The only thing better than Donald Trump is people who go on the teevee to tell people how rich and classy and yooge Donald Trump is.
Donald Trump supporter Terra Compton Grant explained to CNN that the GOP presidential candidate’s plan to deport up to 20 million undocumented immigrants was a way to provide more jobs for whites “and some of the blacks.”
Over the weekend, Trump released details of his plan, which would make Mexico pay for a wall along the southern border, end birthright citizenship, and it would triple the ICE budget to forcefully deport all undocumented immigrants in the country.
On Monday, Grant told CNN host Carol Costello that she agreed with Trump’s plan even if it was not clear how he was going to pay for all of it.
“We’ve got to get a border, we’ve got to get a wall,” Grant insisted. “We have a lot of illegal immigrants that come into this country, they work illegally, they make American money, and then they send it back to Mexico to support their family. So, that money is going back to Mexico. So, the money is there to make that happen.”
According to Grant, Trump’s heart and mind were “in the right place.”
“I really do, I love the plan,” she continued. “I love the idea that, hey, let’s get some of these illegal immigrants out of the country, let’s get them out of here so maybe more whites who have not been able to acquire jobs, maybe they can get into jobs [and] some of the blacks.”
Grant added that she had a “good friend” who was deported but Facebook allowed them to stay in touch.
Dog whistle racism is simply too subtle in 2015. What we need is Disaster Area concert racism.
The yoogest, classiest racism ever. Very big.
Not That Guy
Awesome. Please proceed, GOP
Just Some Fuckhead
Someone finally comes out and says they want to do something for the blacks and you people complain. Sheesh.
misterpuff
Love it when someone can wish away the Constitution.
Very excited about that Constitutional Amendment, Hoss.
Gex
Amazing how frequently you can get small government types to explicitly say that they do not care how much something costs, they want the big bad government to spend whatever and do whatever it takes to do the thing they want. And it is always for something that is cruel/deadly to a minority population. Always.
patrick II
The “some of the blacks” jobs will be those in the fields picking crops. The new “white” jobs will be all of those jobs like managing various things like successful companies and car dealerships that so many illegal immigrants hold now.
JGabriel
RawStory via Zandar @ Top:
Just as an aside or FYI to anyone who doesn’t already know or remember this: Birthright Citizenship is defined by the 14th Amendment, which means Trump can’t end it without 3/4 of the states voting in favor of it – and that ain’t gonna happen.
beltane
I love how only “some of the blacks” will be given jobs resulting from this mass deportation project. Does Donald Trump also plan to have a quota system in place to keep too many blacks from getting jobs?
the Conster
@beltane:
The jobs will only be for the good blacks. You know the ones I’m talking about [[nudge nudge wink wink.]]
raven
@patrick II: Yea well they tried letting people out of jail i the Vidalia area to pick onions and the inmates went back to jail rather than do that.
Anoniminous
Republican Logic:
Major Premise: America was prosperous in the 1950s.
Minor Premise: America had Jim Crow laws in the 1950s.
Conclusion: Bring back Jim Crow laws to bring back prosperity.
Tokyokie
Trump’s immigration “plan” evinces violating treaty obligations to pay for the wall, amending the Constitution to end birthright citizenship, and confiscating poor people’s money by seizing remittances sent to Latin America. (And, as near as I can figure, not a whit in the way of increasing and enforcing employer sanctions.) Summarily executing immigrants would be a lot more efficient, but I guess that’s not sufficiently cruel to please his racist base.
Kyle
@Gex:
“There’s always unlimited money for death and cruelty.” — today’s Republican party.
JGabriel
RawStory:
From the Facebook page of Grant’s Friend:
beltane
@the Conster: Yeah, and the “bad” blacks will be receiving checks from that super secret welfare program available only to scary black people. These checks often total a gazillion dollars a month and include free use of the company Ferrari. And still they act all thuggy and such.
Gin & Tonic
Read an interesting article the other day in the WaPo (too lazy to look for the link) about how the economics of the restaurnat industry is changing radically – partly because potential entry-level kitchen hires are not realistic about the true nature of the work, but also because of fewer (illegal was left unsaid, I think) Mexicans. A really, really smart guy like Wharton alum Trump should understand what will happen to the costs of food once he deports all the Mexicans and Guatemalans.
Amir Khalid
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the GOP has become the party of Rufus T. Firefly.
canegiallo
@JGabriel: It’s 3/4 of state legislatures that have to vote for it; it is not a popular vote thing. I think that the GOP has control of at least half of state legislatures already. THAT is why they are scary. The presidential thing is just a sideshow for GOP plans to destroy this country.
beltane
@Gin & Tonic: The hospitality industry would likely collapse, which would presumably not be very good for Trump’s bottom line. Maybe he can train teabaggers to wash dishes and do kitchen prep.
redshirt
If I were running for President I’d campaign in part on bringing more Mexicans into America. They’re the best Americans.
Oatler.
Look to National Review for elegant, musing theses about slavery and how with a little judicial nudging, perhaps….
NotMax
Oy vey.
NotMax
Needs to alter his slogan.
Make America
greatlily white again.SiubhanDuinne
@Anoniminous:
Makes as much sense as:
Republican Logic:
Major Premise: America had the Edsel in the 1950s.
Minor Premise: America had Jim Crow laws in the 1950s.
