Trump Rally Turns Violent – We Are Becoming Trump

Filed in National by on June 3, 2016

Congratulations! We’ve finally succeeded in making the “Both sides do it” claim a reality.

Via TPM (Be sure to watch the videos):

At the end of a Donald Trump rally in San Jose, California, on Thursday night, protesters began throwing eggs and punches at Trump supporters leaving the event, according to several news reports.

[…]

Several fights broke out between Trump protesters and supporters. One man was punched and knocked to the ground, leading one person’s arrest, according to CNN. And at another point, a crowd surrounded a Trump supporter, punching him in the face, CNN reported.

[…]

A video from Marcus DiPaola, described by the Washington Post as a freelance photographer, shows one instance of someone getting punched in the face.

[…]

ABC News also reported that protesters smashed the taillights of a car they believed belonged to a Trump supporter and also began banging on police cars.

Protesters jumped on cars, threw eggs and water bottles at Trump supporters, according to the Washington Post. The paper also reported that protesters took “Make America Great Again” hats and burned them.

[…]

In one video posted to YouTube, a Trump supporter with blood on his head and neck told reporters that someone grabbed his Trump sign, began following him, calling him a racist, and spitting on him.

What the hell is going on? There is no excuse for this behavior – and if you think there is you have a serious problem. If you come here touting conspiracy theories about how these were really Trump supporters you have even bigger problems. Our government endures due to a peaceful exchanging of power through elections. Yes, Trump introduced violence into this election – and up until recently he 100% owned that – but we should know better. Lord knows, we crow about knowing better often enough. I’m actually beginning to doubt that claim, since it seems to not take much to have us raising our fists and throwing things. Behaving like adults is so 2008/2012.

So, non-Trump supporters behaving like Trump supporters hurts us. This behavior has only resulted in validating the “Both sides do it” argument. Congratulations.

John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign chair, condemned the violence: “Violence against supporters of any candidate has no place in this election.” Good. Keep it up.

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Comments (82)

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  1. anonymous says:

    Who do you mean by “we”? Are you going to take ownership of everyone who wants to see Trump destroyed?

    This is not the first of these incidents, and it certainly won’t be the last. I’m a little perturbed by your hall-monitor response here. You couldn’t control people’s behavior if you were chief of police, but you want to do it from a blogger’s chair? Good luck with that.

    People are going to respond to this threat in their own ways, without your approval. Deal with it.

  2. Dorian Gray says:

    When the common themes re: Trump are “fear” and “fascism” what other reaction would you expect? How should one combat the rise of fascism in the US (if you really believe it’s happening)? I mean just think of what happened the last time, and the world no longer has 20 million Soviets to spare.

    Google Trump plus fascism and scan the results. Some major media outlets are making the case… So IF (if) the country is on the cusp of authoritarian fascism I think violence is actually appropriate to put it down. Don’t you?

    (Note: I’m not convinced that we are indeed watching the rise of fascism. Just something to think about. Historically when fascist leaders come to power it doesn’t end well.)

  3. pandora says:

    I don’t think it’s fascism. I think it’s reality TV. I think if Trump actually won he’d be in for a big surprise, because it wouldn’t be his agenda Congress would be pushing through.

    Violence is not the answer – and I’ll point out that we (everyone here) were all over the Palin/McCain rallies. Why did we call our Palin/McCain rallies? Why is violence okay now? Is violence okay in our political system if we agree with the people acting violent. That’s what the GOP does. I think there’s something much bigger at stake here – the peaceful exchange of power which is at the very core of our Democracy. If violence is okay with you at these rallies, then it’s okay on election day and when we elect a new President. You can’t just sign onto “certain” violence.

    And I’m not trying to control people’s behavior. I gave my opinion on what’s going on. Why does it always come back to me telling people what to do instead of what I actually wrote?

  4. Ben says:

    If Trump wins, (i vomit a little whenever i say or type that) It will legitimize and normalize all the horrible things he’s been saying. It will embolden the people who REALLY believe all that xenophobic, nationalistic shit to run for office…. and they will win in gerrymandered fly-over country. Outright fascists will win national office and, in the Democratic nature of compromise…. will get some of their agenda through……….. What happens when the choice is between Muslim Interment and No Muslim Internment and one side is addicted to compromise while the other side is addicted to hostage-taking in order to not have to compromise? The real Threat of Trump hasnt been acknowledged yet and THAT is the most horrifying part of it.

