Immigration – Page 9 – The Wrongologist

Robots Are Coming For Your Job

Americans worry that robots could make their jobs irrelevant. A new study shows that they may be correct. The report, Technology at Work v 2.0: The Future Is Not What It Used to Be, was conducted at University of Oxford in association with Citibank. Researchers Carl Frey and Mike Osborne, co-directors of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment, found that 47% of US jobs are at risk of automation in the next two decades.

They also found that the city where you live may influence the risk of your work being automated. Among metro areas, Boston faces the lowest percentage of jobs likely to be automated, while Fresno, Calif., faces the highest. The cities that fared best in the survey have a cluster of skilled jobs, typically because they have developed a strong tech sector. Boston, for instance, which is home to a number of top universities and has many well educated residents, has become a global technology hub, transitioning successfully from its roots as a shipping center and manufacturing economy to a tech/finance center.

Here are the best/worst rankings:

FireShot Screen Capture #079 - Cities at risk of automation-page-001

Even in cities with the lowest percentage of jobs at risk of automation, nearly 40% of jobs could disappear because of technological innovation, the report finds. So how many workers are we talking about? The BLS reports that in December, 2015 our working population was 149.9 million; 40% of that number would be 60 million people unemployed in the next 20 years. Perhaps it won’t be that bad, maybe 20-30 million jobs will replace the approximately 60 million we stand to lose.

No politician will be able to paint a happy face on THAT.

Skeptics will say not to worry, that the economy has always adapted over time, and created new kinds of jobs. The classic example they use is agriculture. In the 1800s, 80% of the US labor force worked on farms. Today it’s 2%. Obviously, mechanization didn’t destroy the economy; it made it better. Food is now really cheap compared to what it used to cost, and as a result, people have money to spend on other things and they’ve transitioned to jobs in other areas.

But, the agricultural revolution was about specialized equipment that couldn’t be transferred to other industries. You couldn’t take farm machinery and have it flip hamburgers. Information technology is totally different. It’s a broad-based general purpose technology.

There just won’t be new jobs available for all these displaced workers.

There will certainly be many new industries, (think nanotechnology and synthetic biology), and those jobs will be highly paid. But they won’t employ many people. They’ll use lots of technology, rely on big computing centers, and be heavily automated.

Think about what Facebook and Twitter have added to the jobs economy: They are two of our very “best” success stories, and they only employ 8,100 workers. They have had a huge impact on society, and have created significant value for their owners, but the total jobs they have created are only a rounding error in the US economy.

Much of what we buy is produced in factories increasingly run with robots, and maintained and operated by small cadres of engineers. Also, keep in mind that globally, some 3 billion people are already looking for work and the vast majority are willing to work for less than the average American.

So, we can expect an ever-greater number of unemployed chasing an ever-shrinking number of jobs that can’t be eliminated or simplified by technology. Thus, the prognosis for many of our medium and some higher-skilled workers appears grim.

Incomes will continue to stagnate, because automation does not threaten unskilled jobs. This is sometimes called “Moravec’s Paradox”, which says that, contrary to traditional assumptions, high-level reasoning requires relatively little computation, but low-level sensorimotor skills require enormous computational resources. The “Roomba” robotic vacuum cleaner remains just an expensive toy. It has had zero impact on the market for janitors and maids like a rechargeable cordless sweeper has done, yet, wages for American janitors and maids have fallen because of competition from the currently unemployed and newly arrived immigrants.

If we forecast continuing technology breakthroughs (and we should), and combine that with the 3 billion people currently looking for work globally, we have to conclude that the planet is overpopulated if the goal is a growing global middle class.

This is why the quest for better technology has become the enemy of sustaining middle class job growth in the developed world.

Can Democrats Win the White Working Class Vote?

Last week, Robert Reich asked a question: Why did the white working class abandon the Democrats?

Before we get to his answer, let’s look at a few electoral facts:

• In 1980, Ronald Reagan won 56% of all white voters and won in a 44-state landslide.
• In 2012, Mitt Romney carried 59% of all white voters, yet lost decisively.
• In both 2008 and 2012, Republicans’ best result was with white voters without college degrees. They carried them by 14% in 2008 and 26% in 2012.