Conclusion: Bring back Jim Crow laws to bring back the Edsel.
SiubhanDuinne
See, that’s just one of the nice things Facebook does All.The.Time.
Ruckus
@beltane:
All of the hotels that I’ve stayed in that had kitchens/restaurants/room service cost a pretty good sum per day. One would think that with that income one could afford to pay what it would cost to hire legal workers, IOW to pay what the job is worth, not what people with little other choice are willing to suffer for.
I could hardly type that I’m laughing so hard. Pay what a job is worth, is that the dumbest thing you’ve read in a week?
Zinsky
Since most Americans are innumerate as well as illiterate, no one has bothered to “do the math” on Trump’s absurd proposal to deport 20 million undocumented immigrants. Assuming you could find enough empty train cars to ship them in, let’s say you line up these 20 million people in lines. Say, 10 abreast and each row of 10 people stand three feet in front of the next 10. In such a configuration, 20 million people would form a line 1,136 miles long or roughly the distance from El Paso Texas to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. That seems like a pretty workable plan, don’t you think? When is someone gonna call this slimeball on his nonsensical statements??
SenyorDave
@Amir Khalid: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the GOP has become the party of Rufus T. Firefly.
Please don’t insult the memory of Rufus T Firefly. Just in case we get too depressed thinking about the Trump situation, here’s a quote from the aforementioned Rufus T Firefly:
Mrs. Teasdale: Notables from every country are gathered here in your honor. This is a gala day for you.
Rufus T. Firefly: Well, a gal a day is enough for me. I don’t think I could handle any more.
Felonius Monk
The rhetoric is sounding an awful lot like that prevalent in Germany during the 1930s regarding another ethnic group. If the RWNJ’s interim plan for deportation doesn’t do the trick, I hesitate to think what their “final solution” might be.
redshirt
@Zinsky: There could be “temporary” Trump Camps where the deportees can wait until their time to go comes.
Brachiator
@Tokyokie:
I listened to some audio broadcast of a Trump interview (from Meet the Press, maybe?). He wasn’t asked and didn’t volunteer anything about employer sanctions or guest worker programs. He just seems to be going for the most simplistic, and unenforceable “solutions” to immigration.
beltane
@Ruckus: How do you expect people like Donald Trump to afford to corrupt our political system if they have to pay decent wages?
JPL
@JGabriel: What would Rubio and JIndal say? Surely Michele Malkin will say something about Trumps remarks. Actually, she doesn’t what to point that out.
Duane
boatboy_srq
@Anoniminous: Corollary to that:
1) Ahmurrca was prosperous and growing in the 1850s.
2) Ahmurrca (at least REAL Ahmurrca™) had slavery in the 1850s.
3) Ergo, bring back slavery to bring back prosperity Real Ahmurrca™,
Don’t mince words here.
Chris
@SenyorDave:
The last man nearly ruined this place,
He didn’t know what to do with it.
If you think this country’s bad off now,
Just wait till I get through with it!
BobS
@Gin & Tonic: Trump understands, it’s the rubes he’s selling to that don’t. I’d be surprised if Trump believes even half the shit that comes out of his mouth.
boatboy_srq
@beltane: He does: it’s called enforcement of laws against driving/walking/shopping/breathing while Blah.
beltane
@boatboy_srq: Think about it. Almost all the immigration was to the North, where slavery was illegal. The slave owning Southern states were not an attractive destination for immigrants seeking better life (and paid work). If slavery is reinstated, no one will ever want to come to the US ever again.
beltane
@JPL: Those three should prove their Republican creds by self-deporting.
LWA
@boatboy_srq:
No kidding, I read that in Georgia, they had inmates (most of whom were black) released to pick crops once they scared away the immigrants.
So we had the prospect of fields being worked by black men without pay or recourse.
In America.
In 2015.
Zinsky
@redshirt: Yeah, right. And pink and yellow winged monkeys could fly out of my sphincter too! But, I thinking that probably isn’t too likely!
Ruckus
@Zinsky:
According to my memory of gov figures it’s 11 million.
So T Rump’s concept of “problems” is the same as his concept of his wealth, egomaniacally overblown.
I’m starting to notice a theme with T Rump.
Ruckus
@beltane:
Good answer. No, great answer.
Gin & Tonic
@redshirt: And they will have to wait. If you deport them by putting them on a bus and driving them over the border, say 50 people per bus, and you fill and send a bus every 10 minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you’ll deport them all in only a bit over 7 years.
Bobby Thomson
I thought Disaster Area concert racism was a reference to Do They Know it’s Christmas?
Ruckus
@LWA:
And as you saw with @raven’s: comment, they preferred jail.
Bobby Thomson
@Just Some Fuckhead: just some of them. You know, the good ones.
lgerard
The whole “build a wall” is the 21st century version of the 1980’s “star wars” nonsense…..it is simply not practical and no one wants it unless they live so far away it will not inconvenience them.
What happened in 1998 when the INS cracked down on illegal workers in Georgia
The same thing in 1999 in Nebraska
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/18/AR2006061800613_pf.html
It is bizarre that no one challenges Trump on his self proclaimed ability to deal with China and Mexico when all the crap he puts his name on comes from there, and the fact that it is people like him who hire an illegal labor force.
