talk of an "American Symphony Orchestra" instead of a melting pot. Each person brings their own unique sound, and it might sound a little cacophonous sometimes, but if we work together, we can make beautiful music--evolving together as new people join and we learn from each other.)
It's a nice metaphor in some ways, like emphasizing the potential synergy if we work together.
Alas, an orchestra implies a leader who chooses the music, the musicians, and who gets to play. So I can imagine this metaphor being easily adopted by the authoritarian left as well (with themselves as the conductor).
I think of it more as a great potluck dinner, with diverse contributions from many sources, without central command authority, and with diners free to choose from a rich panopoly of options. Decentralized. There's no need for everybody to be in lockstep in creating it, or for everyone to have the same tastes in choosing what to consume.
The authoritarian left does not like that; they want to strictly control what foods are on the table, and what people are allowed or required to eat - for only the most noble of purposes of course.
Theodore Roosevelt is known for having said “I stand for straight Americanism unconditioned and unqualified, and I stand against every form of hyphenated Americanism.” and I think like most people have interpreted this as a statement of hostility to immigrant cultures.
But I looked up the speech (given by a man of the oldest of old-line Protestant stock, to an audience of Catholics, and found it very worth reading, considering what we are talking about today.
“Americanism is not a matter of creed, birthplace or national descent, but of the soul and of the spirit. If the American has the right stuff in him, I care not a snap of my fingers whether he is Jew or Gentile, Catholic or Protestant. I care not a snap of my fingers whether his ancestors came over in the Mayflower, or whether he was born, or his parents were born, in Germany, Ireland, France, England, Scandinavia, Russia or Italy or any other country. All I ask of the immigrant is that he shall be physically and intellectually fit, of sound character, and eager in good faith to become an American citizen. If the immigrant is of the right kind I am for him, and if the native American is of the wrong kind I am against him….
Our ancestors came from many different Old World nationalities. It will spell ruin to this nation if these nationalities remain separated from one another instead of being assimilated to the new and larger American life. The children and our children’s children of all of us have to live here in this land together. Our children’s children will intermarry, one another, your children’s children, friends, and mine.
"The effort to keep our citizenship divided against itself by the use of the hyphen and along the lines of national origin is certain to breed a spirit of bitterness and prejudice and dislike between great bodies of our citizens."
If someone considered a jingoist and a racist by many today, can come up with such a clear and liberal exposition of these basic important points more than a century ago, why can't we seem to figure this out today?
I wanted to add one more to your list -- "critical race theory." I've been noticing more people making the argument, "the left talks about race all the time, it shouldn't be surprising that people on the right would respond with their own race-based vision for the country." (I'm sure the discussion here has primed me to pay attention to it), and it reminded me that I recently saw a very helpful working definition of CRT (here: https://timothyburke.substack.com/p/the-news-lawless?s=r)
"The central argument of critical legal studies, which gave rise to critical race theory, is basically that the content of laws and the specifics of legal systems are not really very important in determining what law does in the world or how struggles over ostensibly legal questions will be resolved. . . . . Struggles over and within law about how laws are interpreted or applied are ultimately determined extra-legally."
I think that offers a really good rule of thumb for when to care about race. "Behaviors and outcomes in the world frequently don't match the formally stated rules or goals. If you don't see a gap, or don't need to use race as an explanation, there's no reason to do so. But if think, 'the behavior and outcomes we see wouldn't make sense unless you thought that race was affecting them' then it makes a lot of sense to consider it."
I don't claim that people (on the left, or people in general) always stick to that standard, but I think it is a good way to decide, "is it helpful to think about race in this situation."
I've been thinking a bit about this. On one hand, it seems like a reasonable approach to sorting out when a racial lens is helpful or not. On the other, it feels like something a bit too easily subverted by subjectivity, at least today. (Of course, anything can be so subverted, it's all a matter of degree). Trying to put my finger on it, I notice:
> "the behavior and outcomes we see wouldn't make sense unless ..."
And I realize that for most people, to "make sense" may functionally boil down to "fitting within my preferred narratives" rather than "be the best evidenced explanation".
For some people (for some of the time), the approach used is to develop several hypotheses (potential explanations) and test each against accumulating evidence, giving more weight to those which fit ALL the data better. For others, the intellectual creativity is instead harnessed to fit every new situation into yet another example or confirmation of a pre-existing favored narrative.
I think your proposed rule of thumb is intended for the former group, but the latter group can believe they are following it as well. So if one has an overarching internal model of society which vigorously "centers" race and racism, explanations for a given event which center race and racism will be the ones that "make sense" to one.
It's like the boy with a hammer, to whom the world seems full of virtual nails.
This is not a criticism of the value of the heuristic you offer; more a consideration regarding how carefully it might need to be stated to reduce the misinterpretation by the ideologically (partially) blindered.
I find it hard to interpret Williams' piece, because I don't live in France, and don't really know the country.
But I do think that in America, the dominant model is still that of the "melting pot," as dated as that phrase sounds these days. All the immigrants I know, and I know many, have children who are part of the dominant American culture, not the culture of their parents' home countries.
Part of the implicit deal of becoming an American is that your native culture gets diluted as it mixes with American culture. Your cuisine is still different, but it gets somewhat Americanized. As an immigrant, you may harbor old country national enmities, but you learn to suppress them, and to your kids, it's just one more weird thing the parents believe that your kids ignore.
I think "The Big Sick" got this right when Kumail Nanjiani's character says "Why did you bring me here if you wanted me to not have an American life?"
What I have seen in my life is that these days, for the most part, Americans, red or blue, will lead with acceptance and friendship, rather than fall back on the biases they were brought up with. It has not always been thus, but the difference between America in the 1960s and America today is night and day.
There is still too much identitarian poison in the country today. You see it on the far right as people like Tucker Carlson rail about immigrants overrunning the country. You see it on the far left when politicians pretend that white supremacy is still practiced by the vast majority of white Americans, with the goal of oppressing all non-whites in this country.
Having witnessed all these changes over the last 50+ years, it's pretty sad to watch both sides abandoning America's strengths.
Well I was quite surprised by reading the piece: I don't find Camus' ideas to be racist or crazy at all. On the contrary, he seems to me to be making the very simple argument that (1) every indigenous culture is valuable, and (2) a large enough amount of immigration to a region will destroy its indigenous culture.
This argument strikes me as being obviously correct.
It has very clearly already happened in the New World, where we now all speak Old World languages and adhere to Old World cultural norms. Too bad so sad for the indigenous people who we replaced.
Camus says it could happen again. Why is he wrong?
Well I think the “crazy and racist” part comes in when people less nuanced than Camus jump to the idea that Democrats are orchestrating a grand conspiracy to “import” “subservient” voters from “third world” countries and win elections. One look at the shifts in voter trends from Hispanic Americans ought to be enough to disprove that theory. I do think there’s a thoughtful discussion to be had about the merits and costs of different levels of immigration. But it’s a bit ridiculous to suggest (and I’m not suggesting you’re suggesting this!) that America in particular has an ancient culture that’s been unchanged for millennia. If there’s any constant to our culture, it’s that almost everyone here has a recent ancestor who came here in search of a better life, each generation of immigrants adding and building on the mix of cultures that was already here. Not to mention that in our digitally connected, global world, you get cultural mixing anyway. But I am pro-co-cultural assimilation with pockets of preservation and mutual appreciation; I think you usually get the best of both worlds. For American culture to get wholesale “replaced” or destroyed, you’d have to have an unthinkably massive influx of people from a single other culture. I don’t see it.