Reich offers two answers: First, that the Republicans skillfully played the race card from the 1960s through to today. Reich makes the point that in the wake of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, segregationists like Alabama Governor George C. Wallace led southern whites out of the Democratic Party. And later, Ronald Reagan charged Democrats with coddling black “welfare queens,“ while George HW Bush accused them of being soft on black crime (Willie Horton), and all Republicans say that Democrats use affirmative action to give jobs to less-qualified minorities over more-qualified whites.

Reich’s second point is that Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and in that time they largely abandoned the white working class, doing little to prevent the wealthy and powerful from rigging the economy for the benefit of those at the top. On the other hand, at the time Bill Clinton ran for president, the Democratic Party had lost three straight presidential elections and won only two out of the previous six. That political reality certainly had an effect on policy.

During the Obama years, Democrats did produce some weak tea for the middle class and the poor – including the Affordable Care Act, an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Family and Medical Leave Act. Reich goes on to indict our most recent Democratic presidents:

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements, for example, without providing the millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs any means of getting new ones that paid at least as well. They also stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the white working class.

Reich says that partly as a result of NAFTA, union membership sunk from 22% of all workers when Bill Clinton was elected president to fewer than 12% today, and the working class lost bargaining leverage to get a share of the economy’s gains.

Finally, Dems turned their backs on campaign finance reform. After 2010’s Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the floodgates to big money in politics were opened. Reich again indicts Democrats: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

What happens when you combine freer trade, shrinking unions, Wall Street bailouts, growing corporate market power, and the abandonment of campaign finance reform? You shift political and economic power to the wealthy, and you shaft the working class.

Can the Democrats earn back the working class voter? Well, when the dogs won’t eat the dog food, it may be time to think about changing brands. Any competent politician knows that. When 45% of the electorate claim to be independents, something is wrong with both parties. The White Working Class is being ignored by the Democrats and is courted by the Republicans, although with less and less success, unless you happen to think that Donald Trump is a Republican.

What has the wage earning class gained from the Democrats? Social and economic betrayal. From the Republicans? War and economic betrayal. They watch jobs disappear to Asia, and see increased competition from immigrants. Many feel threatened by cultural liberalism, at least the type that sees white Middle Americans as Christian bigots and 2nd Amendment fanatics.

But they are also threatened by Republicans who would take away their Medicare, hand their Social Security earnings to fund-managers in Connecticut, and cut off their unemployment.

These are the reasons why Sanders and Trump are able to compete with the establishment elites of both parties. But nothing in politics is ever final. Democrats could still win back the white working class. They would need to:

• Have a vision that would create economic growth that was not based on trickle-down
• Build a coalition of the working class and poor, of whites, blacks, and Latinos, of everyone who has been or is currently being shafted by the shift in wealth and power to the investor class and the salaried class

Will Democrats stop obsessing over upper-income suburban voters, and end their financial dependence on big corporations, Wall Street, and the wealthy?

Probably not.

Why 2016 Won’t Be Like Any Other Election

If we add together the polling numbers of Trump, Sanders and Cruz, it’s clear that a majority of the electorate is ready for a president from well outside the political mainstream.

Start with the Trump slogan, “Make America Great Again“. It’s the first time in Wrongo’s memory that an explicit admission that America isn’t so great has been heard in an American presidential election. In a world where American Exceptionalism is settled dogma, how and why can a Republican say “we ain’t so great”, and be so successful?

Of course, that same dynamic also drives the willingness of voters to support the Democratic Socialist, Sanders. Bernie offers a different solution to the economic woes that the two parties have inflicted on us in the 35 years since we elected Ronald Reagan. Now, a substantial and very motivated part of the electorate on both the right and left, is telling pollsters that something different has to be on the table.

The old electioneering rules won’t work. We are in a time of anger and anxiety. Republicans go for the emotional jugular every day, while establishment Democrats are still trying to make points with a mix of policy, pragmatism and feel-good idealism. Democrats will have to decide whether they see the current political landscape as an opportunity to free themselves of these old terms of debate, or take full ownership of them moving forward.

Regardless of the GOP candidate, emotion will dominate their argument for the White House. John Michael Greer had an insightful piece last week about ways to look at voter motivations in America:

The notion [is] that the only divisions in American society that matter are those that have some basis in biology. Skin color, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability—these are the lines of division in society that Americans like to talk about, whatever their attitudes to the people who fall on one side or another of those lines.