Brachiator
@Gin & Tonic:
@beltane
I don’t think the best counter-argument to Trump is that America needs to exploit illegal immigrants to keep food and hotel costs low.
You even end up supporting the worst end of the foul nativist argument. In Southern California, a good number of lower end restaurants and coffee shops hire only illegal immigrants as cooks, bus boys, waiters, dish washers, etc. They don’t even bother advertising these jobs in English language newspapers. And even if they pay a reasonable wage, with raises, they skimp on payroll taxes and worker’s comp (California State Disability program).
Workers for janitorial services are also increasingly Latino (though the contracting companies are often a white dominated club). It’s not just that the jobs are low wage or undesirable, but that they employer knows that a citizen could more easily sue if the employer violated wage and labor laws.
lucslawyer
Here in the San Joaquin Valley the farmers are whining that there aren’t enough field workers to go around. I seriously doubt enough white or black folks will show up to take up the slack.
NonyNony
@Brachiator:
He’s not proposing policy – he’s saying thing to make his poll numbers go up.
His comments on the poll numbers of other Republican candidates strongly suggest that he views this all like the same kind of financial games he’s played for 40+ years. Now it’s polling numbers instead of money that is being used to “keep score” but the result is the same – he sees a number that needs to go up, so he does what he needs to to make that number go up.
The fact that what he proposes is unworkable is beside the point entirely – he doesn’t care. If he’s called on it to explain how he’ll make the proposal work he’ll just bluster his way through an “explanation” that doesn’t make any sense but has the right codewords in it. He’ll hire some people to figure out how to make it all work after he’s elected – he’s not going to worry about specifics until he really has to deliver. Right now it’s all about the promises (is it any wonder this numbnut has driven his company into bankruptcy a few times?)
redshirt
It amuses me – also sickens, disturbs, troubles – that the Republicans become so fixated on singular ideas from election to election. It’s a consequence of the dictatorial, everyone-on-the-same-page style, of course, but it’s so predictable, though the subject can change.
The Republican issues so far in this election, Fox approved for horse beating, as best as I can follow:
1. Planned Parenthood
2. Immigration
3. Hillary’s email
4. Hillary’s Benghazi
5. Israel
J
@SenyorDave: I second the ‘unfair to Rufus T Firefly’ comment.
I’d think Ms. Grant’s generous idea, let the whites get first pick of the jobs with those left, if any, going to the blacks, is only fair and not at all racist if that weren’t the opposite of the truth.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
This may be old or wrong but I think they have to send them back to their country of origin. So just because you crossed the Rio Grande doesn’t mean you get sent back to Mexico. His racism isn’t even specific, you are brown you are Mexican. You can’t be from, say El Salvador, or Brazil or……
Bobby Thomson
@Ruckus: they’re the solutions that fourth graders come up with. So basically on par with the Republican Party.
lgerard
@Anoniminous:
Don’t tell them that the 1840’s and 1850’s may have been the two largest decades of immigration in our history
J
@redshirt: ‘Trump camps’ where they could be, as it were, ‘concentrated’.
Quaker in a Basement
Even from a purely economic perspective, deporting 11 million people (including 7 or 8 million workers) would be a recipe for instant, runaway inflation. If you assume (as the yahoo quoted above seems to) that every deported worker is replaced by a currently out-of-work citizen, the unemployment rate falls to zero.
Bang. Zoom. Inflation right to the moon.
Bobby Thomson
@redshirt: a veritable briar patch of issues. Whatever shall we do?
Myiq2xu
Who is Terra Compton Grant and why should anyone care what she thinks or says? Is she an official spokesman for the Trump campaign? Does she work for him?
Is she an elected official? Is she running for office? Does she hold a GOP party office?
This looks to me like an example of nutpicking. That’s like blaming Hillary for the opinions of John Cole.
beltane
@Brachiator: Where I live it’s all white high-school dropouts in those jobs. They do not drug test and they do not pay a living wage or offer any sort of guaranteed hours, benefits, etc. The hourly-wage employees of our very pricey ski resorts have to have their food, heat, healthcare, and childcare subsidized by the state. I can’t think of any part of the country where hospitality workers are paid decently though I could be wrong. It would seem the whole business model of the hospitality industry is to pay shit wages to desperate people, some part of the country do not have ready supply of desperate white people to make the business model work.
Ruckus
@lucslawyer:
On a trip once as a kid, 7 or so, my parents stopped at a cotton field and long story short, we picked cotton for about 15 minutes. For free of course. Taught me the value of hard work. And not killing myself with too much of it. Anyone who thinks picking crops is easy or that anyone could do it is full of shit. Absolutely, completely full.
Frankensteinbeck
Anybody remember when the GOP was going to throw in for immigration reform to neutralize the Democrats’ advantage with the hispanic vote?
PurpleGirl
Joan Beaz singing a Woody Guthrie song
Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos Canyon)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jWFPLjYEaw
Ruckus
@Bobby Thomson:
Come on now, let’s not denigrate all 4th graders.
Mike J
@LWA:
In 2015.
Could black people in the US qualify as refugees?