I also must object—and I don’t think you or even Camus are saying this—to the idea that American culture is “white.” This idea seems prevalent in both white nationalist circles and super-woke ones. American culture is as rainbow as they come.
"Well I think the “crazy and racist” part comes in when people less nuanced than Camus jump to the idea that Democrats are orchestrating a grand conspiracy to “import” “subservient” voters from “third world” countries and win elections."
As a 66-year-old lifelong Democrat, it frustrates me no end that the Democrats refuse to discuss what they think reasonable immigration levels would be, which allows the conspiracy theories to flourish.
I agree that the idea of "Emerging Democratic Majority" was always problematic and has become a catch-phrase that gets used in bad ways. And, you know what, one of the people who wrote the book agrees (and he's not the first person to write a book and then find that the popular version of the idea doesn't match what he was thinking): https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/us/politics/ruy-teixeira-democrats.html
"And even on this raw demographic basis, it’s not crazy that there’s a natural popular-vote Democratic majority in the country. However, that does not translate into political power. We very specifically said — and this is widely ignored — that for this majority to attain and exercise political power, you have to retain a significant fraction of the white working class. The country was changing, but it wasn’t changing that fast.
The second thing we didn’t anticipate was the eventual effect of professional-class hegemony in the Democratic Party — that it would tilt the Democrats so far to the left on sociocultural issues that it would actually make the Democratic Party significantly unattractive to working-class voters."
I recognize that my perspective on the question of immigration is limited because I live in a part of the country where there are fewer immigrants.
Earlier I recommended Bryan Caplan's book on open borders -- because it isn't tied into the current culture wars. I don't think it will convince you about open borders (it didn't convince me) but it might convince you that the capacity of the US to integrate immigrants is larger than you'd think.
But I want to highlight two things. First he points out that, when Reagan left office in 1989, he specifically spoke in favor of immigration (and that Republicans could be a natural political home for immigrants). That article just touches on it, but Noah Smith has speculated that part of the dynamic is that the Republican party (and Republican base) took a strong anti-immigrant position around 2010, and that pushed Democrats further left on immigration because they were appalled by some of the Republican positions. That's not the whole story, but I think that is part of the dynamic.
Secondly he includes a chart showing what % of the US population was foreign born over the last century. It peaked in 1910, his a minimum at 1970 and is getting close to the peak again now.
Two things to note about that are (a) that the current levels of immigration are not that high relative to previous levels (and Canada has a foreign born population that's about 60% higher than the US proportionally speaking) and (b) that people who are currently 67 were 15 when the US had the lowest number of immigrants in history.
> "the idea that Democrats are orchestrating a grand conspiracy to “import” “subservient” voters from “third world” countries and win elections. "
To what degree is this different than the "Emerging Democratic Majority" concept that some Democrats openly endorse? The former frames it as a "grand conspiracy" rather than an openly stated strategy, it uses "import from third world countries" instead of "welcome immigrants and refugees from (where??)", and frames the goal "subservient" for "Democratic leaning". That is, the two seem to have the same core concepts, but the first framing uses more easily disparaged wording.
The subset of Democrats wishing to facilitate a stronger majority through expecting (rightly or wrongly) that immigrants will lean Democratic, do not need to completely displace Republicans (like push them into the sea), only to bias elections more strongly towards the Democrats. The people fearing that, (rightly or wrongly) expect the expanded Democratic majority to enforce cultural change on the whole (in part from their own woke momentum, and in part to cater to the newcomers they courted). That wouldn't require an unthinkably massive influx.
Please understand that I'm not endorsing that fear per se, just trying to fairly represent it's perspective.
There are democrats who openly (1) speak about how much they eagerly anticipate having a non-white majority with which they can overwhelm any opposition and implement major socio-political changes without resistance, (2) endorse maximal immigration policies which would (by chance?) help accomplish #1, and also (3) mock the proposed losers of that conflict for holding irrational & absurd fears of #1 happening via #2 with the support of and benefit to the Democrats.
I think the thing that Camus misses is that there is no unchanging indigenous culture. Today, you're seeing Camus rail about immigrants. When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, it was the Academie Francaise railing about English words sneaking into the pure French language (it's a good thing they couldn't see the Internet coming or they'd have stroked out right then and there).
Of course, there are limits to how much social change a society can absorb in a given period and maybe France is near that limit, though I haven't seen much evidence of that.
But in the US? We're not even close. Immigrants come here to *join* the dominant culture, which AFAICT is a combination of free enterprise, capitalism and cultural appropriation / mixing. The biggest negative I can see to large scale *illegal* immigration is that it brings down lower skilled salaries because you have an exploitable group who can't complain to authorities about any employer behavior, no matter how bad. That's a real concern, and I think it is an argument for stronger enforcement of immigration laws. But I don't think it's a cultural issue as much as a pure economic issue.
I don't think he's crazy, and I agree with a statement like, "there is always a threshold at which a quantitative change becomes qualitative; migration was far less extensive in the Middle Ages than it is today. French liberals can surely make a case for immigration without pretending that nothing has changed: a country that in 1900 was almost uniformly Catholic now has more than six million Muslims."
That said, I don't think Camus is arguing in good faith -- or, to be precise, I don't think Camus is making his arguments with the goal of generating conversation and possibly consensus. I think he's pursuing specific political goals, which I happen to think are bad ones.
"On a recent radio appearance, he took a beating from Hervé le Bras, a director emeritus at the Institut National d’Études Démographiques, who said that Camus’s proclamations about ethnic substitution were based on wildly inflated statistics about the number of foreigners entering France. Afterward, Camus breezily responded on Twitter: “Since when, in history, did a people need ‘science’ to decide whether or not it was invaded and occupied?”"
It is descriptions like that which prompted me to say, that while I'm not calling for open borders I also doubt that Camus' work would lead into a productive conversation about how to have healthy immigration.
I will also note (and this is a bit of a tangent), that when comparing the present to historical analogues it's important to consider the role played by capitalism in re-shaping the world. Putting that in a separate comment to keep this from becoming too long . . .
I have lately been spending a lot of time mulling over the teasers that Brad DeLong has been posting for his upcoming book, and one of the major premises is that the present (starting from ~1870) is not like the past. See for example: https://braddelong.substack.com/p/time-to-post-my-675-word-elevator?s=r
In a comment he writes:
"In between 1870 and 2010--during the long 20th century--things were both marvelous and terrible, but in the context of previous human history more marvelous than terrible. The coming of the industrial research lab; of the modern corporation; and of the globalization triple of the iron-hulled ocean-going screw-propellered steamship and of the railroad, of the submarine and land telegraph cable, and of the open world economy--those removed the final barriers to the rapid discovery, development, deployment, and then diffusion of new technologies: new and better ways of manipulating nature and organizing humans to make stuff and do things. After 1870, the deployed-and-diffused technological prowess of humanity doubled every generation, a pace previously unimaginable and unimagined. That meant that the global market economy revolutionized the economy and then re-revolutionized it again, once every generation, in a process of profound and repeated creative destruction in which all established patterns and hierarchies were steamed away.