  5. Dorian Gray says:

    I think history has taught us that fascism is only put down by violence. Now, if Trump isn’t really a scary fascist perhaps media contributors, editorial writers, etc. should be a bit less hysterical. Gawker tricked Trump into retweeting il Duce. Slate published this:

    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/11/donald_trump_is_a_fascist_it_is_the_political_label_that_best_describes.html

    Salon this:

    http://www.salon.com/2016/03/11/trumps_not_hitler_hes_mussolini_how_gop_anti_intellectualism_created_a_modern_fascist_movement_in_america/

    CNN this:

    http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/24/politics/donald-trump-fascism/

    Would we criticize and ridicule violent opposition to Hitler, Mussolini or Franco in the 30s? That’s the context I see here…

    Personally, I agree with Pandora in that I just think Trump is a buffoon. But if you really believed he was engineering an authoritarian fascist wave into government (and the “liberal” media seems to think it) then violence makes historical sense.

    Speaking oh historical context… Where’s Prof Newton on this?

  6. Dorian Gray says:

    Oh, and of course you can sign up for certain types of violence. Unless you’re a pacifist, of course, which I find to actually be an immoral philosophical position. Certain types of violence is how we liberated France and the Nazi concentration camps. And if there’s the possibility of more of that type of business I support violence to liberate them again. Very rare uses of extreme violence are necessary.

    That said, throwing bottles and eggs after a speech probably doesn’t reach the proper standard for what I’m talking about…

  7. MikeM2784 says:

    Fascism is born in violence….the Nazis burned the Reichstag and blamed others. Trump loves this…he loves the reaction, the violence. It will lead to an excuse…an excuse for more “security” for the purpose of “public safety.” It wouldn’t surprise me if he wasn’t behind some of the instigation. If he truly has authoritarian intentions, the worse thing his opponents can do is to give him a reason to be authoritarian if elected.

  8. Bob J. says:

    Question, is it nationalist/fascist fervor to think that maybe we should stop/slow immigration until our economy can absorb the numbers and wages begin to rise?

    Is it fascism to think that maybe we should fully secure (at least make an attempt) our borders? http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/2/smuggling-network-guided-illegal-immigrants-from-m/

    DG, if it is ok to use violence to “put down” possible “authoritarian fascism,” is it ok to use violence to “put down” possible “authoritarian socialism?”

    Not trolling, would actually like to know legitimate responses please.

    side note: DG, the 20 million missing soviets were killed by stalin.

  9. donviti says:

    It wouldn’t be reality tv without this, I can’t wait until we see fights on the house floor. We’re almost there

  10. Steve Newton says:

    @dorian–prof newton keeps discussing with his students that in a society founded on political violence (the Stamp Act protests, for example, grew out of orchestrated political violence using Boston street gangs as willing actors) that by blandly teaching our students a sanitized version of American history that lacks political violence we are ignoring its prevalence within our system. The lack of political violence and the overt attempt to portray all elements of such as un-American and some sort of aberration is a fairly recent phenomenon, and the amnesia is puzzling: did the generation that brought us the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the Vietnam era protests and the Watts riots somehow forget all that (early onset Alzheimers?)

    Political violence is chiefly, within history, either the tool of the oppressor (and would-be oppressor) or the reliance of the oppressed. As such, it makes the middle class very upset because it’s, well, caught in the middle.

    Donald Trump is symptom, not cause here. We have strong authoritarian tendencies in large parts of our population, and we have people on all parts of the spectrum (from Black Lives Matter to the bitter enders of the Patriot Movement) who believe the entire edifice of the current US is (needs to be) tumbling down, and that one good solid push will send it in the direction they want. This is also not new. We have survived such periods before, and we will make it through this one, though possibly not without a few riots in the streets and the loss of a few more civil rights because our predominantly middle class voting blocks are more concerned with their physical security than their civil liberties.

  11. Bob J. says:

    What do you think is going through the protesters minds? Every time they burn an american flag and hoist a mexican one, trump gains a supporter.

