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bif

(26,258 posts)
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 03:36 PM Jul 28

I simply can't understand the obsession with immigrants.

It's like this one issue is behind everything the Orange Rapist and his loyal asskissers do. WTAF! Could someone please explain why they're so focused on this one thing?

56 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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I simply can't understand the obsession with immigrants. (Original Post) bif Jul 28 OP
It's the authortarian playbook. dem4decades Jul 28 #1
Yes, and remember, we had a law almost passed that would have addressed this issue. The GOP/tRUMP SWBTATTReg Jul 28 #3
Yep, red meat for magats and a constant talking point to keep it in the news. brush Jul 28 #11
Yup, gotta focus the hate on "undesirables" to give the MAGATs someone to blame LR3 Jul 28 #16
Let's hone in on which "immigrants" IzzaNuDay Jul 28 #2
Boil it down and it reveals racism. . . . nt Bernardo de La Paz Jul 28 #4
Fear CloudWatcher Jul 28 #5
It's about skin color n/t leftstreet Jul 28 #6
Exactly. Nothing more brush Jul 28 #14
They operate under the premise that straight white cis Christian right-wing men are the only real Americans unblock Jul 28 #7
They don't have great power or wealth, so they become easy scapegoats for the people that do. Uncle Joe Jul 28 #8
Blood and Soil Kid Berwyn Jul 28 #9
Scapegoating for all their failures awesomerwb1 Jul 28 #10
Bingo. Oneironaut Jul 29 #49
Easy target KentuckyWoman Jul 28 #12
Recommended. H2O Man Jul 28 #13
Trump has a history of overt racism....see katie johnson video for her witnessing Karadeniz Jul 28 #15
Scapegoating people has been practiced throughout time. OrlandoDem2 Jul 28 #17
It's extremely baffling to this native Californian senseandsensibility Jul 28 #18
Racism and xenophobia ibegurpard Jul 28 #19
This message was self-deleted by its author PeaceWave Jul 28 #20
Because it is what Hitler did with the Jews by getting a lot of the population having others to blame for Botany Jul 28 #21
they could only ride the trans thing so far Skittles Jul 28 #22
Trump would install separate water fountains Johonny Jul 28 #23
Racism, xenophobia, and blame for ones own failures are top selling issues for MAGAs. Ping Tung Jul 28 #24
Once he is gone, we need to campaign on offering anyone deported the right to return n/t MichMan Jul 28 #25
Nazis blamed the Jews for all the problems in the world Mysterian Jul 28 #26
Racism and division Renew Deal Jul 28 #27
Political pawns TnDem Jul 28 #28
It starts with immigrants ... you know the rest. usonian Jul 28 #29
Oppression is strength. moondust Jul 28 #30
White Supremacy. appmanga Jul 28 #31
Anti-immigrant nativism has deep roots in the GOP. J_William_Ryan Jul 28 #32
"I simply can't understand the obsession edhopper Jul 28 #33
I haven't heard of anyone here rounding up Jews bif Jul 28 #35
Think harder edhopper Jul 28 #47
? bif Jul 29 #51
Historically edhopper Jul 29 #53
jews will, according to the fundies, all "self deport' to israel rampartd Jul 29 #54
It's entirely uncomplicated BannonsLiver Jul 28 #34
It mainly has to do with MAGA wanting to prevent whites form becoming Jspur Jul 28 #36
Ethnic cleansing. cbabe Jul 28 #37
Immigrants have always gotten this treatment ITAL Jul 28 #38
bif, they're taking for themselves the FED dlilafae Jul 28 #39
blond hair, blue eyes, white skin mercuryblues Jul 28 #40
first, it's a political hook for their supporters; gets votes bigtree Jul 28 #41
I don't get it either. LeftInTX Jul 28 #42
god dammit! i have to hit 1 for english. pansypoo53219 Jul 28 #43
That bdamomma Jul 28 #44
Racism FrankBooth Jul 28 #45
The ones they are explicitly bashing are largely brown, Ms. Toad Jul 28 #46
That's his flagship issue LS0999 Jul 29 #48
The immigrant purge is linked to the far-rights obsession with . . . peggysue2 Jul 29 #50
For me - personally? JustAnotherGen Jul 29 #52
Immigrants ILikePie92 Jul 29 #55
They blame immigrants so you don't notice that they're the real bad guys. Initech Jul 30 #56

SWBTATTReg

(25,717 posts)
3. Yes, and remember, we had a law almost passed that would have addressed this issue. The GOP/tRUMP
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 03:41 PM
Jul 28

didn't want it to pass or go forward, to finally once and for all, deal w/ the immigration issues. They want it to continue so they can harp on it all of the time, a manufactured issue in effect.