Tree With Water
If mass arrests of the undocumented ever occurs in my neck of the woods, I am prepared to practice civil disobedience to stop it. I would not be alone, either. Not by a long shot.
boatboy_srq
@beltane: Almost all the immigration to the North was of peoples subsequently admitted to the Right Kind of People™. How many Reichwhingnuts are ready to exclude Poles, Russians, Slavs, Irish, Italians, Catholics (from anywhere) et al from the ranks of Real Xtian Hetero Patriotic Ahmurrcans™ just because of ever-so-slightly-visible Otherness? The South failed colossally on the immigration front as much because it was proto-industrial-ag as anything else: when the only serious moneymaking enterprises are plantations, and those require significant investment in both land and labor, there’s little incentive to move there without a cartload of cash to begin with.
In the last century, we’ve watched industry flee Southward, emptying Northeastern and Rust Belt towns of jobs, in search of lower labor costs, less government intrusion and more advantageous taxation. Slap ownership of the workforce on top of that and the reversion to a slave economy is complete. It can’t work (manufacturing and high tech require a level of education that is at odds with slaveholding), but it will be highly attractive. Added bonus to theorists pushing this is that Yankeedom will be hit twice: once by the need to rebuild manufacturing infrastructure and once again by higher labor costs necessary to pay the US citizens who remain. Guest worker visas – already one of the major drivers of undocumented residency – will never be done away with because the recovering business segments will need those to survive the short period Southern industry will be reaping the benefits of near-zero labor costs.
So: totally unworkable, and catnip-grade-attractive to the Reichwingnuts, all at once.
redshirt
@Frankensteinbeck:
LOL. Good one!
It makes me realize that W.! – fucking W. and his team! – were more sane then the current crop of Wingtards. A terrifying thought.
Ruckus
@Mike J:
In the WaPo? Amazing.
But it is a story that is so very unfortunately, very true.
Riley's Enabler
@Ruckus: My great-grandmother insisted we (sister and I) do that at one of the local cotton farms.
We picked with bare hands – and that is painful, if you’re unfamiliar with the raggedy rough edges of cotton bolls. I kept one of the bolls for a long time after. Life lesson.
beltane
@boatboy_srq: In the mid-1800s, most of those groups were not considered the “right type” of white people. Some, like the Italians, did not really gain admittance to the “white bus” until the mid-twentieth century when white numbers had to be boosted to counter the blah menace. If the Republicans were smart, they would try to find room on the White Bus for new groups as this is their only real hope of growing their numbers. Some Republicans used to be kind of smart about this, but the teabaggers seems to have dumbed down the Party of Stupid by some order of magnitude.
BobS
@Frankensteinbeck: The Republican Party has been fueled by hate, fear, & greed for quite some time now, but even the drivers underestimated just how much hate & fear the machine needed to keep going.
Another Holocene Human
@Gin & Tonic: If Gordon Ramsey has taught me anything, it’s that Americans have very low standards when it comes to restaurant kitchens. Whether it’s owners and head chefs (head cooks if it’s a Darden gig, they don’t believe in worker bees knowing anything), or the customers themselves.
I worked in a kitchen (which Gordon would have snobbed out over for other reasons, for example we brought in bread and dough from suppliers) and we were on it where food safety was concerned. That meant cleaning every day and also meant throwing out food sometimes.
There was a neighborhood power outage once and the owner had to throw out a lot of food. That sucks. His competition down the street tried to sell the stuff anyway.
The point is that working in a kitchen can be brutal and requires a whole team to successfully execute a lot of tasks. If the owner is in cost-cutting mode the product will suffer, and so will the suckers who eat it.
beltane
@redshirt: I remember being polled by Gallup some time around the 2006 midterms. They were asking me about my views on W. Of course, I was in the “strongly disapprove” camp on every issue until a question on immigration came up. I gave him a “meh” on that, which made me feel like a very open minded sort of person.
boatboy_srq
@lgerard: @lucslawyer:
Nor the needs of America’s hospitality industry, fast-food industry, high-tech industry or a host of others. Sooner or later there will be enough Job Creators™ who demand a stop to the incessant “illeeygul immygrunt” whinge because it’s bad for their bottom line. Won’t be for a while, though; not enough of them are feeling that pain yet.
beltane
@Another Holocene Human: My husband worked as a line cook in high end restaurants for over a decade. The work was exceedingly stressful and grueling and the pay was crap, though still well above minimum wage. If it was a slow night he would sometimes be sent home with no pay at all. He now makes 3x the money with 1/10 the stress.
Another Holocene Human
@Ruckus: Was it jail or prison? Jail on work release they gotta pay you (usually it’s minimum wage, because fuck you poor shmuck who can’t pay your traffic fines), if it’s prison, a ha ha ha. The problem is that farm laborers are allowed to be paid piece work without a minimum wage floor, so if you don’t know how to pick crops you will make less than minimum wage.
Which is bullshit. I’ll take work release at Wendy’s, please.
Grumpy Code Monkey
I still cannot figure out Trump’s plan. Here, in decreasing order of likelihood, are the possibilities:
1. Promoting the Trump brand, all other considerations be damned;
2. Trolling the GOP (and everyone else) strictly for the lulz;
3. Actually wanting to be President;
4. Exposing the id of the Republican party for all the world to see;
5. Exposing the fecklessness of American political reporting for all the world to see;
6. Helping the Democratic candidate by being the Republicanest Republican that ever Republicaned and replacing the myth of St. Ron with the reality of Don Don.