Technological progress and creative destruction under the aegis of the market economy solved the problem of not being able to make _**enough**_ stuff for all. But it left the problems of distribution and of utilization untouched. Moreover, 140 years of repeated creative destruction of economic patterns upended all of the patterns and bargains that did guide distribution and utilization, and then upended them again. This led to great fear among the powerful: their relative status and power depended on those patterns. And this led to great anxiety among the powerless: they could dream of utopian changes, but they did fear that the market economy would take away what little they had. People think they have rights--to a stable community that validates and nurtures them, to an income commensurate with what they deserve, and to a stable life. But the market economy does not recognize those rights. The market economy recognizes only property rights. Your social power is your wealth and is only your wealth. And you only have wealth if the property rights you possess are to things useful in producing commodities for which the rich have a serious jones."
I think that's an important lens through which to view the conversations about immigration. It's true that people don't like change, and that there's a natural desire to want to protect one's sense of cultural heritage and immigration is only one thread (and not the greatest one) in a world in which the old patterns are being constantly upended.
It is part and parcel of the modern world that people will look around and say, "the world is changing faster than I would have thought" and immigration is part of that, but it seems like a mistake to think that immigration is the primary driver.
But it's a red herring, right? No one in the US is harmed when skilled immigrants come here, study and stay here; quite the opposite: we've grabbed an individual who might start a company back in India or China, and they've done it here instead.
The hit to the US economy comes from when a country with a much lower standard of living, and no environmental or labor protections, gets tariff-free entrance to our market. American companies have to obey our environmental laws, but not Chinese companies, for example.
There's an even bigger risk, which we can now see playing out in Europe: integrating authoritarian countries' economies into our economic supply chains make us vulnerable to the behavior of authoritarians. We see this with Putin, but China under Xi Jinping is also far more likely to do something stupid than the country was under a broader-based Politburo that knew it had to deliver the economic goods or else.
My guess is that we will, or at least should, pull back some on economic integration of critical facilities with authoritarian-led countries. Especially China and Russia.
"No one in the US is harmed when skilled immigrants come here, study and stay here; quite the opposite: we've grabbed an individual who might start a company back in India or China, and they've done it here instead."
I don't agree. The US K-12 school system is abysmal at identifying and nuturing STEM talent in any but the wealthiest districts, especially among girls. We are instead betting that some Chinese or Indian college kids will stick around and help us out. I think it's a terrible bet.
Well, considering that it takes 10 years for someone from India to get through the immigration queue to get a green card, it seems that there's a pretty big queue of people who want to stick around. It's not just India, but most countries' H-1B visas queues are large. And I bet we could improve the odds and numbers of STEM grads staying if we increased the number of skilled visas, so that the green card process isn't so onerous.
I'm also not sure how refusing to let talented STEM graduates stay here helps K-12 students in the US.
Sure, and my argument (which is somewhat speculative; I don't want to push too hard on it) is that Camus is doing a disservice to an honest discussion of the issue by pretending that the visible portion is the most important.
Isn’t that what the Emerging Democratic Majority all about? A story in which white native-born Americans recede demographically and permanently lose political power in what they consider to be their own country? It’s a great story if you like multiculturalism. It’s not great if you don’t.
There are estimated to be 10-15 million unauthorized immigrants in this country who are currently ineligible for citizenship. Factoring down, if this could generate 2 or 3 million votes it would make a difference in the ongoing partisan struggles over power in our nation. The idea that Democrats would “own” those votes is still widespread (ironically, on both sides) in spite of hopeful information to the contrary.
Personally, I think that we have to find a path to citizenship for people who are now functionally American, and that America could benefit from more legal immigration. But I also see the fear that this could cause when it’s accompanied by zestful moralism and hostile condemnation from the feared “winners.”
So this conspiratorial “replacement” concept (as it is has been taken up in America) is bizarre and revolting and dangerous, but it doesn’t come from just nowhere. It is part of a toxic mix.
Yeah agree. On that note, it’s a little bizarre to me that conservatives don’t consider the votes of “functionally American” undocumented immigrants as potentially “gettable,” if they (Republicans) weren’t so openly hostile towards them. Immigrants, documented and undocumented, are generally a group of people who value hard work, self-sufficiency, appreciate traditional American values, and are religiously conservative. Why do conservatives write them off as a lock for Democrats? Why to they contribute to that likelihood with outward hostility? (I’m saying this as someone who still prefers that Dems win.)
As a New Yorker, I’ve come across a lot of immigrants who are conservative. I’ve met Eastern European immigrants who are Republicans because they identify Democrats with the socialism that they escaped from. I’ve met Latino citizens who want to send all the “illegals” back where they came from. I”ve seen a street full of small Asian-operated businesses with Republican campaign posters in the windows, come election time. There are lots of Asian and Latino evangelical churches with conservative outlooks.
I think the Republicans are already getting the picture, and will adapt much faster than progressive Democrats. Which is hopeful even though, like you, I am a Democrat. Just today, there’s an interesting piece about this. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/us/texas-republican-wesley-hunt.html
In a weird way, I'm really rooting for a more racially diverse Republican party, because I think it's necessary to break the "high conflict" of politically polarized conceptions of racism. But, like, I still only want them to win like 45% of the time.
I found the Noah Smith thread I was thinking of earlier (and apologies for splitting this train of thought over two comment threads, but it seemed directly applicable to this comment). It's indulging in a fair amount of speculation, but I thought it was interesting: https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1520133882783313920
(here is an abridged version of the thread)
"When the Right abandoned the Reagan/Bush legacy and turned against immigration, it was a break with the consensus patriotism that had evolved since the 80s. It felt like the GOP was declaring that America is only worth loving if it's a supermajority-White nation.Ronald Reagan called for more immigration from Mexico, specifically. He signed the biggest amnesty in our history. Bush tried to do another.When the GOP turned against this legacy, it was a decisive break.Immigration was the core of a patriotism that Left and Right could grudgingly agree on. When the Right turned against immigration, it abandoned patriotism. If the Right wants back in to the mainstream, it needs to embrace immigration again.We often think of the Right as reacting to the Left. But the anti-patriotism of today's progressives is largely a reaction to the anti-immigration turn of the Right. Progressives are saying that if America embraces White-nationalism as in the 1920s, they want no part of it....
All of the Right's anti-democratic stuff in the Trump era - the coup attempt, election denial, etc. - all grew out of the turn against immigration. These things were an inevitable response to a Great Replacement worldview that said "immigrants are not like us and will never be". . . .
For the GOP to go back to embracing immigration would require it to present conservatism as something people of any race can adopt . . . This is the only way American politics fixes itself.
The only way progressives re-embrace the liberal patriotism of Obama and Clinton is for the Right to return to the conservative pro-immigrant patriotism of Reagan. ... Pro-immigrant conservative patriotism will win victories for the GOP (by broadening its coalition), but it will also cause progressives to re-embrace liberal patriotism in response -- perhaps not instantaneously, but over the course of a decade.
The Right's turn against immigration is the stone in the river of American politics.