Scumbags.

LR3

(56 posts)
16. Yup, gotta focus the hate on "undesirables" to give the MAGATs someone to blame
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:06 PM
Jul 28

Nazis ---> gays, gypsies, and Jews
MAGATs ---> trans, immigrants, and Jews

IzzaNuDay

(1,149 posts)
2. Let's hone in on which "immigrants"
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 03:39 PM
Jul 28

If they aren’t arriving from Eurocentric countries - for example the South African whites, then they are a problem to MAGA sycophants.

CloudWatcher

(2,127 posts)
5. Fear
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 03:44 PM
Jul 28

1) make people afraid of something, anything.
2) offer yourself up as the only solution to their fear.
3) require emergency powers because it's an emergency
4) use the emergency powers to maintain control and enrich yourself and your friends
5) use the $ to stay in power as long as you can

It didn't have to be immigrants, any minority will do.

unblock

(55,655 posts)
7. They operate under the premise that straight white cis Christian right-wing men are the only real Americans
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 03:46 PM
Jul 28

Though they tolerate subservient women and obedient children.

*anyone* not under that heading is at risk, sooner or later.

Immigrants are the current easy target because there are already laws they can overaggressively enforce (and sweep up some non-immigrant people they want to get rid of as well by casting an overly broad net and through denial of due process) and the rhetoric of immigrants "invading" the country works on these idiots.

Uncle Joe

(63,250 posts)
8. They don't have great power or wealth, so they become easy scapegoats for the people that do.
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 03:47 PM
Jul 28

It's classic look there while we pick your pocket for the oligarchs; whom also happen to own most of the corporate media.

So the messenger and message are easily aligned.

Thanks for the thread bif.

awesomerwb1

(4,852 posts)
10. Scapegoating for all their failures
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 03:50 PM
Jul 28

I have money problems, blame someone else. Blame immigrants
I have a crappy job, blame someone else. Blame immigrants.
I can't afford a house, blame someone. Blame immigrants.

Etc
Etc
Etc

Oneironaut

(6,128 posts)
49. Bingo.
Tue Jul 29, 2025, 10:11 AM
Jul 29

I’m not poor bc of the billionaire parasite class. I’m poor because of immigrants!

I didn’t lose my job because of shitty anti-worker concepts like Six Sigma Lean that dictate hiring as few people as possible and overloading them with work. It’s because immigrants are stealing our jobs!

All crime is because of immigrants, not because of our failure to invest in infrastructure or right past wrongs.

If I get stuck in traffic every day, it’s because immigrants are clogging traffic up by commuting to work too! It’s absolutely not because American society has virtually no public transportation and allows people to develop in suburbs rather than investing in cities.

If we’re destroying beautiful forests and land, it’s not because of greedy, predatory land developers. It’s because immigrants need houses!

It’s all so convenient. They are robbing us blind while we point fingers and punch down.

H2O Man

(77,992 posts)
13. Recommended.
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:04 PM
Jul 28

Rubin told me that every tyrant knows that if you get people to hate some smaller group of people, they will forget their own low level of being.

Karadeniz

(24,644 posts)
15. Trump has a history of overt racism....see katie johnson video for her witnessing
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:06 PM
Jul 28

his using immigration/deportation to threaten.

OrlandoDem2

(3,110 posts)
17. Scapegoating people has been practiced throughout time.
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:09 PM
Jul 28

It’s not right but it’s nothing new.

senseandsensibility

(24,015 posts)
18. It's extremely baffling to this native Californian
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:10 PM
Jul 28

Last edited Mon Jul 28, 2025, 08:29 PM - Edit history (1)

who grew up in a state that has been majority Hispanic for decades now. We co-exist peacefully here and in fact, depend on the immigrant population for important work such as construction and farming. However, the huge numbers of Hispanic people are not just immigrants. The majority are citizens and just as "American" as anyone else.