The axiom in politics is that voters in these “divisions” tend to vote as blocs, and campaigns are designed to bring the bloc to the candidate. That’s less true today. Greer takes a deep dive into today’s politics, suggesting the largest differentiator:

It so happens that you can determine a huge amount about the economic and social prospects of people in America today by asking one remarkably simple question: how do they [earn] most of their income?

He posits that it’s usually from one of four sources: returns from investments, a monthly salary, an hourly wage, or a government welfare check. People who get most of their income in one of those four ways have political interests in common, so much so that it’s meaningful to speak of the American people as divided into an investor class, a salaried class, a wage class, and a welfare class.

The old divisions, women, gay people, people of color, are found in all four income classes. Finally JMG has a killer thought: The political wave that Trump and Sanders are riding has roots in the answer to another simple question: Over the last half century, how have the four classes fared? The answer is that three of the four have remained roughly where they were. The wage class in particular has been destroyed. And the beneficiaries were the investor and salaried classes. They drove down wages, offshored production, and destroyed our manufacturing base. More from JMG:

I see the Trump candidacy as a major watershed in American political life, the point at which the wage class—the largest class of American voters…has begun to wake up to its potential power and begin pushing back against the ascendancy of the salary class.

That pushback could become a defining force in American politics. The problem with that viewpoint is that their desired change is anti-business and anti-middle-class. And THAT change is not acceptable to those who control our politics, most of whom are squarely in the investor and salaried classes.

And a Trump candidacy is not the worst form it could take. If Trump is sidelined by another establishment type, a future leader who takes up the cause of the wage class could very well be fond of armbands or, of roadside bombs. Like the Bundy Brigade on steroids.

Once the politics of resentment becomes a viable strategy, anything can happen.

Read Greer’s analysis. Think about how the salaried class attack on Bernie as “socialist” might actually play out for Sanders, assuming he could analyze and communicate what is really going on here.

Think about how Hillary Clinton might stumble over the problems of the wage class, given her fervid support from the investor and salaried classes.

The usual fight for independent voters using conventional wisdom will not succeed in this political cycle.

Hispanic Millennials Could Hold Key to 2016

Two of yesterday’s news stories may work together to provide a key to the 2016 election. First, from Pew Research: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Hispanic millennials will account for nearly half (44%) of the record 27.3million Hispanic eligible voters projected for 2016—a share greater than any other racial or ethnic group of voters…

The median age among the nation’s 35 million US -born Latinos is only 19, and Latino youth will be the main driver of growth among Latino eligible voters for the next two decades.

Latinos made up 17.4% (55 million) of the nation’s population in 2014. They were 11.4% of eligible voters, but only 7.3% of actual US voters. But percentages are not the full story. In 2016, a projected 11.9 million Hispanic millennials will be eligible to vote. Pew gives some perspective on Hispanic voters, who vote at lower levels than other groups:

Pew Hisp Voters

The chart above shows that in 2012, fewer than half (48%) of Hispanic eligible voters cast a ballot. By comparison, 64.1% of whites and 66.6% of blacks voted.

Can that be turned around? Part of the answer is that Hispanic millennials register to vote at a lower rate than other millennial groups. 50% of Hispanic millennial eligible voters said they were registered to vote in 2012, compared with 61% of white millennials and 64% among black millennials. And only 37.8% of them actually turned out to vote in 2012.

Although they are the largest cohort of Hispanics, they vote less often. The voter turnout rate among Latino millennials also trails that of other millennial groups. 47.5% of white millennials and 55% of black millennials voted in 2012.

Given that Hispanic millennials are the largest bloc of Hispanic voters, and since they are less likely to cast a ballot than older voters, there is an opportunity for either party if they can turn out Hispanic millennials.

The second piece of news bears on the turnout discussion. Yesterday, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) took up the case US vs. Texas. This case, brought by 26 Republican-controlled states, addresses whether President Obama exceeded his powers by using an executive order to try to shield millions of illegal immigrants from deportation. Mr. Obama’s immigration program, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA), is currently blocked by adverse decisions in several lower courts.

DAPA is very popular among Hispanics, particularly with millennials.