I think a critical element of this "replacement" worldview is anger at people who openly and publicly look forward to the day when ordinary Americans are functionally disenfranchised in their own country. It’s not about immigrants themselves or whether they will ever be “like us” There is a perception of open lawbreaking promoted by hostile elites for their own tyrannical political advantage. That not how us Blue people see ourselves, but we should, with humility, recognize how and why we are seen that way, and what the people we have supported have been doing to create this toxic cocktail.
I think Republicans write off the votes of recent immigrants and their immediate descendants as being potentially "gettable" because (a) of the GOP's experience with the black vote over the mid-20th Century and (b) with the exception of certain nationalities with very specific historical reasons (i.e., Cubans), a clear majority of Latino voters voted Democratic for years even before Republicans leaned hard into anti-Latino rhetoric. See: https://www.latinousa.org/2015/10/29/the-latino-vote-in-presidential-races/ (Asian-Americans did use to vote majority Republican, see: https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/09/16/439574726/how-asian-american-voters-went-from-republican-to-democratic , but that (1) that was heavily skewed by anti-Communism reasons that have almost completely faded with more recent Asian immigrants in any event and (2) Asian-Americans until very recently were both a trivially small share of the American electorate and highly inefficiently distributed for political influence purposes, such that alienating them with anti-immigration rhetoric was pretty low cost relative to picking up reactionary white voters in swing states.)
Muslim Americans as well. They used to be mostly Republican as their views are similar to Evangelicals, and 71% voted for Bush in 2000... then 9/11 happened and they flipped Democrat. Reactionary White voters have cost Republicans a lot of easily winnable Latino, Asian, and Middle Eastern voters. As demographic change is inevitable (even deporting every single illegal immigrant won't stop the change), the GOP needs to switch gears ASAP.
The Chatterton Williams piece is interesting, and I appreciate the recommendation, but I'm also not sure what the appropriate response is. On some level my immediate reaction is, "everything he's describing is _bad_" and I don't know that having more nuance changes that.
I also think about the case of Mexican immigrants in the US where immigration has shifted over time as the relative economic opportunities have changed and, I believe, for the last 10 years the net migration has been people moving from the US to Mexico, rather than the reverse, and also note that the migration in the 80s and 90s helped save a number of US cities: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/10/lgm-podcast-latino-cities
I do take seriously the idea that there's some level of immigration that is "too much." I don't know what that level is, but I don't fully endorse open borders. But for anyone talking about "replacement theory" I doubt we could have a productive conversation about what constituted a healthy level of immigration; we'd be starting from too far apart.
Well over a decade ago, law enforcement told Pelosi to back off her anti-white Identity Politics, since the American Alt Right is very violent and paranoid. The 2011 publication of the Grand Replacement in France was based on Europe's admitting Muslims and said that the purpose was to replace White Europeans with dark skinned Muslims.
That exact story does not play well in the United States. The American version was the product of Nancy Pelosi's Identity Politics' claiming when American minorities were the majority of the voters, then they would replace the Whites. If Pelosi were a college student doing a term paper, she would have been expelled for plagiarism. The idea is lunacy since the crucial minority group does not exist; it's the so called Latinx or Hispanics. There are less than 12% Blacks. Thus, Pelosi's threat to replace Whites was too dumb for even the Alt Right to believe if only Blacks would be doing the replacement. Add in the so-called Latinx, then the numbers add up.
Latinx is a faux group. Mexicans are not Cubanos are not Puerto Ricans are not Central Americans and a huge portion of all the components of Latinx are socially conservative. When dealing with uneducated paranoids, facts and logic are not highly prized. Just threatened them -- just make existential threats and they go berserk. That's what Pelosi wanted. She wanted more Alt Rt violence in order to bolster to Identity Politics.
Payton Gendron, The Buffalo shooter, believed this insane theory. Why shouldn't he believe it when the third most powerful person in the nation, The Speaker of the House, was spearheading it? Since hate and fear make money, the Alt Right power mongers also made a fortune promoting the danger of Replacement and the threat of its sister, Critical Race Theory.
We will never know what the American Alt Right would have done with the French Replacement Theory without Nancy Pelosi and the anti-white wokers. The reality which we need to face is that Pelosi and the Wokers are the reason this lunatic theory took hold in America's Alt Right.
Williams' piece has his signature, non-inflammatory tone that I find generous and calming.
What jumped out at me was the term "racialist." radicals on the left and right sound the same on issues of identity: the claim is we are bound to our ethnic/racial groups and the differences are both good and unbridgeable. The defining feature is instead which group is given positive status. The left gives preference to "people of color," the right to white people. Some of the men Williams interviewed insisted what they are concerned about is preservation of culture--don't erase our identity! Where have I heard that song before?
To me, the biggest cultural and political issue the first world faces is the primacy being placed on identity.
This is such a good point. You can't talk about race constantly, and say "everyone gets to be proud of their identity except you (white people)" and expect it to work. At best, whites will be resentful, and at worst they go full white nationalist. I support TCW's vision of making race less important--his book on this is incredibly persuasive.
I loved his book. He gets criticism for not "embracing" his blackness enough, much the way Coleman Hughes does, and Glenn Loury, and John McWhorter, etc etc but really their message is that nobody wins by continuing the fiction of race essentialism. The activists who use this against them use it against white liberals as well: that white people embrace racelessness because it lets us off the hook. In fact I embrace Sheena Mason's Theory of Racelessness in part because no amount of punitive performance art is going to make people any more unified.
I really appreciate this thread!
There are a couple of things I'd like to see distinguished, both in the conversation about this issue and generally (although FWIW, I think the people in this thread are already doing a damn good job of talking about this topic):
~~Great Replacement Theory~~
1. "Great replacement theory" [as in, "The Jews and the liberal elites are orchestrating a massive conspiracy of illegal immigration in order to eliminate the white American population entirely."]
and
2. "Great replacement theory" [as in, "Many politically engaged people on the left have a negative association with 'white American' as a concept and culture, and they're pleased with the idea of America becoming more multicultural, 'less white', and less closed off to immigrants from non-white / non-Western / developing / Global South / whatever term you prefer countries and cultures. Most also support more lenient immigration policy and a small but vocal minority loudly cheer when data suggests the white population is decreasing or people in the 'dominant group' (cis white rich men, etc.) lose power/status or suffer public defeats/failures."]
~~The Left~~
3. "The Left" [as in, "The median person who identifies as left-of-center, liberal, or a Democrat. Probably has moderate to strong left views on most issues, but is generally not extremely dogmatic, hysterical, and insane about culture war issues, at least not when questioned in good faith and allowed to answer in the privacy of their own mind or a nonadversarial one-on-one conversation. On this issue, holds beliefs that basically approximate what you, @Marie, articulated in your other piece on replacement theory, ie. 'No, I am not actively working to see the white population in America diminished, and that's not even something I really have any desire to see happen. Sure, I'd like to see people who come here legally from other countries succeed and flourish, and I hold multiculturalism as a value, but I also care about the well-being of native-born and white Americans, duh.'"]
and
4. "The Left" [as in, "People who use Twitter, read Ibram Kendi and Robyn D'Angelo, went to elite colleges, or are surrounded and strongly influenced by people who have those attributes. Ie. woke people, the 'Progressive activists' of More In Common's report. Both a small minority (numerically) of people left of center AND a powerful and increasingly influential force (culturally, politically, socially) in most major American institutions (media, academia, art, business). On this issue, express opinions consistent with the belief 'It would be better if there were more POC and fewer white people in America, or at least if many (perhaps most, maybe all?) of the white people gave up their positions of power or had them taken away so that POC (and women, and trans people, and non-dominant groups, etc.) could have them instead.'"]