Response to bif (Original post)

Botany

(75,398 posts)
21. Because it is what Hitler did with the Jews by getting a lot of the population having others to blame for
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:15 PM
Jul 28

… the country’s problems. Round them up and deport them. Trump is waist deep in hypocrisy
with his obsession with immigrants because his own grandfather Trump was an immigrant after the
State of Bavaria expelled him for not fighting in WW I, his own mother was an immigrant from
Scotland, his 1st and 3rd wives were immigrants from Eastern Europe, he used undocumented
Polish labor on his Trump Tower in Manhattan, and Costa Ricans built his Bedminster Golf
course and clubhouse in New Jersey. Selling racism, social divisions, and fear of “the others”
is @ his core and those prejudices are reinforced daily by Stephen Miller.

Trump wants to be a dictator and selling fear is part of the plan.

Johonny

(24,792 posts)
23. Trump would install separate water fountains
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:17 PM
Jul 28

If he thought he could get away with it. So, you know, by next year.

Ping Tung

(3,757 posts)
24. Racism, xenophobia, and blame for ones own failures are top selling issues for MAGAs.
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:20 PM
Jul 28

The immigrants are used as bogeymen threatening the mythical "American Way" and stealing jobs from "REAL Americans". They are the new "Welfare Queens" that Reagan used to scare the suckers into voting for hi m. Trump displayed the truth to see when he became generous and welcoming in allowing White (only) South African immigrants to come here.

America has always had a Dark Side of ignorance, fear, and hatred. This is just another version of it.

MichMan

(16,013 posts)
25. Once he is gone, we need to campaign on offering anyone deported the right to return n/t
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:28 PM
Jul 28

Mysterian

(5,953 posts)
26. Nazis blamed the Jews for all the problems in the world
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:32 PM
Jul 28

MAGA blames immigrants for all the problems in the world.

Fascists need "others" for their gullible followers to hate and to blame for all the problems.

Renew Deal

(84,513 posts)
27. Racism and division
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:33 PM
Jul 28

They need something to divide people with. Picking on immigrants is the convenient way to do it. They can’t do much to fight back.

 

TnDem

(1,390 posts)
28. Political pawns
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:35 PM
Jul 28

If our party hadn't made them political pawns for years, it wouldn't be as bad. Let's face it, our party has attempted to court the hispanic vote and still does, which is fine and they should... So much so, that the party leaders have zero clue about the mindset of hispanics. All hispanics do not vote as a bloc like Carvill might like to think. Most hispanics are fairly conservative and many are catholic...They can't be grouped into a voting bloc by their skin color or what WE view as their culture. This is because hispanics consists of dozens of cultures. The DC view is they all are the same...They are not.

This top down "Latinx" strategy is bullshit.. It just gets eye rolls from many hispanics because they feel that they are being talked down to, because they are..

usonian

(20,987 posts)
29. It starts with immigrants ... you know the rest.
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:36 PM
Jul 28

Did you know that in the previous century, Italians were not considered "White?"

https://archive.is/TyY6O

moondust

(21,062 posts)
30. Oppression is strength.
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:43 PM
Jul 28

He and MAGA think he looks strong when he is dominating and oppressing a group of scapegoats. Much like Hitler scapegoating and oppressing Jews and other groups.

appmanga

(1,278 posts)
31. White Supremacy.
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:50 PM
Jul 28

I continue to waver between astounded and utter disbelief at how easily people dismiss the Occam's Razor conclusion about this administration and Trump's supporters.

J_William_Ryan

(3,035 posts)
32. Anti-immigrant nativism has deep roots in the GOP.
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 04:53 PM
Jul 28

Hostility and unwarranted fear concerning immigrants is a core theme of the fascist right, consistent with white grievance politics and racist replacement theory.


bif

(26,258 posts)
35. I haven't heard of anyone here rounding up Jews
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 05:31 PM
Jul 28

And sending them to third world countries.

edhopper

(36,665 posts)
53. Historically
Tue Jul 29, 2025, 11:13 AM
Jul 29

in what European country would people say that?

You ask why the obsession with immigrants, they might have asked why the obsession with Jews.

The reasons are the same.

rampartd

(2,490 posts)
54. jews will, according to the fundies, all "self deport' to israel
Tue Jul 29, 2025, 11:18 AM
Jul 29

where they will convert or die. it is prophesied, according to these believers, somewhere in the bible.

BannonsLiver

(19,685 posts)
34. It's entirely uncomplicated
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 05:29 PM
Jul 28

1. Racism

2. An easy scapegoat for white people problems.

Not hard to understand at all.