Mr. Obama’s executive order has become one of the most contentious topics in the nation’s political debate. Every Republican candidate for the party’s presidential nomination is against Obama’s plan. The Democratic candidates all say they would keep it in place.

If SCOTUS sides with Texas, eliminating the DAPA program, Hispanics will have a reason to register and to vote in the 2016 election, since, should a Republican become president, there is no possibility that a DAPA-like program would be passed.

If SCOTUS sides with the president, Hispanics should turn out to elect a new Democrat president, who will ensure this executive order remains in place.
It is expected that the Court will take up the case in April, and there will be a decision in June, right in the middle of the 2016 election cycle, so this issue may energize Hispanic millennials and Hispanics generally to turn out in 2016.

We all know that turnout matters. Pew used the Cook Political Report’s analysis of toss-up states that projects nine states as tossups: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin; and looked at the Hispanic voter demographics in those states:

Pew Tossup states

Hispanic turnout will clearly matter in Florida, Nevada and Colorado, and possibly in Virginia and Pennsylvania. They add up to 67 electoral votes and could be a key to the 2016 elections. And despite the immigration controversy, nearly all of these voters are US born. According to Pew, the second-largest group of eligible voters is adult Hispanic immigrants who are in the US legally, and are naturalized citizens. Between 2012 and 2016, 1.2 million became citizens.

The Hispanic vote could make it an interesting fall.

Angry Men Now a Political Force

The spin after the SOTU was about how angry voters are, and the political opening that creates, despite the genuine good news on the economy. Here is Mr. Obama from the SOTU:

Most of all, democracy breaks down when the average person feels their voice doesn’t matter; that the system is rigged in favor of the rich or the powerful or some narrow interest.

We can’t change the fact that some people are angry, but this article from the Washington Monthly by Andrew Yarrow points to some stunning facts about how men in particular have been left by the wayside of American life:

At least 20% of the nation’s 90 million white men have been pushed to the sidelines, either retreating or storming out of the mainstream of American life. They are not the men you see at work, who play with their children, go out with their wives or partners, are involved in their communities, and earn a living to save for their children’s education and their own retirement. What they do doesn’t register in…the gross domestic product…

Yarrow continues:

We know that they are out there. But they don’t fit old stereotypes of failure, so we’ve had trouble coming to grips with who they are or naming the problem. Parts of their stories have garnered significant attention, but we don’t see that what have been treated as separate problems are closely related.

Here are a few statistics from the article that merit your attention:

• Today, fewer than seven out of ten American men work; in the 1950s, nine out of ten worked.
• Since the 1970s, inflation-adjusted incomes for the bottom 80% of men have fallen, with the most dramatic declines occurring among the bottom 40%, most of whom do not have a college education.
• Today, just half of men are husbands; in 1960, three-fourths of men were married.
• As Barack Obama leaves office, only two out of three children live with their fathers; when John Kennedy was elected President, nine out of ten children lived with their fathers.
• Today, 43% of 18-to-34-year-old American men live with their parents (compared to 36% of millennial women); in 1960, about 28% lived at home.
• There are 36% more women in college than men, whereas in 1970, there were about 35% more men than women in college.
• Men are 50% less likely to trust government than women.
• In recent years, there has been a roughly 20-point gender voting gap, with white men being much more likely not only to vote for Republicans but to express disillusionment and anger toward government; until about 1980, men and women voted roughly evenly for Democrats and Republicans.

The point is that a lot has gone wrong for many white men, a demographic that once was the epitome of privilege and high expectations. And while politicians discuss stagnant wages, broken families and inequality, few notice, much less talk about the probable linkages between these issues and the impact of angry males on our politics.

Some may be thinking that this is a manufactured issue. After all, men still out-earn women, and they still hold most of the CEO and board–level jobs. And none of this white male angst should obscure the continuing struggles of women and people of color, including men of color. African-American and Latino men have had it worse than white men for a very long time.

But we ignore any group’s anger at our peril. The Bundy Brigade’s antics in Utah and Oregon is just one recent example. Many men are mad as hell, and their anger is often turned on scapegoats: Government in the case of the Bundys; Muslims, immigrants, African Americans, and Latinos in the case of others.

In 2016 we are seeing several presidential candidates feeding from the trough of this anger. Playing to the inchoate anger of a sizable minority of white men who have been benched economically, or who simply left the field, is a dangerous demagoguery, one that only benefits the demagogues.