~~American Culture~~
5. "American culture" [as in, "White people, who are the only real and true Americans, unlike those foreign brown people who can't actually ever be American because they didn't come from England or Europe originally and don't speak our language (English, duh) and don't share our values and eat weird food that isn't normal. Under threat as a concept because it should be, because it's parochial and narrow and foolish and mean."]
and
6. "American culture" [as in, "A set of shared values, ideas, norms, and principles originally incarnated by, yes, a group of white people (mostly men) with primarily Anglo origins, Christian/Judeo-Christian religious or spiritual beliefs, a meritocratic entrepreneurial/capitalist ethos, a deep reverence for the "Western tradition" (as defined by the thread of philosophy tracing back to the classical period--Plato, Socrates, etc.), and deeply individualistic / anti-authoritarian leanings. An evolving body of ideals which includes a deeply felt commitment to justice and liberity (better delivered late than never), an appreciation and respect for the valuable contributions to human intellectual, spiritual, artistic, and moral development by people and ideas from people of ALL kinds of different backgrounds, still loving being the best / working hard to achieve excellence, and, of course, the old "melting pot"-- or even better, "fruit salad": not a homogenous mixture of all cultures into one, indistinguishable soup, but rather the combination of distinct cultures which simultaneously retain their original integrity to varying degrees while also integrating into the whole and forming a beautiful dish, which includes BOTH Mexicans and Guatemalans and Russians and Nigerians and Koreans who immigrated AND "white people" who descended from Europeans AND "black people" who descended from African slaves, all co-existing with each other as Americans. Under threat because people who saw flaws (some real, some imagined) in this culture are themselves fallible human beings prone to throwing the baby out with the bathwater and getting caught up in moralizing outrage, rather than holding the nuances of complex systems and appreciating things in context.]
I think I smuggled all my commentary into the descriptions, but I basically believe if we disentangle those we're well on our way. Curious for critiques or reactions!
Yes, agreed, people have some wildly different ideas buried in those two or three word phrases!
(I, for one, am in favor of beginning to talk of an "American Symphony Orchestra" instead of a melting pot. Each person brings their own unique sound, and it might sound a little cacophonous sometimes, but if we work together, we can make beautiful music--evolving together as new people join and we learn from each other.)
I like this metaphor, Marie!
It's a nice metaphor in some ways, like emphasizing the potential synergy if we work together.
Alas, an orchestra implies a leader who chooses the music, the musicians, and who gets to play. So I can imagine this metaphor being easily adopted by the authoritarian left as well (with themselves as the conductor).
I think of it more as a great potluck dinner, with diverse contributions from many sources, without central command authority, and with diners free to choose from a rich panopoly of options. Decentralized. There's no need for everybody to be in lockstep in creating it, or for everyone to have the same tastes in choosing what to consume.
The authoritarian left does not like that; they want to strictly control what foods are on the table, and what people are allowed or required to eat - for only the most noble of purposes of course.
Theodore Roosevelt is known for having said “I stand for straight Americanism unconditioned and unqualified, and I stand against every form of hyphenated Americanism.” and I think like most people have interpreted this as a statement of hostility to immigrant cultures.
But I looked up the speech (given by a man of the oldest of old-line Protestant stock, to an audience of Catholics, and found it very worth reading, considering what we are talking about today.
“Americanism is not a matter of creed, birthplace or national descent, but of the soul and of the spirit. If the American has the right stuff in him, I care not a snap of my fingers whether he is Jew or Gentile, Catholic or Protestant. I care not a snap of my fingers whether his ancestors came over in the Mayflower, or whether he was born, or his parents were born, in Germany, Ireland, France, England, Scandinavia, Russia or Italy or any other country. All I ask of the immigrant is that he shall be physically and intellectually fit, of sound character, and eager in good faith to become an American citizen. If the immigrant is of the right kind I am for him, and if the native American is of the wrong kind I am against him….
Our ancestors came from many different Old World nationalities. It will spell ruin to this nation if these nationalities remain separated from one another instead of being assimilated to the new and larger American life. The children and our children’s children of all of us have to live here in this land together. Our children’s children will intermarry, one another, your children’s children, friends, and mine.
"The effort to keep our citizenship divided against itself by the use of the hyphen and along the lines of national origin is certain to breed a spirit of bitterness and prejudice and dislike between great bodies of our citizens."
If someone considered a jingoist and a racist by many today, can come up with such a clear and liberal exposition of these basic important points more than a century ago, why can't we seem to figure this out today?
I wanted to add one more to your list -- "critical race theory." I've been noticing more people making the argument, "the left talks about race all the time, it shouldn't be surprising that people on the right would respond with their own race-based vision for the country." (I'm sure the discussion here has primed me to pay attention to it), and it reminded me that I recently saw a very helpful working definition of CRT (here: https://timothyburke.substack.com/p/the-news-lawless?s=r)
"The central argument of critical legal studies, which gave rise to critical race theory, is basically that the content of laws and the specifics of legal systems are not really very important in determining what law does in the world or how struggles over ostensibly legal questions will be resolved. . . . . Struggles over and within law about how laws are interpreted or applied are ultimately determined extra-legally."
I think that offers a really good rule of thumb for when to care about race. "Behaviors and outcomes in the world frequently don't match the formally stated rules or goals. If you don't see a gap, or don't need to use race as an explanation, there's no reason to do so. But if think, 'the behavior and outcomes we see wouldn't make sense unless you thought that race was affecting them' then it makes a lot of sense to consider it."
I don't claim that people (on the left, or people in general) always stick to that standard, but I think it is a good way to decide, "is it helpful to think about race in this situation."
I've been thinking a bit about this. On one hand, it seems like a reasonable approach to sorting out when a racial lens is helpful or not. On the other, it feels like something a bit too easily subverted by subjectivity, at least today. (Of course, anything can be so subverted, it's all a matter of degree). Trying to put my finger on it, I notice:
> "the behavior and outcomes we see wouldn't make sense unless ..."
And I realize that for most people, to "make sense" may functionally boil down to "fitting within my preferred narratives" rather than "be the best evidenced explanation".
For some people (for some of the time), the approach used is to develop several hypotheses (potential explanations) and test each against accumulating evidence, giving more weight to those which fit ALL the data better. For others, the intellectual creativity is instead harnessed to fit every new situation into yet another example or confirmation of a pre-existing favored narrative.
I think your proposed rule of thumb is intended for the former group, but the latter group can believe they are following it as well. So if one has an overarching internal model of society which vigorously "centers" race and racism, explanations for a given event which center race and racism will be the ones that "make sense" to one.
It's like the boy with a hammer, to whom the world seems full of virtual nails.
This is not a criticism of the value of the heuristic you offer; more a consideration regarding how carefully it might need to be stated to reduce the misinterpretation by the ideologically (partially) blindered.
I find it hard to interpret Williams' piece, because I don't live in France, and don't really know the country.
But I do think that in America, the dominant model is still that of the "melting pot," as dated as that phrase sounds these days. All the immigrants I know, and I know many, have children who are part of the dominant American culture, not the culture of their parents' home countries.