Ruckus
@Riley’s Enabler:
Yes bare handed. And all the people in the field were as well. It takes dexterity to do, which is why machines were/are not as good at it and why gloves of that time generally got in the way. That and gloves cost money.
I think that many of us are missing major points here. Because we have such poor minimum wages and/or actual wages that are also kept lower, people can’t afford to pay more for clothing and food. So that keeps wages low for people in those industries. And low wages there (regardless of legality of the workers) keep the standards of wages lower everywhere else and that is an endless circle that if not broken will end up making everyone but the top skimmers and thieves into indentured servants, like a huge company town.
Another Holocene Human
@Brachiator: While what you say is true (about cheating on paying unemployment taxes and so on), there isn’t something necessarily sinister about posting job listings in the #2 language in California.
There are millions of Latino US citizens in California. (Also in Florida. And Texas. And AZ-NM-NV.)
Brachiator
@NonyNony:
He’s dancing around policy, but the supposed point of these new interviews was to show the press that he is a serious candidate by providing more “meat” to his previous bluster. But so far, it’s just more bluster.
This is a huge irrelevancy. Bankruptcy doesn’t always say anything meaningful about a business person. This is not defending Trump, but debunking the myth that bankruptcy is always exactly the same thing as stupidity or failure.
boatboy_srq
@beltane:
And that right there is where it all falls apart. They aren’t especially smart (well, at least they aren’t especially forward-thinking), and they don’t especially like smart (“smart” leads to things like paleontology and genetics and a bunch of other things that, while making daily life easier, challenge the Holy Writ of Gun-Totin’ Capitalist Jeebus that they use to keep the proles in line). So they’re stuck with a dwindling electoral base and no good ideas about propping it up besides disenfranchising Those People.
You’re absolutely right that the immigrants of the 19th century weren’t the Right Sort. But the damage there is done: do you really think they’d disown all those groups at this late stage? The late-entry will, in more than a few cases, produce even stronger True Believers in those communities, whose exclusion (the alternative) would be fought long and hard – and not, I suspect, especially successfully.
Archon
@Myiq2xu:
Anyone who thinks mass deportation is a legitimate way to solve our immigration issues is going to have very similar opinions to Miss Grant.
In fact I’d wager to say her belief that deportation might help “some of the blacks” is probably more thoughtful and magnanimous then the average Trump supporters thoughts on how deportations might help black America. That’s not saying much of course but I imagine most people that think this is a good idea are also virulent anti-black racists.
Another Holocene Human
@Ruckus: Part of the problem with the restaurant industry is the low barrier to entry. So many restaurants fail because so many idiots with a dream become restauranteurs. There is more demand for good chefs than there is supply; at the same time, there are more talented chefs than there are good jobs that don’t suck balls (see beltane’s comment above). The franchise chains are another problem, in that they attempt to Roy Kroc fine dining into a formula (with hilarious results at times), and since two parasites are trying to skim off the top–the corporate parent and the jerkwad owners–there is extreme pressure on staff.
People of all colors, nationalities, and genders are in the kitchen game, believe that. Many of them are young and working insane hours. It’s hot, it’s dangerous, people are screaming at you, and the manager is subbing your ingredients for something crappier but cheaper and pretending the customers won’t notice.
beltane
@boatboy_srq: A lot of the racism among Italian-Americans stems from a certain amount of angst at the possibility of being confused for a not-white person. I am often asked the “Where are you from?” question, while my Dutch husband, who was only recently naturalized is never interrogated this way.
Sherparick
Yep, all the white people lining up to clean hotel guest rooms and the Trump Towers cleaning subcontractor. Rick
Another Holocene Human
Chains exist in part because of our tax code–specifically, the exemptions for business travel. Americans also work ridiculous hours which pushes them to buy convenience foods or restaurant foods. Europeans don’t eat out nearly as much. I suspect Japanese people don’t either.
Restaurants actually got hit very hard during the credit crunch phase of the recession.
Another Holocene Human
@beltane: I told a Greek coworker about the “Black Athena” theory (I wasn’t trolling, I figured he would have learned more about Ancient Greece in school than I did) and he just blew up at me with a bunch of invective. Probably coming from a similar place.
Peale
@Zinsky: Especially since that number, 20M, is way too high to begin with. Basically, that’s sending back a lot of legal immigrants.
JGabriel
@canegiallo:
I know, that’s what I meant by 3/4 of the states. That said, the fact that you thought I meant otherwise means I should have been more specific. Apologies for the ambiguity to anyone else who interpreted my comment as canegiallo did.
Paul in KY
Only the classist blacks will get the jobs….
Another Holocene Human
@Sherparick: There are white cleaning people in New England. I hired somebody here to clean and she was white … and from New England.
Helps that there are thousands of desperately poor Down Easters, Vermonters, and Massholes in ruined mill towns to pick from.
Maybe pay custodial and janitorial a living wage and you won’t be talking about la manque de domestiques, eh?
beltane
@Another Holocene Human: European do not eat out as much, and they consider restaurant workers, especially at the high end, to be the skilled labor they are. Maybe if Americans were more mindful of what they were eating, they would have more respect for the people who prepare their food.
Another Holocene Human
@Paul in KY: The sum of the blacks that voted for the only klassy candidate.