  12. anonymous says:

    “is it nationalist/fascist fervor to think that maybe we should stop/slow immigration until our economy can absorb the numbers and wages begin to rise?”

    No, it’s just stupid. It shows a lack of understanding about labor markets, legal vs. illegal immigration and a host of other pieces of reality that don’t care about your pants-wetting.

    “Is it fascism to think that maybe we should fully secure (at least make an attempt) our borders?”

    Depends on what you mean by that. You can either have an open society in which some people will enter the country illegally, or a closed one in which we force everyone to prove their citizenship on command. I would say such a police state and fascism have a lot in common, mainly the worship of authority.

    ” is it ok to use violence to “put down” possible “authoritarian socialism?”

    Only if it’s OK to use violence against idiots who see “authoritarian socialism” around every corner.

    As a practical matter, use of violence is justified by the winners, and always has been.

  13. Steve Newton says:

    @Bob J.–Trump’s supporters are not their intended audience. They believe that the escalation to violence now is the only way to wake up enough people to outnumber and stop Trump’s supporters. I know that may sound quite ludicrous, but talk to those people–they are the Left’s equivalent of the Right’s III%-ers.

  14. anonymous says:

    “Every time they burn an american flag and hoist a mexican one, trump gains a supporter.”

    I seriously doubt that. People who get worked up over a burning flag are already in the GOP if not his corner, so they were already on board. Sounds like you’ve got a boarding pass yourself.

  15. pandora says:

    My point is that if violence is okay then no more calling out Trump supporters behavior. If we go down this path then everyone gets a pass.

    To me, it’s politically stupid – mainly because it normalizes and validates the violence at Trump rallies. What exactly is gained by this behavior? What did these acts of violence accomplish?

  16. anonymous says:

    “Donald Trump is symptom, not cause here.”

    There are a lot of people in this country who are fighting mad. I agree that this plays into Trump’s hands — I well remember 1968, and the people getting beaten by the cops for inciting violence. I expect all that to happen again this summer, except the cops will be in the middle trying to prevent the violence instead of being its targets.

    This has been coming for some time. For a couple of years now, protesters have outnumbered right-wing participants at right-wing rallies. If you’re looking for a silver lining, the best way to show the noisy “silent majority” that they are not the majority is to outnumber them on the battle lines. They’ll be so scared they’ll run home and buy more guns.

  17. anonymous says:

    “What exactly is gained by this behavior?”

    A feeling of exhilaration.

    “What did these acts of violence accomplish?”

    They signaled to spoiled white people that their time in the driver’s seat is over.

    “To me it’s politically stupid.”

    They aren’t thinking about it politically.

  18. Dorian Gray says:

    I’m not sure I said it was “OK” to put down authoritarian fascism by violence per se. My argument is that it’s been historically necessary. And I don’t think it’s immoral to say so.

    I’m not convinced that Trump is this, but many, many political and social commentators seem to think so.

    On the “authoritarian socialism” question, my first reaction is that this construct is made-up and has never existed historically so I can’t make the same argument I made re: fascism. (The construct is oxymoronic in my view.)

    If what you really mean is authoritarian communism, than I’d say no, since historically those states have fallen based mostly on economic pressures (Soviet bloc being a recent example).

    So my argument is that this media sensationalism of Trump/Fascism will lead to this because experience says fascism is historically unique in that it can only be eliminated at gunpoint. I can’t think of another political philosophy like this. This is not an unreasonable or unethical position.

  19. Dorian Gray says:

    Oh, and just for the record, on the political questions about this (in other words, what this means as far as the campaigns), does it help the Trump campaign or not, I don’t know. Nobody knows. I’m agnostic on that bit actually.

  20. Bob J. says:

    anon, basic understanding of labor markets? you mean, supply and demand? the more people there are to go after jobs, the more wages will fall. Competition between job applicants instead of competition between employers. Illegal immigration usually increases lower skilled job competition. Legal immigration (at least modern) has a tendency to increase skilled job competition. So what am I missing? Do we not have an issue with americans not in the workforce, and underemployed?

    You can have an open society with adequate border measures. You go straight from “hey, welcome to the US, customs line over there,” to “papers please” on every corner.