Part of the implicit deal of becoming an American is that your native culture gets diluted as it mixes with American culture. Your cuisine is still different, but it gets somewhat Americanized. As an immigrant, you may harbor old country national enmities, but you learn to suppress them, and to your kids, it's just one more weird thing the parents believe that your kids ignore.
I think "The Big Sick" got this right when Kumail Nanjiani's character says "Why did you bring me here if you wanted me to not have an American life?"
What I have seen in my life is that these days, for the most part, Americans, red or blue, will lead with acceptance and friendship, rather than fall back on the biases they were brought up with. It has not always been thus, but the difference between America in the 1960s and America today is night and day.
There is still too much identitarian poison in the country today. You see it on the far right as people like Tucker Carlson rail about immigrants overrunning the country. You see it on the far left when politicians pretend that white supremacy is still practiced by the vast majority of white Americans, with the goal of oppressing all non-whites in this country.
Having witnessed all these changes over the last 50+ years, it's pretty sad to watch both sides abandoning America's strengths.
Well I was quite surprised by reading the piece: I don't find Camus' ideas to be racist or crazy at all. On the contrary, he seems to me to be making the very simple argument that (1) every indigenous culture is valuable, and (2) a large enough amount of immigration to a region will destroy its indigenous culture.
This argument strikes me as being obviously correct.
It has very clearly already happened in the New World, where we now all speak Old World languages and adhere to Old World cultural norms. Too bad so sad for the indigenous people who we replaced.
Camus says it could happen again. Why is he wrong?
Well I think the “crazy and racist” part comes in when people less nuanced than Camus jump to the idea that Democrats are orchestrating a grand conspiracy to “import” “subservient” voters from “third world” countries and win elections. One look at the shifts in voter trends from Hispanic Americans ought to be enough to disprove that theory. I do think there’s a thoughtful discussion to be had about the merits and costs of different levels of immigration. But it’s a bit ridiculous to suggest (and I’m not suggesting you’re suggesting this!) that America in particular has an ancient culture that’s been unchanged for millennia. If there’s any constant to our culture, it’s that almost everyone here has a recent ancestor who came here in search of a better life, each generation of immigrants adding and building on the mix of cultures that was already here. Not to mention that in our digitally connected, global world, you get cultural mixing anyway. But I am pro-co-cultural assimilation with pockets of preservation and mutual appreciation; I think you usually get the best of both worlds. For American culture to get wholesale “replaced” or destroyed, you’d have to have an unthinkably massive influx of people from a single other culture. I don’t see it.
I also must object—and I don’t think you or even Camus are saying this—to the idea that American culture is “white.” This idea seems prevalent in both white nationalist circles and super-woke ones. American culture is as rainbow as they come.
"Well I think the “crazy and racist” part comes in when people less nuanced than Camus jump to the idea that Democrats are orchestrating a grand conspiracy to “import” “subservient” voters from “third world” countries and win elections."
As a 66-year-old lifelong Democrat, it frustrates me no end that the Democrats refuse to discuss what they think reasonable immigration levels would be, which allows the conspiracy theories to flourish.
As David Frum put it, "If liberals won't enforce borders, fascists will." https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/david-frum-how-much-immigration-is-too-much/583252/
This is a totally fair critique and definitely part of the “feeding the beast” I mentioned at the top.
More on this from Jeff Maurer:
https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/how-are-democrats-managing-to-lose
I agree that the idea of "Emerging Democratic Majority" was always problematic and has become a catch-phrase that gets used in bad ways. And, you know what, one of the people who wrote the book agrees (and he's not the first person to write a book and then find that the popular version of the idea doesn't match what he was thinking): https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/us/politics/ruy-teixeira-democrats.html
"And even on this raw demographic basis, it’s not crazy that there’s a natural popular-vote Democratic majority in the country. However, that does not translate into political power. We very specifically said — and this is widely ignored — that for this majority to attain and exercise political power, you have to retain a significant fraction of the white working class. The country was changing, but it wasn’t changing that fast.
The second thing we didn’t anticipate was the eventual effect of professional-class hegemony in the Democratic Party — that it would tilt the Democrats so far to the left on sociocultural issues that it would actually make the Democratic Party significantly unattractive to working-class voters."
I recognize that my perspective on the question of immigration is limited because I live in a part of the country where there are fewer immigrants.
Earlier I recommended Bryan Caplan's book on open borders -- because it isn't tied into the current culture wars. I don't think it will convince you about open borders (it didn't convince me) but it might convince you that the capacity of the US to integrate immigrants is larger than you'd think.
I will also recommend Noah Smith's post on immigration. I promise that you will learn things from reading it; it touches on a variety of topics including crime and economic impacts: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/give-us-all-the-refugees-dammit?s=r
But I want to highlight two things. First he points out that, when Reagan left office in 1989, he specifically spoke in favor of immigration (and that Republicans could be a natural political home for immigrants). That article just touches on it, but Noah Smith has speculated that part of the dynamic is that the Republican party (and Republican base) took a strong anti-immigrant position around 2010, and that pushed Democrats further left on immigration because they were appalled by some of the Republican positions. That's not the whole story, but I think that is part of the dynamic.
Secondly he includes a chart showing what % of the US population was foreign born over the last century. It peaked in 1910, his a minimum at 1970 and is getting close to the peak again now.
Two things to note about that are (a) that the current levels of immigration are not that high relative to previous levels (and Canada has a foreign born population that's about 60% higher than the US proportionally speaking) and (b) that people who are currently 67 were 15 when the US had the lowest number of immigrants in history.
That Jeff Maurer article is good.
> "the idea that Democrats are orchestrating a grand conspiracy to “import” “subservient” voters from “third world” countries and win elections. "
To what degree is this different than the "Emerging Democratic Majority" concept that some Democrats openly endorse? The former frames it as a "grand conspiracy" rather than an openly stated strategy, it uses "import from third world countries" instead of "welcome immigrants and refugees from (where??)", and frames the goal "subservient" for "Democratic leaning". That is, the two seem to have the same core concepts, but the first framing uses more easily disparaged wording.
The subset of Democrats wishing to facilitate a stronger majority through expecting (rightly or wrongly) that immigrants will lean Democratic, do not need to completely displace Republicans (like push them into the sea), only to bias elections more strongly towards the Democrats. The people fearing that, (rightly or wrongly) expect the expanded Democratic majority to enforce cultural change on the whole (in part from their own woke momentum, and in part to cater to the newcomers they courted). That wouldn't require an unthinkably massive influx.
Please understand that I'm not endorsing that fear per se, just trying to fairly represent it's perspective.
There are democrats who openly (1) speak about how much they eagerly anticipate having a non-white majority with which they can overwhelm any opposition and implement major socio-political changes without resistance, (2) endorse maximal immigration policies which would (by chance?) help accomplish #1, and also (3) mock the proposed losers of that conflict for holding irrational & absurd fears of #1 happening via #2 with the support of and benefit to the Democrats.
I think the thing that Camus misses is that there is no unchanging indigenous culture. Today, you're seeing Camus rail about immigrants. When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, it was the Academie Francaise railing about English words sneaking into the pure French language (it's a good thing they couldn't see the Internet coming or they'd have stroked out right then and there).