Christmas Eve, 2015

Christmas Eve. Deer fencing is up, despite 60° weather and lots of other things for deer to eat just now. The fence makes the deer sad, and Ms. Oh So Right so very happy. Decorations are in place, presents are wrapped. Now we await the arrival of kids, grand-kids, family and friends over the next few days. Merry Christmas to all who read the Wrongologist!

No room at the inn, or even at the shelter. Maybe some room in your hearts:

COW No Room for Mary News you can’t use:

Earlier this month 59 Senators put their political differences aside for a Secret Santa gift exchange. (Fiscal Times) It was the fifth annual Secret Santa exchange since Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) brought the tradition to the Senate. Like at most offices, the gifts were lame.

More than 50 police officers involved in fatal shootings this year had previously fired their guns in deadly on-duty shootings. (WaPo) For a handful of officers, it was their third fatal shooting. For one officer, it was his fourth. Nothing to see here.

Republican Poverty: 93 of the poorest 100 counties in America are in red states. (Addicting Information) The overwhelming majority of the poorest counties in America are located in Republican controlled states, subject to Republican economic policies. Most of these Republican controlled states have an overwhelming Republican Senate and House majority, many even have a supermajority. Yet, despite Republican claims of superior economic policies, poverty is rampant where they rule.

Sued over old debt, and blocked from suing back. (NYT) Loan agreements force people into arbitration, but the banks and finance companies do not have to arbitrate, they can sue. This denies debtors access to the courts to contest the seizure of their property. That should be an unconstitutional denial of due process. But unfortunately, SCOTUS ceded that important bit of the US Constitution to the private sector in ATT v. Concepcion. Another knot in the noose that Capital should hang by.

Remember “reshoring”? Manufacturing jobs were supposedly returning to the US from Asia. Not so much. In fact, Offshoring has outpaced On-shoring in every year since 2004 except for 2011. (Global Economic Analysis)

CBGB, the mecca of punk music in the 1970s, closed this year, only to now be revived as a restaurant at Newark Airport. When Hilly Kristal opened CBGB OMFUG on the Bowery in 1973, he served his special chili—cooked in the presence of the chef’s pet rat. Rumors were that “Hilly’s Chili” contained unsavory seasonings like cigarette ashes and (occasionally) bodily fluids. But you went there for the music, not the food. Surely the food at the CBGB’s at EWR will contain better ingredients. And chili is on the new menu.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – Moar Terror, Moar Gunz Edition

The argument has already started: “They were Arabs, and no amount of gun control would have stopped them.” The OMG, they were Muslim Terrorists (!!) yelp obscures two problems: America has 300+ million guns in the hands of 320 million citizens. We’ve allowed guns to become ubiquitous. Second, the vast majority of American deaths from guns do not involve Muslims. The NYT reports that there’s been a mass shooting of four or more people in America every day in 2015. Including San Bernardino, a total of 462 people have died and 1,314 have been wounded in such attacks this year. Republicans tell us that this is the cost to water the Tree of Liberty.

Wrongo has no problem with gun ownership. If people wish to own guns for hunting or self-defense, fine. If people hunt for food, fine. If they hunt for sport, they should examine their consciences, to see if they can find one.

But no one needs dozens, much less scores of guns. No one needs semi-automatic, or worse, automatic weapons, other than to kill lots of their fellow citizens. You can defend your house nicely with a pump-action shotgun with ‘00 buckshot. You don’t need a 30-round magazine and a semi-automatic AR or AK rifle. The legitimate reasons to have a gun are:

• You are a cop
• You are registered in an organized, regulated militia
• You hunt for food
• You feel the need for home protection.

These purposes can be accommodated within a framework of reasonable laws. But unlike freedom of speech, or assembly, or religion, where most people see rational limits for other Constitutional rights such as: you can’t threaten a person’s life and claim a 1st Amendment privilege, or form a lynch mob. But, when it comes to the 2nd Amendment, people make the most extreme demands for freedom to own any weapon.

We cannot stop terrorist attacks on our soil. Despite our federal surveillance and the training of local police, more attacks are coming. It only takes a few people to pull off such attacks, weapons are easy to obtain in the US, and the materials to make explosives are everywhere.