    When we brought in massive amounts of immigrants (irish, itailian, etc.) in the past, they entered through ellis island. A process that brought them in legally.

    got it: Only if it’s OK to use violence against idiots who see “authoritarian fascism” around every corner.

    “As a practical matter, use of violence is justified by the winners, and always has been.”

    May be a practical matter, but is that how you really feel? ends justify the means?

  21. Dave says:

    Burning the American flag is no different than putting the flag on paper plates, underwear, and balloons all of which is contrary to PL 94-344 Federal Flag Code which is violated at minimum by much of America every Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Veterans Day.

  22. Dave says:

    “To me it’s politically stupid.” Very true

    “They aren’t thinking about it politically.” Also very true.

    So we are back to Jason’s “Voters Are Idiots”

  23. liberalgeek says:

    When we brought in massive amounts of immigrants (irish, itailian, etc.) in the past, they entered through ellis island. A process that brought them in legally.

    Not entirely. Lots of people came in other ways. There are derogatory names for all sorts of illicit ways that people arrived here without going through Ellis Island or some other legal means.

    What you are doing here is looking at enforcement in the most rudimentary way possible, “guards on the border”. A comprehensive, and more effective approach, would force better enforcement among the ranks of employers, better labor law enforcement, etc. To some extent, the border would seal itself once the demand by employers dried up.

    Instead, you are scapegoating the immigrants as the cause of the labor problems here. The Mexican and Guatemalan laborers are a symptom of business uber alles not of crappy border security.

  24. anonymous says:

    “the more people there are to go after jobs, the more wages will fall.”

    Really? So when 800 people show up for a job opening, they give it to the person who’s willing to work for the least? Falling wages are not a symptom of immigration — they are a symptom of this country’s antagonism towards unions.

    IT is one area, I’m given to understand, in which foreign workers are brought in to undercut American wages. But it turns out the biggest factor in keeping those wages down was an agreement among Silicon Valley firms not to poach each others’ employees. There was lots of gnashing of teeth over Disney’s importation of hundreds of foreigners to do that work — but very little over the raw deal that most Disney park employees get even without the foreign competition.

    “You go straight from “hey, welcome to the US, customs line over there,” to “papers please” on every corner.”

    So you consider “customs line over there” to be open borders? This is one problem with the immigration debate — most people keep saying we have open borders when we don’t.

    Now tell me how you’re going to enforce these laws you seem to think will fix things. They won’t. You’ll have to hire hundreds of thousands of people to enforce them. Subtract the cost of enforcement from whatever you think we’d save (which is nothing, by the way) with tougher laws.

    “When we brought in massive amounts of immigrants (irish, itailian, etc.) in the past, they entered through ellis island. A process that brought them in legally.”

    This is what I mean. There were no “illegal means” until the 1920s. Before that immigration was limited only by one’s ability to get here.

    What your understanding leaves out is that labor is now mobile. It will go where the jobs are, whether it’s legal to do so or not. The huge influx of Mexicans was a result of Mexico’s economic problems and a (relatively) booming American economy. When you share a long border with a country full of unskilled laborers, what would you expect to happen?

    Your solution, an attempt to shrink the pool of potential labor, will not work. Consider medicine. We have a de facto limit on the number of doctors produced in American medical schools. Because of this, foreigners with medical training are hired for need. It hasn’t kept the cost of American medicine down, has it?

    “Do we not have an issue with americans not in the workforce, and underemployed?”

    Not that I’m aware of. The unemployment rate is 4.7%. We have an issue with Americans who don’t want the crappy jobs American companies create, but that’s a different matter.

    “You can have an open society with adequate border measures.”

    Really? What adequate border measures do we not now have? How much will the new ones cost, and how will I benefit from them? Remember, higher wages only affect me if I’m earning them, which I’m not. So why should my tax dollars go toward this instead of a hundred other items that I consider more important?

    “is that how you really feel?”

    How I feel is of no consequence. The ends have always justified the means, whether you or I like it or not. See Prof. Newton’s point about the American war of independence on that. Also keep in mind that no more than one-third of the American people were in favor of that war. It’s a noble cause in the history books, though.

  25. puck says:

    Hillary just told us if Trump is elected we are most likely all going to die in a nuclear war. Are we supposed to be calm? Or was she being hyperbolic?