Of course, there are limits to how much social change a society can absorb in a given period and maybe France is near that limit, though I haven't seen much evidence of that.
But in the US? We're not even close. Immigrants come here to *join* the dominant culture, which AFAICT is a combination of free enterprise, capitalism and cultural appropriation / mixing. The biggest negative I can see to large scale *illegal* immigration is that it brings down lower skilled salaries because you have an exploitable group who can't complain to authorities about any employer behavior, no matter how bad. That's a real concern, and I think it is an argument for stronger enforcement of immigration laws. But I don't think it's a cultural issue as much as a pure economic issue.
I don't think he's crazy, and I agree with a statement like, "there is always a threshold at which a quantitative change becomes qualitative; migration was far less extensive in the Middle Ages than it is today. French liberals can surely make a case for immigration without pretending that nothing has changed: a country that in 1900 was almost uniformly Catholic now has more than six million Muslims."
That said, I don't think Camus is arguing in good faith -- or, to be precise, I don't think Camus is making his arguments with the goal of generating conversation and possibly consensus. I think he's pursuing specific political goals, which I happen to think are bad ones.
"On a recent radio appearance, he took a beating from Hervé le Bras, a director emeritus at the Institut National d’Études Démographiques, who said that Camus’s proclamations about ethnic substitution were based on wildly inflated statistics about the number of foreigners entering France. Afterward, Camus breezily responded on Twitter: “Since when, in history, did a people need ‘science’ to decide whether or not it was invaded and occupied?”"
It is descriptions like that which prompted me to say, that while I'm not calling for open borders I also doubt that Camus' work would lead into a productive conversation about how to have healthy immigration.
I will also note (and this is a bit of a tangent), that when comparing the present to historical analogues it's important to consider the role played by capitalism in re-shaping the world. Putting that in a separate comment to keep this from becoming too long . . .
I have lately been spending a lot of time mulling over the teasers that Brad DeLong has been posting for his upcoming book, and one of the major premises is that the present (starting from ~1870) is not like the past. See for example: https://braddelong.substack.com/p/time-to-post-my-675-word-elevator?s=r
In a comment he writes:
"In between 1870 and 2010--during the long 20th century--things were both marvelous and terrible, but in the context of previous human history more marvelous than terrible. The coming of the industrial research lab; of the modern corporation; and of the globalization triple of the iron-hulled ocean-going screw-propellered steamship and of the railroad, of the submarine and land telegraph cable, and of the open world economy--those removed the final barriers to the rapid discovery, development, deployment, and then diffusion of new technologies: new and better ways of manipulating nature and organizing humans to make stuff and do things. After 1870, the deployed-and-diffused technological prowess of humanity doubled every generation, a pace previously unimaginable and unimagined. That meant that the global market economy revolutionized the economy and then re-revolutionized it again, once every generation, in a process of profound and repeated creative destruction in which all established patterns and hierarchies were steamed away.
Technological progress and creative destruction under the aegis of the market economy solved the problem of not being able to make _**enough**_ stuff for all. But it left the problems of distribution and of utilization untouched. Moreover, 140 years of repeated creative destruction of economic patterns upended all of the patterns and bargains that did guide distribution and utilization, and then upended them again. This led to great fear among the powerful: their relative status and power depended on those patterns. And this led to great anxiety among the powerless: they could dream of utopian changes, but they did fear that the market economy would take away what little they had. People think they have rights--to a stable community that validates and nurtures them, to an income commensurate with what they deserve, and to a stable life. But the market economy does not recognize those rights. The market economy recognizes only property rights. Your social power is your wealth and is only your wealth. And you only have wealth if the property rights you possess are to things useful in producing commodities for which the rich have a serious jones."
I think that's an important lens through which to view the conversations about immigration. It's true that people don't like change, and that there's a natural desire to want to protect one's sense of cultural heritage and immigration is only one thread (and not the greatest one) in a world in which the old patterns are being constantly upended.
It is part and parcel of the modern world that people will look around and say, "the world is changing faster than I would have thought" and immigration is part of that, but it seems like a mistake to think that immigration is the primary driver.
It's not the primary driver, but it's one of the most visible.
But it's a red herring, right? No one in the US is harmed when skilled immigrants come here, study and stay here; quite the opposite: we've grabbed an individual who might start a company back in India or China, and they've done it here instead.
The hit to the US economy comes from when a country with a much lower standard of living, and no environmental or labor protections, gets tariff-free entrance to our market. American companies have to obey our environmental laws, but not Chinese companies, for example.
There's an even bigger risk, which we can now see playing out in Europe: integrating authoritarian countries' economies into our economic supply chains make us vulnerable to the behavior of authoritarians. We see this with Putin, but China under Xi Jinping is also far more likely to do something stupid than the country was under a broader-based Politburo that knew it had to deliver the economic goods or else.
My guess is that we will, or at least should, pull back some on economic integration of critical facilities with authoritarian-led countries. Especially China and Russia.
"No one in the US is harmed when skilled immigrants come here, study and stay here; quite the opposite: we've grabbed an individual who might start a company back in India or China, and they've done it here instead."
I don't agree. The US K-12 school system is abysmal at identifying and nuturing STEM talent in any but the wealthiest districts, especially among girls. We are instead betting that some Chinese or Indian college kids will stick around and help us out. I think it's a terrible bet.
Well, considering that it takes 10 years for someone from India to get through the immigration queue to get a green card, it seems that there's a pretty big queue of people who want to stick around. It's not just India, but most countries' H-1B visas queues are large. And I bet we could improve the odds and numbers of STEM grads staying if we increased the number of skilled visas, so that the green card process isn't so onerous.
I'm also not sure how refusing to let talented STEM graduates stay here helps K-12 students in the US.
Sure, and my argument (which is somewhat speculative; I don't want to push too hard on it) is that Camus is doing a disservice to an honest discussion of the issue by pretending that the visible portion is the most important.
Isn’t that what the Emerging Democratic Majority all about? A story in which white native-born Americans recede demographically and permanently lose political power in what they consider to be their own country? It’s a great story if you like multiculturalism. It’s not great if you don’t.
There are estimated to be 10-15 million unauthorized immigrants in this country who are currently ineligible for citizenship. Factoring down, if this could generate 2 or 3 million votes it would make a difference in the ongoing partisan struggles over power in our nation. The idea that Democrats would “own” those votes is still widespread (ironically, on both sides) in spite of hopeful information to the contrary.
Personally, I think that we have to find a path to citizenship for people who are now functionally American, and that America could benefit from more legal immigration. But I also see the fear that this could cause when it’s accompanied by zestful moralism and hostile condemnation from the feared “winners.”
So this conspiratorial “replacement” concept (as it is has been taken up in America) is bizarre and revolting and dangerous, but it doesn’t come from just nowhere. It is part of a toxic mix.
Yeah agree. On that note, it’s a little bizarre to me that conservatives don’t consider the votes of “functionally American” undocumented immigrants as potentially “gettable,” if they (Republicans) weren’t so openly hostile towards them. Immigrants, documented and undocumented, are generally a group of people who value hard work, self-sufficiency, appreciate traditional American values, and are religiously conservative. Why do conservatives write them off as a lock for Democrats? Why to they contribute to that likelihood with outward hostility? (I’m saying this as someone who still prefers that Dems win.)