We will see more virulent Islamophobia, and more restriction of immigration. What we won’t see is more restrictions on who/how many guns people can own, despite the fact that we could make it more difficult for those who want to commit these atrocities.

One shooting victim we’d like to see:

In other news, it’s beginning to look a lot like Trump:

New poll has The Donald at 36% among Republicans:

The Zuckerberg donation: A good thing, or a PR thing?

America’s PTSD

America has been in a defensive crouch since 9/11. The mere mention of domestic terrorists or a terrorist attack inside the US causes many of us to suspend rational thought, and beg our politicians to protect us, even though the risk of dying from a terrorist attack is very small.

How small? In 2014, there were four terrorism-related incidents in the US involving Muslim-Americans that killed seven people. The total number of fatalities in the US from terrorism by Muslim-Americans since 9/11 is 50 souls. Meanwhile, we have had more than 200,000 murders in the US since 9/11.

The ethical question we face is: Do Americans deserve peace of mind more than Syrians refugees deserve safety?

We look to our leaders to help answer that question, but they can be cowards. They should do everything they can to help the rest of us be brave, and do the right thing, even if it entails some measure of risk. That’s true if we’re talking about restrictions on how much privacy we’ll cede to the government, or if we’re thinking about allowing Syrian refugees on our soil.

But, it seems most politicians prefer to play to our PTSD, fanning our fears.

The Paris terrorist attacks were a tactical loss in the war against ISIS. But the only way it leads to a strategic defeat, as the blog Political Violence @ A Glance writes, is if we let this attack divide us along religious lines, provoking non-Muslims vs. Muslims.

ISIS is geographically contained. To the east, Iran and the weak but stable Iraqi government are not going anywhere. To the north, the Syrian Kurds, and behind them Turkey, block ISIS. To the west, the Assad regime plus Syrian rebels block ISIS progress, particularly with the support of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. To the south, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are supported by the US and are not likely to fall. Lebanon is the weak link, but it is supported by Iran.

Here is a view of the current state of play in Syria:

Source: New York Review of Books

The purple area is controlled by the Syrian Kurds. The remaining open border with Turkey shown above is the primary route that ISIS uses for trade, to add jihadists and deliver war supplies. Sealing it seems to be among Russia’s top priorities, and it is also a priority for the Syrian Kurdish YPG. However, it is not a priority of the US, or Turkey.

Given these facts on the ground, the Paris attacks are militarily insignificant. However, they could be significant if we make bad decisions.

America’s post 9/11 PTSD affliction makes us happily willing to abrogate parts of the US Constitution, like the damage already done to the 4th Amendment. Consider this week’s hand-wringing about our surveillance capabilities by CIA Director John Brennan, who wants to force companies to give the government encryption keys for their new applications.

He wants better domestic spying, and fewer domestic rights, to help fight ISIS.

It appears that the House will vote Thursday to change the screening process for refugees from Syria and Iraq. The bill requires the government to create a new process that “certifies” that refugees aren’t a security threat. Since the bill has no recommendations about the certification process, it acts to “pause” immigration while the bureaucrats work something out.

Or, consider the religious test that some Republicans want to impose on Syrian immigrants. If we allow Syrian Christians to migrate here while banning Muslims, we have created an unconstitutional religious test that violates part of the First Amendment.

And, the backlash against Syrian immigrants by US state governors sets up a possible Muslim vs. non-Muslim confrontation. It abrogates even more of the Constitution. It is a short step from saying no Muslims in a state, to saying that only Christians can live in a particular state.

But, Chris Cillizza at the WaPo says that Democrats need to be very careful about demonizing Republicans over Syrian immigration:

The political upside for Republican politicians pushing an immigration ban on Syrians and/or Muslims as a broader response to the threat posed by the Islamic State sure looks like a political winner.

This is backed up by Pew Research Center’s 2014 survey examining Americans’ view on Islamic extremism:

So to most Americans, it doesn’t seem xenophobic, or crazy to call for an end to accepting Syrian refugees.

OTOH, Republicans say that Second Amendment still needs more protection. There are people all across America that are willing to weaken many Amendments, but not the one that lets them walk the streets with AR-15’s.

Yet, what the electorate will remember in 2016 is that Democrats wanted more foreigners to come here, while Republicans wanted to protect them from terrorists. Fear sells and motivates. Reasoned, nuanced discussion bores us, and is ignored.

