this mostly applies to the U.S. but also most of the western world:
As Marxists we know that most policy is driven by what capital allows or within the increasingly narrow range of acceptable discourse it allows within bourgeois dictatorship
Obviously it's not a conspiracy of ten guys in a secret room but a general consensus that develops from a chaotic web-like oligarchy of money peddlers, influencers, lackeys, billionaire puppetmasters, etc
But this really, really hurts Capital. they need the influx of cheap labor or face the real threat of forced degrowth. and we know every including is trying to make it harder for people to be childless but short of forcing people to procreate at gunpoint..
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so why allow this to become a bipartisan consensus (U.S.) instead of say throwing some scraps of social democratic programs?
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or in Europe's case allowing these parties to come to power instead of reversing some neoliberal austerity?
Is this a case of anti-immigration just being easier to do vs. building resiliency into the system? i mean it's always easier to write laws crimializing stuff and throwing cops at a problem i suppose
Or something else?
lots of good answers, but nobody has really touched on why the party is doubling and tripling down on xenophobia. and i, for one, don't have a good answer as to why the "rank and file" of the party would back these ideas. I get that the decision makers at the top are answering to capital, and i think the climate change refugee crisis is certainly a major reason, but why are all the good in-this-house-we-believe libs following suit?
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Harris promises tougher immigration, fentanyl controls at border, Reuters, 28 September 2024
Both Harris and Trump Cite Right-Wing Myths About Fentanyl in Border Policy, Truthout.org, 26 September 2024
Kamala L3Harris has spent her entire term as VP cheerleading the Dems' border policy, which was inherited from the Trump admin. She already stated that her potential presidential administration would continue the deportations in the presidential debate.
i guess xenophobia could be more accurately put as "anti-immigration rhetoric". they don't directly vilify immigrants the way republicans do, but they also do nothing meaningful to counter act it. You've got and "biden" border bill. 8-10 years ago, when democrats talked about immigrants, it was all DACA and Dream Act. now it's "cinch down the border" and "maybe they are eating the dogs and eating the cats".