This will differ from my recent Journal posts in format. I may develop an alternative format in the future; in this case I'm responding to a podcast backlog from the "Good Morning Liberty" guys (Nate Thurston and Chuck Thompson). I've still got 212 episodes, almost 14 GB to go through. Regular regular readers know I've already written 3 or 4 posts disagreeing with them on the Trump impeachments, Justin Amash, and other topics. There were a couple of topics they raised which I differ on: immigration and last year's Presidential election.
Reader Note
.As I write in the late afternoon of Aug. 31, less than 3 hours from the end of Blogger monthly activity, I did reach my projected target of 1700 pageviews with a few dozen to spare but probably over 1000 less than last month (when I had an unexpected burst of over 800 pageviews at the end of the month). So I'm sure this is my lowest total, under 2000 pageviews, in over 6 months. And to be honest, it wasn't clear a few days back I would even hit 1700. To get 2000, I have to exceed 67 pageviews daily. Over the past week, that's happened once. Now to be honest, I would publish at far lower pageviews; when I started the blog Blogger didn't provide statistics. But I think any author would prefer a growing vs shrinking audience, but maybe this was an outlier month (e.g., maybe some readers were on vacation) and I'll revert to the mean in September. In terms of post count, I've now had 2 consecutive 50+ post months, and I'll probably break 400 posts on the year in September.
GML and Immigration. Again
.I've written multiple posts advocating "open immigration". I'll try not to repeat myself here. I think the relevant GML episode here is #150. There is lip service to the principle of open borders or freedom of movement, a natural liberty. When I moved back to Maryland 4 years back, I traversed state borders of New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland, all without any official travel documents. Logically extended, internal borders are not conceptually different than national ones. My ancestors had emigrated from Quebec province in the nineteenth century; I worked for a few months in Brazil in 1995 and at one point during the Great Recession applied for a work assignment in Saudi Arabia. Now for a government to arbitrarily block my movement would have interfered with my right to work in a voluntary mutually beneficial exchange.
Are there some constraints? Well there are some obvious ones, like containing a pandemic or fighting an armed invasion. Less convincing are anti-competitive restrictions like labor protectionism or obstacles to things like family reunifications.
Nate Thurston brings up the tired argument of the costs of the social welfare net, attracting undesirable unproductive parasites feeding off the public teat. First of all, most immigrants are not eligible for government benefits for their first few years. Second, immigrants make up a tiny proportion of the population. For example, the total unauthorized population has been estimated at 11M, and a significant percentage of those entered the country legally (expired visas). That amounts to less than 4% of the population. The idea that immigrants make up a significant percentage of social welfare costs is inflammatory rubbish. Most immigrants are younger, healthier people who simply are looking for an opportunity to make it on their own. I can simply point out my own Franco-American ancestors and my Latino friends in Texas are proud people with a phenomenal work ethic. They probably would seek community support during tough times over the humiliation of going on the public dole.
The idea that we can or should hold immigrant dreams hostage to attaining social welfare reforms is unfair and unrealistic. Most immigrants to this country through the earlier twentieth century did so when the social welfare net was small, if it existed at all--certainly not the federal government which did not start growing appreciably until passage of the 16th Amendment.
I think all these arguments against immigration are a socially desirable rationalization of darker motivations involving nativism and/or xenophobia. I'm not accusing Nate Thurston himself of this, but I think he has been unduly influenced by sham arguments justifying restrictions. I myself have issues with morally hazardous social welfare policies, but scapegoating immigrants is unconscionable.
The Election
I think that Nate and Chuck voted for LP nominee Jorgensen (like me), but unlike me, as you may know from my prior critical posts, they seem to share this quixotic affection for Trump. I can only speculate that they have this "enemy of my enemy is my friend" syndrome, with an aversion to Biden and his even more progressive party base. The episode I was listening to was in the days following the election when I think Trump was still up in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but Nate understood that Trump was holding the weaker hand; still the guys seemed to be sympathetic to fraud allegations, Nate was celebrating that the rumored Biden landslide didn't play out, pointing out Texas and Florida held for Trump, and basically argued without COVID-19, Trump would have wiped out Biden.
First of all, no, Trump was in deep political hot water. I don't think he had a single net approval rating (maybe Rasmussen). He was stuck in the low-to-mid 40's average approval range nearly his entire term in office, not good for incumbents in general. According to 538, Trump's Nov. 3 approval was 44.6%, and the lowest approval rating for an incumbent victory was Bush's 48% in 2004. The fact is that Trump barely improved his share of the vote (scored about 0.8% more) while losing by 4.4 points, even wider than his 2.1 points against Clinton. You can argue the popular vote isn't relevant (vs. the electoral college), but not only did Trump lose his rust belt states back to Biden but 2 red states (AZ and GA).
Second, yes, earlier polling showed Biden with up to 50 or more electoral votes than he got, including some favorable polls in TX, OH, and FL but they were mostly mixed and Trump had the lead consistently in the closing weeks. But I never saw s projection with Trump winning the electoral vote race.
Third, it's almost impossible to argue counterfactuals. What if COVID-19 never happened? Nate, of course, fails to point out that Americans tend to rally behind leaders in a crisis like war; nearly all governors saw approval numbers spike during the crisis. So why didn't it happen for Trump? It's difficult to argue but Trump lost the House in 2018 (before COVID-19 was a factor) and the Senate in 2020 and there's no doubt Trump hurt the GOP in Congress.
Of course I would have preferred both Trump and Biden losing. But arguing Trump was the lesser evil is not enough.