Brachiator
@beltane:
What, no black people where you live (not a dig, a question about demographics).
In Southern California and other places, wages are not always crappy. Depends on the industry. Many people employ illegal immigrants, including union construction jobs. Here, there is a premium on reliability. The car wash industry is notorious for exploiting workers, sometimes short paying them, because this is an almost desperation level job, and there are always willing workers.
As I noted before, in the restaurant industry, illegal immigrants have pushed out citizens and legal residents (obviously, this is because of employer practices). However, you also see more older workers, retirees needing extra money, etc, because they are seen as more reliable than high school or college students.
One restaurant I used to go to fired foreign students on work visas and legal residents who worked as waitresses and hostesses to save money, employing illegal immigrants instead. Again, the basic wage was OK, but the restaurant did not pay overtime or payroll and insurance taxes. By the way, some of this was not purely exploitation, but an attempt to stay in business. The place used to play fair, but a number of factors (including some street construction that made it impossible for some potential customers to get to the restaurant, helped I guess move them toward the dark side.
But again, the point here is that these are not necessarily shit wages jobs that citizens do not want. And even where the wages are crappy citizens and legal residents might be willing to take the jobs if they would be able to work their way up to better positions.
Paul in KY
@redshirt: And they will be ultra-classy! Swank, only the finest concertina wire…
Ruckus
@Another Holocene Human:
@beltane:
There are many jobs in the world that are hard work. Some take a large toll early, others take years. Some are literally crappy and some are not. The idea that everyone can go to college and get a high paying easy job was stupid 50-60 yrs ago when I was in school and it’s stupid now. There will always be jobs that take a toll, physically. I’ve worked most of my life in machine shops. Moving metal, sometimes by hand, some by machines moved by my hands and sometimes with machines that did the work for you. Some of it is boring, some challenging some just fucking hard work. But you stand on concrete all day, there is noise and danger all around you. You can lose body parts if you aren’t careful, tools break even when you don’t do anything wrong and can become missiles. And it isn’t just what you do it’s what other do as well that can hurt you. This is only an example of what blue collar work can be like. Some jobs are far worse than this. Work in a foundry, pouring molten metal. Bend over and pick cotton or strawberries all day. Drive a shit truck and pump portapotties. And all of these are jobs that need to be done. Some can be made better/easier and have. But a foundry is dirty, hard, hot work no matter how modern/well equipped. And modern societies, and many third world societies would not work without them.
rikyrah
what’s the difference between Trump and the rest of the field. The question I want asked of the rest of the Clown Car – where do you agree and disagree with Trump?
beltane
@Another Holocene Human: Yes, here in Northern New England we have WASP, Mayflower descended blonde people making minimum wage as housekeepers and dishwashers.
redshirt
@Grumpy Code Monkey: 1. is the real answer, with a 1a. that I don’t think Trump thought he’d be doing as spectacularly well as he is right now, which has forced him to accept more of your #3, and thus, he’ll be half-assing “policies” from now on.
redshirt
@beltane: I remember being a bit taken back in London when all the hotel working staff was Polish or otherwise “white”. Then I remembered that Poland is Europe’s Mexico.
beltane
@Ruckus: Many of these jobs are far more essential to the functioning of society than the legions of MBAs strutting around in suits who don’t know how anything works in the real world.
My grandmother had a saying: If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well.
A corollary to this could be: If a job is worth doing, it worth paying someone well to do it.
Paul in KY
@Grumpy Code Monkey: I hope it is 6. Hopefully, it may turn out to be 6 anyway.
redshirt
@beltane:
Teachers should be paid 100K to a million dollars a year if we were to judge the job based on its impact on society.
Instead, we choose otherwise.
gorram
@LWA: You can’t vote while in prison, but you are counted as being located in those (typically rural, typically majority-White) areas where prisons are largely located nowadays. Those census counts are what determines the state-internal representation for those areas usually. So, literally, we have a 3/5ths style having-the-cake-and-eating-it-too thing going on already with (disproportionately Black and [email protected]) people being unable to vote but counted in terms of population representation.
Slavery has not yet been banished from the US’s social, economic, and political organization.
Paul in KY
@Another Holocene Human: That number will be yuuuuuge!!!!
Brachiator
@Another Holocene Human:
There is something sinister about ONLY posting the job listings in Spanish, and in deliberately turning away citizen and legal resident applicants.
Sherparick
@boatboy_srq: Right now the 130 or so families funding the Republican candidates are having fantasy about getting JEB! or Scott Walker into office, dropping the capital gains tax and dividends tax to “Zero” and eliminating social security. They certainly don’t want to lose the help on the lawn service contract. The immigration thingy was just to get the hoi poloi stirred up to show up at the polls and vote the Republican straight ticket and then do absolutely nothing about the subject. But now Trump is showing up at their party with all the yahoos like the “Masque of the Red Death.”