  26. anonymous says:

    @Dave: People who lamented the death of that zoo gorilla in Cincinnati were excoriated for caring more about an endangered great ape than a human child. How much sillier is it to care about what happens to a piece of cloth?

    “Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.” George Bernard Shaw

  27. puck says:

    “You can either have an open society in which some people will enter the country illegally, or a closed one in which we force everyone to prove their citizenship on command.”

    Or, you can keep society open to legal immigrants and visitors, but protect your labor market by closing the workplaces.

  28. anonymous says:

    Which workplaces do you think are affected, Puck? In my experience, the jobs in which you’re most likely to encounter an undocumented immigrant are

    1) Restaurant kitchens, particularly line work and dishwashers
    2) Lawn and grounds care
    3) Meat packing and slaughter
    4) Unskilled construction workers

    I might be missing some, but I doubt these are the workers you are concerned about. Or are you? You go on and on about this issue, to an extent that makes me wonder if it affects your profession, whatever it might be. Because there’s no evidence that immigration has a big enough an effect on wages to make it such a priority issue — that is, it depresses wages, but not as much as other factors such as industry collusion.

  29. Bob J. says:

    Dave, my point isn’t the act of burning the flag, but how it is perceived. A lot of the blue collar workers that I talk to see it as them not wanting to become americans as much as wanting to be mexicans with american standard of living. Which is a big difference.

    “A comprehensive, and more effective approach, would force better enforcement among the ranks of employers, better labor law enforcement, etc. To some extent, the border would seal itself once the demand by employers dried up.” I agree with that 100%. I would just add physical border security to that list.

    “Instead, you are scapegoating the immigrants as the cause of the labor problems here. The Mexican and Guatemalan laborers are a symptom of business uber alles not of crappy border security.”
    No, not scapegoating the immigrants, it’s just hard to express my total position on a forum post. In fact, I don’t blame them for wanting to come here.

  30. Steve Newton says:

    @Bob J: them not wanting to become americans as much as wanting to be mexicans with american standard of living. Which is a big difference.

    And this is necessarily very different because of that huge Mexican plot to take over America by insidiously forcing us to serve discount margaritas on Cinco de Mayo, wear floppy sombreros when we all plop down for our mid-afternoon siestas, and recognize that Taco Bell is an atrocity against real cooking, thus destroying our American Exceptionalism?

    Oh, yeah, and force us all to become Catholic and grow droopy mustaches.

  31. puck says:

    “Which workplaces do you think are affected, Puck? ”

    You are forgiven for not remembering the answer I posted previously, but since the question keeps getting asked, the answer apparently bears repeating:

    “which jobs are they taking?”

    Unbiased sources for undocumented workers are hard to come by because they are, umm, undocumented. But there’s this from Pew: (click for details):

    “…a solid majority [of the illegal workforce] still works in low-skilled service, construction and production occupations, according to new Pew Research Center estimates.”

    These jobs used to be staples for American low-skilled workers. These jobs were the entry to the labor force, or the jobs of last resort for our rural and inner-city population. Now those Americans are on food stamps and Medicaid, with declining prospects. And now they are told they have to go to college, which will somehow create more jobs.

    It’s not just the low-end jobs. A slack labor market at the very bottom affects hourly wages further up the scale too. There are lots of economists with high-paying tenured jobs who will insist that illegal labor is good for “the economy.” Yet they are all scratching their heads and tugging their beards over the causes of declining social mobility, declining real wages, lack of jobs for high school grads. and the death of the American dream.

  32. Bob J. says:

    “So when 800 people show up for a job opening, they give it to the person who’s willing to work for the least?” No, but industry wide, the more people that are looking for work keeps wages from rising. It’s an economic truth that competition drives down whatever is being competed; wages, prices, rents, etc..

    “Falling wages are not a symptom of immigration — they are a symptom of this country’s antagonism towards unions.” Agree with the antagonism towards unions. Union members are the majority of workers that have had gains with inflation and standard of living increases.

