Why are all these unreconstructed nativists crawling out of the woodwork on the forum all of a sudden? Is this because of Trump?
There aren't that many 'unreconstructed nativists' but most of people railing against illegal immigration probably already held that view before Trump, albeit more quietly. What Trump did was move the overton window such that these things are much more acceptable to say in public. He also did convince a decent number of people who were ambivalent about this before. I keep hearing working class union types coming out hard against illegal immigration, campaigning for mass deportation, saying it has destroyed the middle class. That and free trade. People are fed up that politicians have ignored them for decades while their livelihoods declined; both parties giving lip service but doing nothing.
What people fail to see is that deporting 11 million illegal immigrants won't save the middle class. What it will do is rip apart families and create economic destruction. Neighborhoods will be turned into ghost towns. Demand will tank for all kinds of products. It will make large parts of the southwest look like East Cleveland. But no one wants to think about that. People want to close their eyes and wake up in 1995 with the last 20 years all some kind of bad dream. But we aren't able to go back even if we wanted to. Life's not a computer game; you can't reload from the last saved version.
I meant on Atlas Forum, specifically. I know all of this about the country at large.
