There are different groups of people that respond to different sides of that message, and the people who broadcast either or both sides have differing motives as well. Countering it effectively requires understanding the problem.
The anti-welfare shtick comes from the political donor class - the capitalists, ie billionaires. Lack of a safety net gives them more leverage to negotiate lower wages within the businesses they own, and less government spending results in lower interest rates on the loans they use to grow their industries. The narrative is often framed as concerns over sharing limited resources, but the true motive is the elimination of the safety net - if enough of the working class can be convinced that the system isn’t fair, that creates casus belli to delete the system.
The other side of the argument is about supply and demand of labor as a commodity. As supply goes up, the price goes down, resulting in lower wages. Its a fundamental weakness of unregulated markets operating in the context of uneven global development. Immigrants from the poorer parts of the world can accept below market rate salaries and still come out ahead, but they drive down wages of the local economy in the process. A “free” market gives the capitalists, ie billionaires, power akin to the divine right of kings - with enough capital, they can game the market to suppress competition, establish monopolies, and perpetually remain in positions of ultimate executive authority. Therefore, regulating the market to make it truly free isn’t in their interest, so instead the propaganda organs they own - CNN, Fox ‘News’, etc… - blame the immigrants for pursuing rational self-interest as if it were a moral failing, instilling hatred in part of the working class toward other working class people to garner political support for representatives who pay lip service to anti-immigration policy. Such policy isn’t actually passed - it would result in better wages and the capitalists don’t want that - but the lip service wins elections in some states while also preventing the conversation from shifting to possible regulation to solve the problem of low wages.
blame the immigrants for pursuing rational self-interest as if it were a moral failing, instilling hatred in part of the working class toward other working class people to garner political support for representatives who pay lip service to anti-immigration policy
^ Tip of the spear right there. Gets votes!
But let’s talk real talk. Americans want slaves. I can provide 100 anecdotes, but they all come to the same observation, we want cheap labor. Immigrants provide it and we can’t do without it.
And it’s not just the “evil capitalists”. If a Mexican dude tells me his gang will refloor my living room for $5/hr. per man, I’m all in because I can’t afford to pay “real” labor prices. Either they make some money, or no one gets paid and my carpet is rotting.
OK, one anecdote. My wife is Filipina, not a US citizen. Her education in early childhood education is stunning. I’ve watched countless videos of her private school back home. And I’m screaming, “FFS! Why are we not teaching our children like this?! Why are our teachers not trained like this?!”
She had to quit her job teaching because the airport hotel pays far more. Philippinos are in demand because everyone knows they work hard, don’t bitch and are grateful for what they get. LOL, she was hired on the spot, just for walking in the door and asking.
Meanwhile, I make $80K for sitting and sleeping my ass off working for a software dev, from home.
Don’t know where I’m going with this. Guess when we Americans say we’re a “nation of immigrants”, we really mean, “a nation of immigrants who started as slaves and worked their way up the food chain over a generation or two”.
If a Mexican dude tells me his gang will refloor my living room for $5/hr. per man, I’m all in because I can’t afford to pay “real” labor prices.
IDK if that’s really the general case. Everyone in my social circles tips well and pays decent wages when they need help, even though we’re all kinda poor. I’m sure there are some people who feel differently, but I suspect the majority are decent folks who treat others the way they want to be treated themselves.
I’m not american, don’t live in america and have nothing against imigration, specially people getting out of horrible situations but I saw a pitcure the other day with thousands of people crossing the whole central america on foot, with little babies, to reach the US and that was scary and very sad. At that point just take over the whole country and make it another american state. Crazy
Wait till you see the videos of mothers literally chucking their infants/toddlers over the wall, hoping that they will be found by someone on the other side and cared for… in a desert no less. Better dead than having to go back to where they came from, it would seem. Either way they are aware that they will never see them again.
And it gets even weirder when people keep finding literal child slaves, used for both their work product & sex it would seem, up in farms even as far north as Iowa. Oh, and supposedly 80% of the women & girls that cross over are raped as they do. So again, whatever they are running from must be THAT bad, that those mothers are willing to consign their children to that.
But you are right - the USA cannot solve the problems of literally the entire world. Unfortunately things like nuance, subtlety, or even factual information of pretty much any kind, have no place in USA politicking - instead people simply get their pictures taken at the border, then go back home, trying to ignore it as best they can. And then argue about whether or not we want to pay the bill for the things that we’ve already bought.
Both sides are incredibly messed up, yet not equally so, but fairly bad in their own ways, as such matters simply slip through the cracks, as “more important matters” take precedence, I guess.
Plus man… you can generate the image with AI now days… That’s said my attempts didn’t quite get me the level of soakness or covering I wanted. This is probably the best I think, if you imagine there are fries under the ketchup and not a ketchup bowl with fries placed on the borders:
Not being political here, just thinking logically. Isn’t it possible for a subgroup of a large group to do X while another subgroup of the same large group does Y?
I’m not sure if these options are mutually exclusive when it comes to large sets of individuals.
This is just logical thinking, I have no statistics and this is not a political stance.
That was my first thought as well. Assuming a large enough amount of immigrants, they could be overwhelming both the welfare system and the job market. A sufficiently large group of additional people would overwhelm every system, and depending on the preexisting conditions, that group might not need to be all that big
It’s kinda hard to overwhelm the job market tho, at least if the economy is growing. In that case, more workers would likely facilitate growth, since the growing workforce will also have money to spend and create demand. If the market was already very competitive, things would be different, but developed countries are usually hungry for skilled workers. Demographics dictate this will only become more true as time passes
It’s a pretty complex situation, I really have no position. I just think I’ve seen some funny things like:
“low-skill jobs is a myth created by the rich to justify low wages”
and then others saying:
“Illegal immigration doesn’t affect the average wage of Americans because immigrants go for the low-skill market while Americans go for the high-skill market”
I feel like these alignment jokes are by definition a stretch. There’s always a couple good ones, some OK ones, and some terrible ones. The terrible ones ruin the whole thing for me. It would be better to have a reduced set or find another way to present the good ones I think.
lemmyshitpost
Oldest
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.