So, don’t expect leadership to be brave.

At this point, while we may have some responsibility to help protect political refugees, it is probably not worth losing an election over.

See you on Sunday

Bed-wetting vs. Leadership, Part Deux

We shouldn’t minimize the seriousness of the Paris attack. But we should realize that the biggest danger terrorism poses to our society comes from the wrong-headed responses it can inspire.

Consider Marco Rubio: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

This is not a geopolitical issue where they want to conquer territory and it’s two countries fighting against each other…They literally want to overthrow our society and replace it with their radical, Sunni Islamic view of the future. This is not a grievance-based conflict. This is a clash of civilizations.

America is not going to become a Caliphate, Mr. Rubio.

Or Trump on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe“, saying we might have to close Mosques:

I would hate to do it, but it’s something you’re going to have to strongly consider, because some of the ideas and some of the hatred is coming from these areas…

Or consider that 25 Republican governors vowed to block the entry of Syrian refugees into their states, arguing that the safety of Americans was at stake after the Paris attacks. Or, the recent poll by PPP in North Carolina, showing that 40% of Republicans thought Islam should be illegal in the US.

In Congress, the GOP is taking a stand against Syrian immigration, linking it to the current budget discussions with the White House on the omnibus spending bill that appropriates funding for the next 10 months. It, or some other measure, must pass by December 11th. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has sent the WH a letter calling for restrictions on Obama’s plan to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees into the US over the next year. Sessions called for a separate vote by Congress on funding Syrian immigration, which is highly unlikely to pass in the current political climate.

Sessions is saying he is for a government shut-down if Obama vetoes the Syrian immigration funding bill.

Preventing Syrian immigration polls very well. Instead of “Immigrants, eek!!!” it’s “Syrian refugees, eek!!!” But there is a legitimate concern among both Democrats and Republicans that we not let terrorists into our kitchen.

The Democrat’s problem is that one terrorist among 10,000 Syrian immigrants will be considered a failure of policy and execution of the policy. We shouldn’t scapegoat Syrian refugees, and reasonable, logical people won’t do that. The issue is our electorate is seldom reasonable or logical. That means that Democrats are going to be on the wrong side of the electorate when it comes to this issue UNLESS they can somehow address those fears.

This all started in the Democratic debate. CBS Host John Dickerson asked each candidate to respond to a Republican talking-point about whether or not they were prepared to call ISIS “radical Islamists.” But he got push-back from both Sanders and Clinton. So, Dickerson attempted to make the argument about why what words you use matters:

The critique is that the softness of language betrays a softness of approach. So if this language – if you don’t call it by what it is, how can your approach be effective to the cause?

You should focus on Dickerson’s usage of “softness of approach”. Here is Nancy LeTourneau about Dickerson’s point:

Once again, the Republicans are attempting to fear-monger us into making stupid moves in order to avoid being labeled “soft on terrorism.” So it’s time for Democrats to get out ahead of this kind of fear-mongering…When it comes to terrorism, we’d don’t need the bellicose chest-thumping we’re hearing from Republicans, we need leadership that is smart on terrorism.

It would be useful to remember what President Obama said to Matt Yglesias about this in February:

…this is going to be a generational challenge in the Muslim world and the Middle East that not only the United States but everybody’s going to have to deal with. And we’re going to have to have some humility in recognizing that we don’t have the option of simply invading every country where disorder breaks out. And that to some degree, the people of these countries are going to have to, you know, find their own way. And we can help them but we can’t do it for them…

Obama went on: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

The real challenge for the country not just during my presidency but in future presidencies is recognizing that leading does not always mean occupying. That the temptation to think that there’s a quick fix to these problems is usually a temptation to be resisted.

The American right’s unwillingness to distinguish between victim and perpetrator, or between ally and enemy, does not bode well for our struggle against extremism. Our threat is not just terrorism, but also a reactionary political backlash that could create nationalistic, xenophobic governments both here and in Europe.

Let’s hope cooler heads prevail.

Special Privilege for Cuban Immigrants

Ever heard of the Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA) of 1966? It says that Cuban citizens don’t have to follow US immigration laws in the same way as other nationalities. If they pass a background check at the point of entry, Cubans are free to stay in the US, get jobs and pursue legal permanent residence after just one year.