Jspur

(749 posts)
36. It mainly has to do with MAGA wanting to prevent whites form becoming
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 05:36 PM
Jul 28

a minority. This is why they are obsessed with immigration because they have this irrational fear that once whites become a minority in this country that they will be persecuted by other minority groups.

ITAL

(1,203 posts)
38. Immigrants have always gotten this treatment
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 05:48 PM
Jul 28

Even back before the founding Benjamin Franklin complained about Germans coming here and not adapting to the British/American way of life.

The same charge was later thrown at Italians and Irish...and Czechs, and Poles, and Swedes, and Chinese, and Japanese, etc, etc.

Basically every group that has ever come here in large numbers has gotten the treatment. Some have been quickly "adopted" by the American culture and other groups took longer.

dlilafae

(326 posts)
39. bif, they're taking for themselves the FED
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 08:28 PM
Jul 28

money. Every U.S dollar that they can get their hands on, they're claiming for their own (under the guise of business).

bigtree

(92,771 posts)
41. first, it's a political hook for their supporters; gets votes
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 08:54 PM
Jul 28

...but for the republicans, themselves, they're looking at the way our census allows states to get representation in Congress based on population.

Funny, though, how they were actually bussing them into these Democratic areas.

LeftInTX

(34,006 posts)
42. I don't get it either.
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 09:01 PM
Jul 28

It's one thing to try to reduce immigration (our country has limited resources and although immigrants perform jobs that others won't, we had Venezuelans sleeping in peoples' front yards. They were not allowed to work and required govt assistance. I'm sure that was not welcome by voters) and deport criminals, but this is so bizarre.

bdamomma

(69,050 posts)
44. That
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 09:26 PM
Jul 28

is his whole platform to make America white again. These are fucked up white men, they are damaged. Look at Stephen Miler. He has mental issues too. They need scapegoats, LGBTQ, Women, Black and Brown people

Ms. Toad

(37,740 posts)
46. The ones they are explicitly bashing are largely brown,
Mon Jul 28, 2025, 10:06 PM
Jul 28

And those are the ones they have promised are overrunning our country - so we have to deport millions.

And, since there aren't enough brown violent criminals, they have to grab anyone and everyone from the easiest places imaginable to meet their quotoas. Those who aren't brown are at least "damn furiners," and are acceptable collateral damage, in their eyes.

LS0999

(254 posts)
48. That's his flagship issue
Tue Jul 29, 2025, 09:40 AM
Jul 29

That's why his base will continue to support him regardless. As long as Trump continues to push this white nationalist agenda his base will support him even if it means starving to death in the streets.

peggysue2

(12,190 posts)
50. The immigrant purge is linked to the far-rights obsession with . . .
Tue Jul 29, 2025, 10:57 AM
Jul 29

The Great Replacement Theory/Conspiracy. Tucker Carlson has been pushing this for years and hardcore MAGA supporters bought into the idea.

Birthrates of white citizens are down; birthrates of brown/black citizens are up. Demographics. Consequently, the immigrant population of brown and black-skinned people will overwhelm the entitled white Christian population who ultimately will lose their entitled status. Even more nefarious (according to proponents) is the Democratic Party supporting and encouraging the illegal immigration surge in order to win elections in perpetuity.

IMHO, all of this is merely an excuse, a lame rationale for raw racism and violence against the other.

We're a country of immigrants. None of this makes sense.

JustAnotherGen

(37,121 posts)
52. For me - personally?
Tue Jul 29, 2025, 11:10 AM
Jul 29

My husband has been misidentified as Andrew Lincoln from the Walking Dead but since he's a Calabrese Cowboy -

I like to remind him that without Sam Elliott imprinting on my psyche - he wouldn't have gotten a first date.

For me - it's because my immigrant is a hottie.

 

ILikePie92

(223 posts)
55. Immigrants
Tue Jul 29, 2025, 11:30 AM
Jul 29

Look different, speak a different language, eat different foods, and have different beliefs. They are today's version of Jews, gypsies, slaves, etc... for today's fascist regime. In order for them to take over, they need an outside group of people for "insiders" to be afraid of/hate. There weren't enough Muslims here back in Dubya's terms for this to work but there sure are a hell of a lot of ethnic Hispanics here this time for it to work.

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