RUTHFULLY YOURS

Donald Trump’s leaked alleged comments about “sh*thole countries” to some Congressmen in a closed-door meeting has triggered the Dems’ and mainstream media’s usual hysterical recourse to their all-purpose smear, “racism.” With no arguments that can answer Trump’s concrete successes, the left relies on its favorite question-begging epithet to create a smog of invective in the hopes that it can distract people from Trump’s policy improvements. And other criticisms are based on ideas that are just as questionable, but remain the received wisdom of our ruling elite.

Over at Townhall one can find a selection of reactions that show how irrational and ideologically opportunistic have been the responses to Trump’s statements about Haiti and Africa. Never missing an opportunity to weaponized grievance, the Black Congressional Caucus is ginning up a Congressional resolution to censure the president for his “bigoted fear mongering,” and for insulting countries that “produce immigrants that are remarkable and make significant contributions to our country.”

This hysteria relies on taking Trump’s comments out of context. Trump was talking about getting rid of chain migration and the visa lottery, policies that some Congressmen in the meeting were negotiating to keep basically intact. But Trump believes correctly that randomly admitting immigrants without any of the standards of selection that most countries rely on has been harmful to our country. The point is to admit the best, not just anybody who accidentally has a relative already here, or got lucky in the lottery. Particularly when there are so many politically, socially, and economically dysfunctional countries whose citizens are eager to emigrate, which is why Democrats insist on accepting refugees from them. But taking in randomly selected people from such countries creates a much higher probability those immigrants will be harder to turn into productive Americans than those from other countries less dysfunctional.

Of course, good candidates exist in Haiti and everywhere else, people who can make “significant contributions” to our country. That is precisely why we need a clear-cut set of criteria for admission that can find those people, criteria based on what skills and qualities they have that will benefit both the U.S. and themselves. The current admission policies seemingly are based on some implied right of anybody from anywhere to become a U.S. citizen. This is patently absurd just as a matter of domestic and international law. Every sovereign nation determines the criteria of admission according to its own customs, mores, and national interests. Try immigrating to Saudi Arabia if you’re a Christian or Jew, or to Canada if you’re broke and badly educated.

Both the far Left and the neoconservative Right were appalled by Donald Trump’s reported skepticism about taking in immigrants from “shithole countries.” The usual script ensued; he was called vulgar, impolitic, insane, and, of course, racist. Today not only are all men created equal, but apparently, all nations, all cultures, and all lifestyles are as well.

Trump, like the wise fools of Shakespeare, yet again, stumbled upon a forbidden truth. What he said was certainly true factually: some countries are profoundly dysfunctional, which is why their people want to leave, and why pro-immigration groups are aghast at sending them back. But what Trump said was also a true moral expression: why should a nation absorb immigrants who will do our existing people more harm than good?

The Left’s commitment to mass immigration is fairly rational and self-interested. They are future welfare state clients, and they undermine the political power of native-born Americans, who tend to support a more limited concept of American government.

The “nation-as-idea” also has a great deal of more idealistic support among mainstream “conservatives.” Lindsey Graham intoned that America is an “idea,” defined fundamentally as “a land of immigrants—it is who we are …” The sanctimonious NeverTrumper Rick Wilson said, “don’t bother calling yourself a conservative if you don’t believe there’s a way where people who come and embrace the proposition of this country can become Americans. Because we’ve worked very hard in this country to accept people from around the world and of varying backgrounds.”

While immigration has certainly been part of the American story, can it really be the defining principle of this or any nation?

Non-European immigration—save for slavery—did not begin significantly until the 1960s. All immigration was restricted significantly from 1924 until 1965. And prior generations of mostly European immigrants did not find a generous welfare state or acceptance of their attachments to their native tongue and habits. In most cases, these habits were stamped out through a not-entirely-gentle process of assimilation and, being European, through high rates of intermarriage. For a purported defining concept of the country, it is a late arrival: “nation of immigrants” was a phrase hardly uttered before the 1960s.