Also her choice of number reflects that most Republicans think of all Hispanics as “illegals,” even the ones whose families have been in the “United States” since the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Ruckus
@Another Holocene Human:
What you just stated is true of many if not most blue collar jobs. The shirts are blue to hide the dirt and sweat that most of these jobs provide as part of the ambiance. You are correct and incorrect about the low cost of entry. Starting a restaurant costs a lot. Starting most any retail business costs a lot. I know, I’ve done it. (although the startup cost to do retail was far smaller, around 25%, than to go into what I had owned before) The cost of entry for restaurant workers is low if that is what you mean. Formal education? Not really necessary unless it is high end and the creative staff must be very good. Experience may be necessary but that’s not always true either.
boatboy_srq
@beltane: Newer arrivals to the club are always more aggressive about defending it than the old guard. I grew up in and near towns with a large French-Canadian population; 150 years ago they’d have been outcast – now, despite the fact that those towns are still bilingual and very insular, not so much. If it still boils down to white/black, is it really significant where the racists came from so long as they’re racist? After all, the Othering the Italians and the rest fear is at least a generation or two away.
boatboy_srq
@rikyrah: That’ll never get answered honestly as long as the rest of the field thinks that by continuing with the dogwhistle they have a chance at getting people outside the ravening GOTea base to vote for them in the general election.
boatboy_srq
@Sherparick: Being the candidate is, it turns out, a lot cheaper than buying the candidate.
Ruckus
@beltane:
Absolutely.
rikyrah
@Sherparick:
Also in a city like Chicago the illegals include lots of Polish and Eastern Europeans.
In Boston, it’s a lot of illegal Irish..
In California, it’s a lot of Asians..
but, you never hear about them.
gorram
@beltane: I think that’s the closest that we have to a litmus test for whether you qualify as “White ethnic” or not is if you get that line of questioning. I’m basically all genetically Irish, as is my biological mother, and we both regularly get it (as well as people who are convinced we could not possibly be Irish, seemingly because of the discrepancy between Irish people still being White ethnics and everyone being convinced that we’re 1000% assimilated).
EDIT: And seconded on the angst of the White ethnic. I think there’s a lot of “we’re not with THEM” that’s been instilled in most of our communities (from both what’s been done to us and done to Those People) that’s been really successfully exploited especially post CRM to get us into line with White supremacy?
Citizen Alan
@JGabriel:
Or by dictatorial fiat, which is what these fascist swine really want.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Not if posting them in english gets you no responses and costs money.
In my old business I tried posting job openings in the LA Times and the Orange County Register. Not one response in weeks and over several times. Word of mouth or local papers is what it took to find employees. This was before the internet and Craig’s List, Monster etc.
Doug R
@Brachiator: Except when you run a casino.
Germy Shoemangler
@boatboy_srq:
My parents (American born) moved into a suburb in the mid-1950s and heard the word “dago” and my father remembered applying for jobs after WWII and being told “we don’t hire italians” (he was a WWII veteran, volunteered after Pearl Harbor not drafted).
I was unaware as I grew up in a community full of Italians, but years later when I moved to a different region I suddenly discovered how “exotic” I was. Being asked what my name “meant” or people stubbornly unable to pronounce it.
Ruckus
@gorram:
It is possible that some ask because they are interested in that people will move thousands of miles for a new life. Or that you have a resemblance to someone they know or they like that people speak different languages and get along fine doing so.
Or I could be full of shit.
But that describes me, I like that our world is small enough that people want to move and try someplace different or that where they are from is a shithole and they aspire to something more. I like that people are actually pretty much the same everywhere, it’s only the edges that we see that are different and those differences are interesting, not scary. I like people of all shapes/sizes and colors. Not all people mind you, some of us are real fucking assholes. But the differences we see don’t make us a fucking assholes, that’s a separate thing from race, location, language, gender.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@beltane: If all the stock brokers in NYC were to disappear tomorrow and never be replaced, the city would suffer economically (pretty dramatically, even), but otherwise survive. If all the sanitation workers were to disappear tomorrow and never be replaced, the city would be uninhabitable within a month.
Saw a documentary yesterday about champagne, and what struck me was how many of the winery owners, all quite wealthy by any standard, dove right in to do the same dirty work as the hired hands – scrubbing vats, tending vines, picking and hauling fruit, driving trucks, etc., in all kinds of weather, seven days a week. Not quite the same as picking cotton, but demanding work nevertheless.
I work on an internet banking platform. By any objective standard, I get paid a shitload of money for what in the end is not very demanding work – it’s basically shoving data around. Granted, I’m not real anxious for that to change anytime soon, but I freely admit that I’m part of the problem.
Davis X. Machina
@rikyrah: Boston, the Irish are being supplanted by Brazilians… especially in Metro-West and the first tier suburbs.
The come-overs basically stopped coming for a while — maybe this has changed since the Celtic Tiger went tits-up.
Matt McIrvin
@JGabriel: Many of the people he’s dogwhistling to (well, maybe not dogwhistling so much as just whistling) have crackpot constitutional theories about how the 14th Amendment’s line explicitly guaranteeing birthright citizenship doesn’t actually say that. Specifically, they spin strange interpretations of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” that say that phrase is somehow about whether your parents owe “total allegiance” to the United States.
I dare you to Google this and try to figure out how the reasoning in these arguments works; they’re as incomprehensible as a perpetual motion machine patent.
Emma
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/rubio-jindal-cruz-santorum-birthers
Have y’all seen this? Party time!
Davis X. Machina
@beltane: Swamp Yankees. Maine is full of them.
redshirt
@Matt McIrvin: The TPM interview with a Birther “journalist” featured many references to “true allegiances” of the parents – neither of Obama’s parents were loyal to America, of course. As if allegiances are something that can be measured objectively.
redshirt
@Davis X. Machina: “Swamp Yankees”? Explain, please.
