I honestly believe the share of “independent voters” who would be swayed by GOP talking points today (and are not just GOP voters in all but name) is much smaller than you believe, and the share of possibly liberal/progressive voters who are not motivated by a clear message is much larger than you believe.
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I’ve been listening to the podcast she’s on for a little while, and I finally followed her on twitter. She’s great.
As for “Abolish ICE,” I think the shifting of the Overton Window is worth the pushback. American voters only care about 0 to 2 actual policy issues, so I don’t think a wonky, nuanced take on this is worth the effort. Instead of forming another circular firing squad, it might be more worthwhile to spin the policy idea (stop systematically deporting people, especially in ways that violate international law) based on the particular local conditions in each election.
For example, a NYC campaign might be able to say “Abolish ICE, it’s super racist” and be done with it, whereas a campaign in rural VA might say “ICE is spending boatloads of your (taxpayer) money harassing your neighbor; wouldn’t you rather we spend that money giving you super cheap healthcare instead?”
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I’ll have to agree to disagree with you there, as I think the situation is actually closer to the opposite.
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I’m not sure we’re talking about the same person, since I’m pretty sure the only person I know who also follows her on twitter is Max. She’s just got a new book out, Confessions of a Single Mum - I don’t recall her being a regular on any podcasts, but I haven’t spoken to her much for a while because I am a shitty friend, so it might have been since then.
Oh! We’re totally talking about different people, though both of them have dunked on Piers Morgan on GMB. I was talking about Ash Sarkar, from Dazzle’s video.
They both have indeed, and def different people - I’m talking about Amy Nickell, I met her back when she was in Uni with Max. I wish I knew Ash Sarkar, she seems pretty cool. I’m like 70% sure she’s also a friend of Amy’s.
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In other news, it’s starting to look good that the Democrat’s will pick up seats in the senate, AZ, TN and NV are looking like pick ups and only ND looks bad (though not a lot of polling out of IN) if they lose both and pick the other three up they will be 50/50. If they keep either, they get the senate. House is looking good and govenor’s races are all leaning heavily towards D.
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While this is great, it’s more important to not let this distract us. Doesn’t mean anyone can let up. Still gotta be involved.
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Interesting how even Ocasio-Cortez didn’t bring up abolishing ICE…
“Ocasio-Cortez left any talk of ICE or impeaching Trump back in the Bronx. Instead, she took the crowd back to 1861, when Kansas was admitted into the Union, having chosen to be a free state.”
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I’m with Nelson on this one.
Have y’all not noticed how far Trump has managed to shift the Overton window on immigration, and especially on legal immigration?
Also, I think people are conceding far too much to the likes of Stephen Miller over this whole bugbear of “open borders”. Take a moment to seriously think about the spectrum between 100% closed and 100% open borders. Yes, the extreme 100% open endpoint is not viable for most developed countries in the short run, and perhaps also not desirable in the long run, but it’s clear that every developed country is way, way far away from 100% open on that spectrum.
Most importantly, though, if you ask “which direction should we go in?” it’s obvious the answer is “more open” in almost every country. Compared to its current levels the US would be better off with more immigration, not less, and in the long run greater freedom of movement around the world is a good thing for the world as a whole.
I don’t think it’s good enough to defend the “abolish ICE” slogan if all you do is correctly point out that it does not, in fact, mean “open borders”, because by distancing yourself from the latter without any real context you also give purchase to Republican propaganda about immigration, and then (in the context of the aforementioned spectrum) those same points against the endpoint of open borders will be used against the direction of more open immigration policy.
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Similarly, if you critically examine some of the arguments made in favor of less harsh enforcement and/or greater levels of immigration, often the moral or economic underpinnings of those arguments do lead you somewhere close to actual “open borders”, even if that’s not what the people making those arguments actually want.
Thus, per the above, if you argue in the direction of open borders relative to the current state of affairs, you will sometimes need to go into the details of why you shouldn’t be going all the way in that direction; otherwise you expose yourself to a reductio ad absurdum by way of “open borders”.
Classic pragmatic politics vs “pragmatic” politics vs “pragmatic politics” problems all over the place here. Meanwhile I have trouble reconciling the very simple fact that the republicans call themselves small government but added ICE and the Department of Homeland Security… and now I guess maybe Space Force? Great “conservative” party there for you. Add more groups for more infighting and more red tape so you can drown it better or whatever.
Though I definitely get what people are saying that “abolish ice” = “open borders” to some people and that tricks them into being against it, though personally I arrive at something close to “no borders” in the long long long terms, though I don’t consider that a party of anything with the word pragmatic in it quotes or not at this moment.
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If we’re talking loooong term, I find it really embarrassing that humans as a species haven’t even established a single polity on our planet yet. Separate governing aparati and behavioral codes and needless waste of resources? No wonder we can’t even handle the environmental effects of our own industrial age. We keep squabbling over a handful of scarce low-tech energy sources when we’ve got a honking big ball of fusion power only 8 light minutes away!
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I don’t want to abolish ICE.
I want to melt ICE.
(via Flamethrower or hot skillet or natural effect of runaway green house effect or wildcat destabilization of the ships fusion reactor core, take your pick)
In an ideal world, I’d be all for “no borders,” but I don’t think it’s an ideal world for tons of reasons.
If we are to have borders, ideally, their only purposes should be to screen travelers for smuggling contraband (and I’m not just talking about the drug wars here – it could be archaeological artifacts, elephant ivory, exotic animals, human trafficking, and so on), screening products such as agricultural items for issues such as carrying invasive species, and to assist in the apprehension and prosecution of legitimate criminals who are attempting to escape justice and/or facilitate crimes by border jumping, such as the aforementioned smugglers.
Even less ideally, if some sort of limit on overall immigration is necessary for economic viability (which again, I’ll defer to experts on economics to make that determination as well as what the actual limit should be), then non-discriminatory limits with fair and humane treatment for those who violate laws concerning maintaining those limits would also be acceptable at borders.
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According to Cohen’s Lawyer, he didn’t leak that info.
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