The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media:
“One of the most common justifications for immigration restrictions is the claim that letting in too many of the wrong type of immigrants would undermine liberal democratic institutions. . . .
“But, . . . the focus on immigrants as a threat to American institutions leads many to overlook the much greater danger posed by nativist nationalists – the people most hostile to immigration. Recent events highlight the severity of that threat. . . . As we assiduously document, immigrants do not bring those institutions with them and there is even evidence that immigrants improve institutions after they immigrate.
“It’s ironic that the immigration restrictionists most worried about immigrants degrading American institutions are attacking those very institutions at every level. After President Trump lost his reelection bid, the most nativistic members of his party have embarked on a quest to reverse the election. . . .
“Political scientists and survey researchers find that white ethnic nationalism and hostility to immigration are among the strongest predictors of support for Trump and his agenda. Those who fear that immigrants are a menace to American culture and institutions also tend to be most likely to tolerate and make excuse for Trump’s authoritarian tendencies. . . . Nationalist movements also commonly promote conspiracy theories [about].. . . “globalist” elites . . . and so on. . . .
“We cannot completely rule out the possibility that there are cases where illiberal immigrants pose a threat to democratic institutions. . . . But, in the vast majority of cases, the far greater menace to democracy is that posed by nativist nationalism.” – Nationalists Are the Real Threat to Liberal Democratic Institutions, Ilya Somin, Reason, 1/16/21 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: This is an ugly screed against native-born Americans who don’t want mass immigration to change their country beyond recognition. According to Reason writer Illya Somin, this tidal wave of humanity either has no effect on us or even makes our institutions even better! If that’s what this writer believes, he should take a look at California, the state most heavily impacted by mass immigration. Before that tidal wage of humanity arrived, California was a middle-class land of opportunity with wide-open spaces, first-class infrastructure and education, and a strong two-party system. Today, its economy has a Third World profile, with a relatively few rich at the top and many poor at the bottom. The state is crowded and dysfunctional, with radical Democrats having free rein to impose their hard-left agendas. Immigrants vote Democratic by a margin of two to one.
Many Americans supported Donald Trump, not for his falsely-charged “authoritarian tendencies,” but because he promised to control he border and slow down immigration. They believed that American elites simply didn’t care about our national sovereignty. The concern of these Trump supporters was patriotic. Calling them “nativist nationalists” is a smear on their good intentions. Their concern about globalists is no “conspiracy theory,” but a reasonable deduction about the agenda of our elite classes.
The late Harvard professor Samuel Huntington was a keen observer of these elites, In his book Who Are We? (p. 268), he referred to them as “transnationals.” He stated that “Less than 4 percent of the American people, these transnationals have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function now is to facilitate the elite’s global operations.” This transnational agenda perfectly explains the Biden Administration’s indifference to the security of our border and the significance of our citizenship. Transnationals are at work in other countries. The European Union, which abolishes the sovereignty of European nations, is one of their projects.
The libertarians who write for Reason aid and abet the transnationals by promoting personal selfishness has the highest ideal. People with this mindset don’t care about what happens to their communities and countries. Maybe a better name for Reason would be Treason.