A child plays in front of police near a demonstration by a group protesting undocumented migrants, after a Syrian and Iraqi were arrested for homicide |
This letter in today's South China Morning Post makes a point I've been making for a while.
That folks who are concerned by unvetted, undocumented, economic immigrants are ordinary citizens reasonably concerned about the effect of such laissez-faire policies on the well being of their body politic. They are not right-wing or even Alt-right, let alone Nazis. They are middle of the road folks. Not crazy knuckle-dragging conservatives.
Mockery of these concerns is what gave us Brexit, it's what gave us Trump and it's what gave us the populists in Hungary and Poland.
When will this arrogant disdainful dismissal end? From what I've seen on CNN and the New York Times, it looks like never. Doubling down on identity politics and the stupidity of Trump "deplorables" is the order of the day. Witness Obama's speech yesterday wading back into the mid-terms. Classic demonising of Republicans. These are half the country, Barry!
Which means rocky shoals ahead.
And now I've just re-read the headline to this letter and see that it gives a wrong slant by saying "not all..." because the thrust of the letter and, I believe, the truth of the matter, is that the vast majority of the anti-migrant protesters are every-day decent folks, middle of the road. Not that "not all are Nazis".
Also, they say they are not "anti-migrant". They are anti the unvetted and undocumented migrants because how do you know who you are getting especially since ISIS boasted they were smuggling sympathisers in with the undocumentees.