Pretty freaky cover story imagery this week, from Undisc's rowdy disciples

TL;DR and most important conversation over national identity:

Some within MAGA feel that shutting out foreigners will protect American culture. On the contrary, the essence of that culture is dynamism and creativity, which has always been fed by a steady influx of industrious newcomers with fresh perspectives. Nearly half of Fortune 500** firms were founded by immigrants or their children. Many of America’s most brilliant entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk, entered via the college-to-Silicon Valley pipeline that is now narrowing. A fortress America would be unAmerican.

...writes Robert Guest (a deputy editor at the magazine... tho not, uh, a guest editor?) in the newsletter blast:

I’ve reported from more than 100 countries, so when I say America is unique, I’m not basing that assessment on nothing. It is—by far—the place that the largest number of people want to move to. That has always been its greatest strength. If lots of fertile land and natural resources were what mattered most, Russia would be a paradise.

Welcoming new and foreign ideas might be something that a place can do great, spin that around to an economic and, in consequence, political powerhouse. But if what you think is distinct and unique and praiseworthy about your lands is something that's, you know, distinct and unique from other places, having a bunch of outsiders show up, often all at once completely changes that place.

The Reason Versus public debate in October last year was an excellent illustration, where both sides admitted the uniqueness of the American situation/relation with immigration. The vocally pro immigration side were willing to admit that things would, probably, play out very differently in (small) ethnically homogenous, high-trust Nordic societies.

If you don't think your society has any specific connection to the land, to the history of the peoples living there, or everything is one, big, hunky-dory melting pot, it doesn't matter. We can all live and coexist happily in Texas or NYC. One Billion Americans... If NOT, then some (severe) selection criteria necessary.

Anyway to the article:

FIRST, give Donald Trump some credit. He promised to restore order to the border, and he did. Granted, the slowdown in irregular border-crossings began under Joe Biden, who belatedly closed the loophole whereby nearly anyone could walk across, claim asylum and join the labour market.

"The southern frontier, which was visibly chaotic in the early Biden years, is now calm."

1. "What should the government do about the people who are already on American soil illegally?"
2. "And whom should America welcome in the future?"

Mr Trump has offered a brutal answer to the first question, and a self-harming one to the second.

= deport. everyone. (up to 100m people)

The White House boasted it was rounding up “the worst of the worst”, though most of those detained have never been convicted of a crime. The mass deployment of shoddily trained, theatrically aggressive immigration agents to Minneapolis caused a political backlash, after they were filmed killing two American protesters.

Rather than rappelling down buildings and seizing people in Walmart car parks, agents are co-operating with friendly cops and detaining people with expired visas at airports. And Mr Trump has created a new class of deportables by stripping temporary asylum-like status from hundreds of thousands of Haitians, Afghans and others.

Seems like the wrong people to go after, but what do I know?

"Most Americans favour kicking out criminals, but not tearing apart the families of hard-working people who have been in the country for decades."

The most predictable result

Mr Trump is altering America’s demographic trajectory. Net migration in 2025 was zero. The short-term economic effects are ugly. The labour force has shrunk by 1m since January. Leave aside the $17,000-a-head cost of processing, shackling and deporting people; American builders and bars are floundering for lack of labour.

Improved asylum-seeker system, far more than wall-building,

...is the way to avoid future mayhem on the border. And only by persuading voters that their frontiers remain secure—rather than grandstanding about abolishing ICE—can a future administration hope to pass the kind of enlightened immigration reform that America needs.

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