    “most people keep saying we have open borders when we don’t.” true we do not have a schengen area type border, and to legally enter, you need visas etc. The fact that millions of people have come in illegally, I think that merits the definition of open: adjective
    adjective: open

    1. allowing access, passage, or a view through an empty space; not closed or blocked up.
    “it was a warm evening and the window was open”
    synonyms: not shut, not closed, unlocked, unbolted, unlatched, off the latch, unfastened, unsecured; ajar, gaping, wide open, yawning
    “the door’s open”

    “There were no “illegal means” until the 1920s. Before that immigration was limited only by one’s ability to get here. ” Before the 1920’s, there was still homesteading large tracts of land in the west, and mid west. The agrarian society could handle that influx due to the amount of free land available for expansion.

    “…labor is now mobile. ” Labor has always been mobile. Hence the large scale immigration in our own past.

    “When you share a long border with a country full of unskilled laborers, what would you expect to happen?” I would expect that employers would be held responsible for hiring those unauthorized to work. I would expect current laws to be enforced which would make it less likely that they would even bother to come here knowing it would be very hard to get a job. Increased border security is just one facet.

    “The unemployment rate is 4.7%.” a number that only counts those receiving unemployment. May’s numbers: 94,708,000 not in labor force. and yes i do realize that counts everyone of working age.

    “How much will the new ones cost, and how will I benefit from them?” They technically do not need new ones, there is already enough legislation that is being ignored. When a society as a whole is successful, that is when a civilization truly progresses in arts, culture, science in general. Anyone who is a member of that society benefits.

    “Which workplaces do you think are affected?” you really don’t understand classical economics do you? Adam Smith is still relevant today. The entire employment chain is based off the lowest link.

    If you actually penalize an employer more than the savings of hiring illegal immigrants, you end demand for illegal immigrants. Lower demand for illegal immigrants by employers, decrease illegal immigration by removing incentive to immigrate. Thus, employers are forced to hire from existing labor pool. Hence they have to pay more to attract workers who aren’t content with living with five families in one room. Thus general standard of living increases with more employed members of society. I mean come on, does that not make sense to you at all?

  33. ex-anonymous says:

    i’m with pandora this one. it’s hard to maintain the moral high ground while behaving like the folks we oppose. if trump were actually hitler and his followers were actually brownshirts, then ok. but as bad as trump would be for the country, we are not (yet?) in 1930s germany. there are alternatives to violence at this point. thursday’s just seems like leftist ideology gone wild. in fact, though, there hasn’t been all that much violence from either side. but we should be aware it could get worse.

  34. liberalgeek says:

    “The unemployment rate is 4.7%.” a number that only counts those receiving unemployment. May’s numbers: 94,708,000 not in labor force. and yes i do realize that counts everyone of working age.

    Nope. That’s not at all what is measured.

  35. Dana Garrett says:

    “Both sides doing it.” What a vast assumption. There are only two sides in America. Let’s guess: those two sides are Democrats and Republicans. There are not:

    1. Nominal Republicans and Democrats.
    2. Independents who are registered to vote.
    3. Third party supporters.
    4. People who think that the major two parties are like two sides of the same corporate board and don’t think voting constitutes a significant difference and don’t vote but who remain activists for social and economic change.

    And so on. No, just two sides. Two sides are the entire spectrum. Fascinating.

  36. anonymous says:

    @BobJ: You are using economics-class formulas. Real-world research does not support your claims.

    Rather than address your comment point by point, here’s a link to the Economic Policy Institute, a labor movement-affiliated liberal think tank, and its take on the issue:

    http://www.epi.org/publication/immigration-facts/

    I have to wonder what’s behind your stance. Surely you are aware that economic studies show minimal effects of immigration on wages even in affected industries, let alone the entire work force.

    More people in a country means a larger economy; consumption is two-thirds of the economy. So what’s the principle behind a desire to restrict it?

  37. anonymous says:

    This applies to both Puck and Bob: What’s with the immigration hate? Notice I didn’t say you hate immigrants, but your interest in restricting it begs explanation coming from progressives.

    Many, many factors affect wage scales; immigration is far from the largest. So why are you so focused on that? Because to be honest, unless you can convince me otherwise, I think you’re scapegoating here — punching down instead of up.

  38. Steve Newton says:

    @puck and the Pew study: time to call bullshit.