Matt McIrvin
…Incidentally, what “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” originally mostly meant was that it excluded American Indians who were not considered citizens. This hasn’t really applied since 1924, so these days it mostly refers to the unusual case of children of foreign diplomats who have diplomatic immunity.
However, if you Google “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” you will discover a rich vein of wingnuttery on the subject.
EriktheRed
Am I the only one who was not the least bit surprised when he saw what this (T)rump supporter looked like?
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Interesting point. I guess this means that sometimes you can have a discriminatory impact even without an overt discriminatory intent.
But as I noted, in some cases, there is sometimes an deliberate preference for illegal immigrants over citizens and legal residents.
Yeah, you can track part of the decline of newspapers in their handling of want ads. I know that the Times kept their prices high even as distribution declined (and newsstand and subscription prices rose). And then Craigslist helped make newspaper want ads almost obsolete.
PurpleGirl
@Sherparick:
Also her choice of number reflects that most Republicans think of all Hispanics as “illegals,” even the ones whose families have been in the “United States” since the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Reminds me of Linda Ronstadt. Nice ‘American’ sounding name, right? German immigrants a century or two ago to Mexico who ended up living in what became the US (Arizona). Her family predates the US.
Brachiator
@Doug R:
I don’t know. Caesar’s has been trying to do a bankruptcy (lots of suits and counter-suits here), and Trump had problems with the casino and hotel in 1992, and subsequent problems later. The Taj casino in Atlantic City has recently declared bankruptcy. Casinos are not the automatic money machines that people think they are.
That said, aspects of Trump’s business acumen may well be overrated.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Interesting point. I guess this means that sometimes you can have a discriminatory impact even without an overt discriminatory intent.
Unintended consequences. This is the problem with many/some republicans. They may not be directly or overtly racist but their chosen policy ideas have, to them such unintended consequences. Now to those that put the ideas forth they most likely are racist.
Amir Khalid
@PurpleGirl:
I believe the Ronstadts consider themselves Mexican-Americans.
dianne
I read Trump’s proposal and although I looked and looked, I did not see any kind of fines or jail time for the big companies that hire illegals in the first place. Maybe because the 1%s and Trump himself are the ones who are the magnets for people coming over. They come knowing they will be hired for low wages and with poor working conditions which undercut the people who are documented. This should have been the first thing on his list but of course they will always punish the poor and vulnerable first. Typical Republican hyprocrisy.
Tree With Water
@PurpleGirl: I’m a huge fan of Ronstadt’s, and highly recommend a performance of Mexican song and ballads (with a cast of dozens) that can be found on You Tube. She is righteously proud of her heritage, and shared her love of its culture on stage that night.
Tree With Water
@Germy Shoemangler: I grew up and went through grades K-12 grades with a friend whose last name was Italian. In all the years I knew him, I can recall only one teacher who pronounced it correctly on the first day of class. He had his response down pat when they would ask him to pronounce it, and he would always pointedly add, “Just like it reads” -or words to that effect.. It was his way of pointing out there was nothing more unusual about pronouncing his name for the first time than there was, say, that of ‘Anderson’ or ‘McDougal’. And he was absolutely right, too.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Not just a problem with Republicans. As I note, in Southern California, almost everybody who can employs illegal immigrants, even though it may harm citizens and legal residents. Unions allow a certain number of illegal immigrant workers on construction sites, because it helps the job get done for a lower bid. Some guy who wants to turn space above his garage into an apartment will employ illegal immigrant electricians and carpenters.
The minimum wage is reasonably raised to be more like a living wage, and employers of all political persuasions will shave payroll by employing more illegal immigrants.
Democrats and Republicans both hire and underpay illegal immigrants to clean their houses. The difference here (from some personal conversations) is that the liberals will at least allow for taxes and social services to help illegal immigrants. The worst conservatives want to benefit from the services of illegal immigrants and then double the exploitation by unfair practices, deportation, etc. But both groups will happily refuse to pay overtime, or try to pressure the workers into doing extra work.
Along with pointless conversations with friends who are conservative wingnuts, the other dinnertime discussion that drives me nuts are “good liberals” who rationalize their exploitation of illegal immigrant employees. They think they are doing them a huge favor by allowing them to work here unmolested.
Amir Khalid
@Tree With Water:
The Canciones De Mi Padre concert, right?
Tree With Water
@Amir Khalid: Yup, that’s it.
Robert Sneddon
@redshirt: Poland is part of the EU and Polish nationals have every right to reside and work in Britain as EU nationals. They have all the rights of worker protection that any British worker has such as minimum wage, freedom from abuse or discrimination but they have to pay taxes and National Insurance. They can even claim unemployment and other benefits.
I live in an area of a major city where there happens to be a large number of Polish workers, usually younger folks here to make some cash for a few years working the tills in the local supermarkets, cleaning services, care homes etc. before they return to Poland. They get replaced by another clade of low-end workers every few years. The result is a number of Polish-centric shops and businesses have opened selling Polish food and beer as well as providing Polish-language computer support, daycare services (child-minding), Polish-language church services and the like.
Paul in KY
@boatboy_srq: Sure beginning to look that way!