The law has been maintained by nine US presidents and 25 Congresses, based on the argument that Cubans had to flee communism, making them political refugees in need of added protection. Although it has been reviewed by many presidents, including Mr. Obama in 2014, it remains in place.

But the special status for Cubans isn’t limited to a free pass into the country. In an example of anti-communism run amok, Florida politicians have gotten Congress to pass legislation that increased US government assistance to Cubans from handouts of powdered milk and cheese, to a multi-billion dollar entitlement.

Aid to Cuban immigrants — who are granted immediate access to welfare, food stamps and Medicaid — has ballooned from a $1 million federal allocation in 1960 to $680 million a year today.

How did Cubans become the only nationality with unfettered access to US government benefits? Florida’s Sun Sentinel has been writing investigative reports about Cuban privilege for some time. Today, we focus on their three-part series on extra benefits that accrue to Cubans. Part 1, Welfare to Cuba, covers the hidden news that Cuban immigrants are cashing in on US welfare and returning to Cuba, making a mockery of the premise that they are refugees fleeing persecution. Part 2, Cubans retire to Florida – with help from US taxpayers, covers the untold story of Cubans coming to Florida to retire. When they get here, they qualify immediately for food stamps and Medicaid. If they are over 65 with little or no income, they also can collect a monthly check of up to $733 in Supplemental Security Income (SSI) even though they never lived or worked here.

Part 3, Florida politicians protect special status for Cubans, shows how over the years, Florida politicians protected the special status given to Cuban immigrants, transforming US government assistance into a multi-billion dollar Cuban entitlement:

• Sen. Lawton Chiles (D-FL) successfully pushed an amendment guaranteeing Cuban immigrants’ eligibility for SSI, when Congress created the program in 1972.
• During the 1980 Mariel Boatlift, Florida’s congressional delegation got Congress to authorize $100 million in financial aid to the 125,000 Cuban migrants. And they also got Congress to create a special category for Cuban immigrants that made new arrivals eligible for government benefits for decades to come.
• Cubans were able to dodge the Clinton welfare reform in the 1990s. While other immigrants were barred from benefits for five years, Cubans could collect aid upon arrival. This was orchestrated by Miami’s Cuban-American members of Congress at the time, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R) and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, (R). Ros-Lehtinen is still in Congress. BTW, Diaz-Balart’s uncle is Fidel Castro.

One of Florida’s justifications was that it should not have to shoulder the total costs of educating, housing and providing health care to thousands of new immigrants each year. So, after enshrining in law a mass migration to Florida, they outsourced the costs of the Cuban benefit program to taxpayers throughout the US.

The scamology is demonstrated by the Sun Sentinel’s investigation that found that Cubans are disproportionately represented among foreign-born recipients of SSI. In 2013, one in 10 Cubans was collecting SSI, compared to one in 25 immigrants from all other nations.

The Sun Sentinel found that the US policy of treating Cubans as refugees who require special treatment endures even as the rationale for it fades with the restoration of US-Cuba diplomatic relations. Many Cubans now come to America for economic opportunity, but they’re granted public support as victims of oppression, while frequently returning to Cuba, often staying there for months, while We the People keep paying.

Some elderly Cuban migrants move in with their grown children or relatives already here, but still receive US aid even though their families have the means to support them. The Sun Sentinel found:

• A couple with a toddler in south Miami-Dade County, with a combined annual income of $125,000, brought over the husband’s 67-year-old father, who then collected food stamps and $8,400 a year in SSI.
• A Miami Lakes woman and her husband took in her aging parents, who qualified for $7,200 a year in SSI. The family’s household income: $144,200.

Indications are that these are not isolated cases. Miami-Dade leads the nation among large counties in the percentage of people over 65 receiving SSI. About two-thirds of Miami’s elderly SSI recipients are Cuba natives.

You have probably noticed that the majority of Republicans (including all of the presidential candidates) are completely silent on this, a subject they would howl about if it were a preference for different immigrant group. And Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have been direct beneficiaries of this law.

While Florida Dems also support the CAA, it is the Republican Party who defends it, and who does a good job of keeping public awareness the Act below the radar. That will continue, since Republicans hope to see Cubans vote as a bloc to help win Florida in 2016 and secure a GOP presidential win.

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Immigration