Biden administration cites the 1619 project as inspirational in history grant proposal

[Geoffrey Howe]

Yeah you're not a right-winger, you're just anti-transgender, anti-immigration, and anti-BLM and defend the Capitol Terrorists... nothing right-wing about that, right?

I still don’t understand why people on the left are so supportive of immigration.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Yeah you're not a right-winger, you're just anti-transgender, anti-immigration, and anti-BLM and defend the Capitol Terrorists... nothing right-wing about that, right?

I still don’t understand why people on the left are so supportive of immigration.

It's an American thing. You wouldn't get it.

Well it is here too, to a lesser extent. I wonder how much it is Pavlovian opposition to Trump.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Yeah you're not a right-winger, you're just anti-transgender, anti-immigration, and anti-BLM and defend the Capitol Terrorists... nothing right-wing about that, right?

I still don’t understand why people on the left are so supportive of immigration.

Because people deserve the right to freely move and live wherever they please? There’s no rational reason to oppose immigration.

Well this strikes me as a libertarian argument, and, from the left, no better than saying employers have the right pay whatever salary they please. Clearly you're being extremely obtuse if you think there is no rational reason to take one view on a major issue like this on which intelligent and informed persons have disagreed. Surely one could argue that it is not a good idea for motivated or skilled workers to leave their native country, contributing to its decline; and 'undercut' native workers with their skills or acceptance of lower wages? One can certainly disagree - in fact I think I do - but you wouldn't be doing so from the left.

On a side note, do you support tarriffs or adjustments on products which compete well because they come from jurisdictions with weaker labour laws and the like?

[Geoffrey Howe]

Yeah you're not a right-winger, you're just anti-transgender, anti-immigration, and anti-BLM and defend the Capitol Terrorists... nothing right-wing about that, right?

I still don’t understand why people on the left are so supportive of immigration.

Nor do I, it's not feasible. When the working class minority vote drops out for Dems in the next few years, they'll start to self reflect.

Note I am not advocating the idea that immigration is bad, I just struggle to understand the left's such strong support for it.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Opposition to immigration in the U.S. is usually racist, so members of racial minorities see it as an attack on them.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but have you considered that the vast majority of Americans are descended from immigrants, unlike in Britain and in other countries? That makes us more likely to empathize with immigrants because of our family histories—we also have a national story of being a refuge for immigrants which is contested by many white Americans, but still powerful.

Finally, opposing immigration forces governments into cruel and nasty behavior toward poor and vulnerable people, and if you find that immoral, it drives your decisions.

So, no, it’s not a brainless, mindless “Pavlovian” response by drooling dogs barking “HATE TRUMP”, but a long-standing belief system informed by the history of the U.S., morality, ethics, and a sense of nefarious beliefs behind the opposition.

Considering how much of a positive impact immigration has had on America economically I also don't really understand why the right is so opposed to it. Well it's because the right in America is more an angry illogical movement, and you don't have much of a sensible liberal centre-right.

The foreign born population of Britain is around 15% and I'd be willing to bet a majority is 'descended' from immigrants.

Now many would contend that lots of immigration is 'nasty' towards unskilled native workers; and I think that a lot of the backlash is not born of xenophobia, although that helps, but because of a fear of job loss and the like. It's fairly clear to me that in the long run immigration is a positive for non-immigrants but one does not have to be racist to disagree. Calling opposition to immigration racist etc. has done a good deal of harm to liberal movements I think.

Why do you have such a contigent - likely noisier than big - who are against the very idea of borders? I do suspect that Trump has accelerated support for immigration amongst Democrats simply because one often defines oneself in opposition to something rather than in support of something.