As a New Yorker, I’ve come across a lot of immigrants who are conservative. I’ve met Eastern European immigrants who are Republicans because they identify Democrats with the socialism that they escaped from. I’ve met Latino citizens who want to send all the “illegals” back where they came from. I”ve seen a street full of small Asian-operated businesses with Republican campaign posters in the windows, come election time. There are lots of Asian and Latino evangelical churches with conservative outlooks.
I think the Republicans are already getting the picture, and will adapt much faster than progressive Democrats. Which is hopeful even though, like you, I am a Democrat. Just today, there’s an interesting piece about this. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/us/texas-republican-wesley-hunt.html
In a weird way, I'm really rooting for a more racially diverse Republican party, because I think it's necessary to break the "high conflict" of politically polarized conceptions of racism. But, like, I still only want them to win like 45% of the time.
I found the Noah Smith thread I was thinking of earlier (and apologies for splitting this train of thought over two comment threads, but it seemed directly applicable to this comment). It's indulging in a fair amount of speculation, but I thought it was interesting: https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1520133882783313920
(here is an abridged version of the thread)
"When the Right abandoned the Reagan/Bush legacy and turned against immigration, it was a break with the consensus patriotism that had evolved since the 80s. It felt like the GOP was declaring that America is only worth loving if it's a supermajority-White nation.Ronald Reagan called for more immigration from Mexico, specifically. He signed the biggest amnesty in our history. Bush tried to do another.When the GOP turned against this legacy, it was a decisive break.Immigration was the core of a patriotism that Left and Right could grudgingly agree on. When the Right turned against immigration, it abandoned patriotism. If the Right wants back in to the mainstream, it needs to embrace immigration again.We often think of the Right as reacting to the Left. But the anti-patriotism of today's progressives is largely a reaction to the anti-immigration turn of the Right. Progressives are saying that if America embraces White-nationalism as in the 1920s, they want no part of it....
All of the Right's anti-democratic stuff in the Trump era - the coup attempt, election denial, etc. - all grew out of the turn against immigration. These things were an inevitable response to a Great Replacement worldview that said "immigrants are not like us and will never be". . . .
For the GOP to go back to embracing immigration would require it to present conservatism as something people of any race can adopt . . . This is the only way American politics fixes itself.
The only way progressives re-embrace the liberal patriotism of Obama and Clinton is for the Right to return to the conservative pro-immigrant patriotism of Reagan. ... Pro-immigrant conservative patriotism will win victories for the GOP (by broadening its coalition), but it will also cause progressives to re-embrace liberal patriotism in response -- perhaps not instantaneously, but over the course of a decade.
The Right's turn against immigration is the stone in the river of American politics.
Once that stone moves, the water can flow again."
I think a critical element of this "replacement" worldview is anger at people who openly and publicly look forward to the day when ordinary Americans are functionally disenfranchised in their own country. It’s not about immigrants themselves or whether they will ever be “like us” There is a perception of open lawbreaking promoted by hostile elites for their own tyrannical political advantage. That not how us Blue people see ourselves, but we should, with humility, recognize how and why we are seen that way, and what the people we have supported have been doing to create this toxic cocktail.
No one is immigrating here to take advantage of a generous welfare state because…. um, we don’t have one.
Compared to the third-world countries many people are emigrating from, we absolutely do.
I think Republicans write off the votes of recent immigrants and their immediate descendants as being potentially "gettable" because (a) of the GOP's experience with the black vote over the mid-20th Century and (b) with the exception of certain nationalities with very specific historical reasons (i.e., Cubans), a clear majority of Latino voters voted Democratic for years even before Republicans leaned hard into anti-Latino rhetoric. See: https://www.latinousa.org/2015/10/29/the-latino-vote-in-presidential-races/ (Asian-Americans did use to vote majority Republican, see: https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/09/16/439574726/how-asian-american-voters-went-from-republican-to-democratic , but that (1) that was heavily skewed by anti-Communism reasons that have almost completely faded with more recent Asian immigrants in any event and (2) Asian-Americans until very recently were both a trivially small share of the American electorate and highly inefficiently distributed for political influence purposes, such that alienating them with anti-immigration rhetoric was pretty low cost relative to picking up reactionary white voters in swing states.)
Muslim Americans as well. They used to be mostly Republican as their views are similar to Evangelicals, and 71% voted for Bush in 2000... then 9/11 happened and they flipped Democrat. Reactionary White voters have cost Republicans a lot of easily winnable Latino, Asian, and Middle Eastern voters. As demographic change is inevitable (even deporting every single illegal immigrant won't stop the change), the GOP needs to switch gears ASAP.
The Chatterton Williams piece is interesting, and I appreciate the recommendation, but I'm also not sure what the appropriate response is. On some level my immediate reaction is, "everything he's describing is _bad_" and I don't know that having more nuance changes that.
So, to some extent, free associating, I would recommend Bryan Caplan's _Open Borders_ as an argument for immigration that's not tied to a left political perspective. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250316967/openborders
I also think about the case of Mexican immigrants in the US where immigration has shifted over time as the relative economic opportunities have changed and, I believe, for the last 10 years the net migration has been people moving from the US to Mexico, rather than the reverse, and also note that the migration in the 80s and 90s helped save a number of US cities: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/10/lgm-podcast-latino-cities
I do take seriously the idea that there's some level of immigration that is "too much." I don't know what that level is, but I don't fully endorse open borders. But for anyone talking about "replacement theory" I doubt we could have a productive conversation about what constituted a healthy level of immigration; we'd be starting from too far apart.
Well over a decade ago, law enforcement told Pelosi to back off her anti-white Identity Politics, since the American Alt Right is very violent and paranoid. The 2011 publication of the Grand Replacement in France was based on Europe's admitting Muslims and said that the purpose was to replace White Europeans with dark skinned Muslims.
That exact story does not play well in the United States. The American version was the product of Nancy Pelosi's Identity Politics' claiming when American minorities were the majority of the voters, then they would replace the Whites. If Pelosi were a college student doing a term paper, she would have been expelled for plagiarism. The idea is lunacy since the crucial minority group does not exist; it's the so called Latinx or Hispanics. There are less than 12% Blacks. Thus, Pelosi's threat to replace Whites was too dumb for even the Alt Right to believe if only Blacks would be doing the replacement. Add in the so-called Latinx, then the numbers add up.
Latinx is a faux group. Mexicans are not Cubanos are not Puerto Ricans are not Central Americans and a huge portion of all the components of Latinx are socially conservative. When dealing with uneducated paranoids, facts and logic are not highly prized. Just threatened them -- just make existential threats and they go berserk. That's what Pelosi wanted. She wanted more Alt Rt violence in order to bolster to Identity Politics.
Payton Gendron, The Buffalo shooter, believed this insane theory. Why shouldn't he believe it when the third most powerful person in the nation, The Speaker of the House, was spearheading it? Since hate and fear make money, the Alt Right power mongers also made a fortune promoting the danger of Replacement and the threat of its sister, Critical Race Theory.
We will never know what the American Alt Right would have done with the French Replacement Theory without Nancy Pelosi and the anti-white wokers. The reality which we need to face is that Pelosi and the Wokers are the reason this lunatic theory took hold in America's Alt Right.