Politics and the Narrative Drive converge in items today.
- Robert Reich about how the GOP is courting unions;
- How J.D. Vance emphasizes his personal story rather than conservative principles;
- How Republicans cling to the myth of migrant crime;
- And how people on the right think, nonsensically, that the left is “godless.”
We’ve been watching the Republican National Convention the past few evenings because, well, there’s nothing else on. We’re not in the midst of watching any particular show on cable, or DVD, and it’s easiest just to turn on one network or another and watch the show. What struck me on the first night was that a union leader (!) was speaking to Republicans, as if Republicans support unions. They never have; they’re pro-big business, and thus anti-union.
Robert Reich, 16 Jul 2024: The GOP pretends its pro-union, subtitled “How the anti-union party courts working-class voters”
The strategy here, apparently, is if you say black is actually white, some people will believe you.
Reich quotes RNC statements about Biden not being pro-union. Then:
As my friend Harold Meyerson, writing for The American Prospect, notes, the RNC statement didn’t address the Republicans’ enduring and ongoing opposition to unions, or the officials Trump appointed when president (Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb, et al.) who devoted themselves to crippling unions in every way they could.
It ignored the assessments of dispassionate historians that Biden is either the most pro-union president since FDR or the most pro-union president ever.
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And then last night, the speech by J.D. Vance, the writer and now Vice Presidential nominee, whose political resume is very short, and whose speech avoided any kind of policy statements at all. He spoke of home and hearth. Which is consistent with my ongoing model.
Washington Post, Jason Willick, 18 Jul 2024: Opinion | Did Vance sell a new kind of conservative nationalism?, subtitled “On Wednesday night, ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Vance fused with modern MAGA.”
The article is a discussion among several people. The key point is Dionne’s third item.
E.J. Dionne Jr.: I was struck by three aspects: First, the repudiation of past Republican policies on trade and foreign policy. Second, the hard-edge class language more likely to come from the left — attacks on “the ruling class,” “Wall Street,” “the few.” Third, and this was troubling the more I thought about it, a defense of a nationalism rooted more in the land and in identity than in a commitment to, say, the principles of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. It was a different kind of conservatism, national conservatism.
Jason: I agree, E.J., that the repudiation of “creedal nationalism” — or the idea that America is an idea — was maybe the speech’s most significant substantive point.
E.J.: Yes, Jason, the repeated rejection of America as an idea really jumped out, as did his coming back again and again to “homeland” and “home” and mentioning the “seven generations” of his family buried in that Kentucky cemetery.
Once again: the dichotomy between loyalty and principle. Conservatives say they live by the Bible and the Constitution, but they actually don’t; they live by allegiance to their land, their family, and their fearless leader, and support whatever he does. Toward the end:
Jim Geraghty: He’ll be formidable in a debate. And he’ll steer the GOP in the most populist, nationalist, protectionist and perhaps isolationist direction possible.
In the terms I’ve been using: tribal.
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And if no human can escape narrative thinking, conservatives seem consciously intent on reducing the world to black and white. Despite evidence.
NY Times, German Lopez, 18 Jul 2024: The Myth of Migrant Crime, subtitled “Republicans suggest that immigrants are especially likely to be criminals. The data shows the opposite.”
Throughout the first three days of the Republican National Convention, officials have highlighted a surge in what they call “migrant crime.” President Biden “has welcomed into our country rapists, murderers, even terrorists, and the price that we have paid has been deadly,” Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas claimed last night. The day before, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said, “Every day, Americans are dying” in crimes committed by migrants. Donald Trump has made similar remarks on the campaign trail.
But there is no migrant crime surge.
In fact, U.S. rates of crime and immigration have moved in opposite directions in recent years. After illegal immigration plummeted in 2020, the murder rate rose. And after illegal immigration spiked in 2021 and 2022, murders plateaued and then fell.
Over a longer period, there is no relationship between immigration and crime trends. The number of foreign-born Americans has increased for decades, while the murder rate has gone up and down at different times…
With charts and analysis. Here’s one of my favorite points. Just step back, for a moment, and consider the motivations of immigrants, who walk for hundreds or thousands of miles to get to the US.
In reality, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the U.S. Immigrants have had lower incarceration rates — a measure for crime — than native-born Americans for at least 150 years, a recent study concluded. Undocumented immigrants have lower felony arrest rates than legal immigrants or native-born Americans, another study found.
Why? Consider migrants’ motives. Many risk their lives by crossing dangerous jungles, rivers and deserts through Latin America to reach the U.S. so they can find better jobs that offer higher pay. In many cases, they are fleeing crime and violence back home. If they came here illegally, they have an incentive to avoid trouble with the law so they do not get caught by the authorities and deported.
But you won’t sway tribal racists with evidence. They’d rather hear their paranoid fears are justified.
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Another nonsensical position on the right — among many other things, an example of black and white thinking. If something is not *this*, it must be the opposite.
Hemant Mehta, Friendly Atheist, 18 Jul 2024: “The left is godless”: Why a MAGA spokeswoman’s attack makes no sense, subtitled “‘Living without God, I just wouldn’t wish it on anyone,’ said Caroline Sunshine about many of her own party’s voters”
Never mind the psychological issues about blind “faith,” her claims simply aren’t true, as Hemant explores with… charts! tables of numbers! Evidence!
That’s why Sunshine’s claim that the left is “godless” isn’t just a lie and it’s not just a slur. It’s completely disingenuous. She implied that Democrats couldn’t possibly feel bad about the tragedy because they lacked religious faith even though they repeatedly and forcefully said as much about the violence (which, by the way, was committed by a registered Republican who “definitely was conservative” with access to a weapon that Democrats want banned).
It’s especially ridiculous considering President Joe Biden is a devout Catholic who attends Mass nearly every week and cites his faith in damn near every speech.
There’s something extremely arrogant about suggesting others can’t have empathy because they don’t think exactly like you. But that’s the GOP brand for you: If you’re not one of them, you’re a monster.
Sunshine is also just factually wrong in claiming the left is godless.