    First, the quotation you use, despite the fact in the previous thread you provided no source for it, is NOT from the Pew report or the summary in the link to the Pew report you provided. Pew reports are academically descriptive and don’t get into this kind of partisan editorializing:

    There are lots of economists with high-paying tenured jobs who will insist that illegal labor is good for “the economy.” Yet they are all scratching their heads and tugging their beards over the causes of declining social mobility, declining real wages, lack of jobs for high school grads. and the death of the American dream.

    That’s some bullshit commentary on a Pew report that finds high variability on a state by state basis in immigrant labor both in terms of percentages and types of labor. Moreover, Pew actually finds that immigrant labor accounts for only 5.1% of the labor force, hardly a demographic flood that condemns all the rest of the American poor (some 25% of our population) to Food Stamps and the death of the American dream, even when one allows for the fact that they are 26% of farming jobs (mostly on corporate farms where, you guessed it, the urban poor aren’t likely to be found), 17% of cleaning/maintenance jobs, or 14% of construction jobs.

    The reality is that you cobbled together an editorial about the Pew report (which you have never sourced) and passed it off as representing Pew’s conclusions, which it doesn’t.

  39. anonymous says:

    Oh, and you don’t get to call them “open borders” by performing dictionary-based surgery. Phrases, like words, have established meanings, and unless you’re a Republican or one of the media morons who enable them, you don’t get to redefine them yourself.

    We deport hundreds of thousands of people a year who have entered illegally or overstayed their visas. That does not comport with your talking point or attempted redefinition.

    By the way, what sum are you willing to see the federal government devote to policing the policies you call for? Not in dollar amounts, but what sort of enforcement do you foresee?

    Because if you’re in favor of sending inspectors to meat-packing plants, I have to tell you, I’d rather spend the money on food-safety inspectors.

  40. anonymous says:

    “it’s hard to maintain the moral high ground while behaving like the folks we oppose.”

    How many votes are up there on the high moral ground?

  41. puck says:

    “So why are you so focused on that? ”

    I’ve heard a lot of people express their reasons for supporting their Presidential candidates for various reasons. Mine happens to be a wish for a broadly shared prosperity. That’s my pony, and it isn’t measured by GDP or unemployment rate.

    A large middle class promotes political stability, and when the middle class is shrinking like it is now, instability is inevitable. This time, the instability is named Trump.

    Even now, there is surplus labor, and employers think they can treat workers like used Kleenex. Employers are in need of another tightening of the labor market like in the late 90s when they actually feared not being able to hire or retain workers.

    I’m scapegoating the illegal employers. As a bleeding-heart liberal I’m all for the humanitarian impulse behind “immigration reform” but as a progressive, none of the proposals involve closing the door after amnesty. Remember, once we make the illegals citizens,employers will look for a new source of second-class workers to exploit. I’m OK with making most current illegals citizens, but not all their cousins and friends who are thinking about coming here illegally. And they will book their passage as soon as they hear about a path to citizenship.

    I’d be all in for an amnesty-based comprehensive reform that included e-Verify, employer sanctions, a visa exit tracking system, and a significant reduction in skilled worker visas. Without that, it’s not comprehensive. I’m not happy about getting in the same side of the bed with racists, but if so-called progressives won’t get behind real labor and visa reforms, I’m with whoever wants immigration reform to be defeated.

    I agree illegal labor is probably not the largest factor in the loss of real wages and job opportunities and the decline of the middle class. But just because there are other bigger factors is not an argument for tolerating it. Let’s arbitrarily say it’s a 10% factor, followed by laws that limit union power (another 20%), offshoring of jobs and entire companies 40%, and let’s write off the rest to automation and competition (I’m just making up those numbers as a guess of relative significance). Even so, any time you can reduce a crippling problem by 10%, why propose the opposite?

  42. puck says:

    Professor Newton, blinded by vituperation, gets an F on reading comprehension for today.

    The link to Pew is in my comment plain as day. I checked it and it still works. Here it is in URL format:
    http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/03/26/share-of-unauthorized-immigrant-workers-in-production-construction-jobs-falls-since-2007/

    The quote I included in my comment is the first paragraph from Pew, indicated by the “quotation marks.”

    The rest of my comment was NOT in quotations, which clearly indicated it was my editorializing.

    Please don’t grade any student papers until you clear up your problem with citations.

  43. anonymous says:

    “Just because there are other bigger factors is not an argument for tolerating it.”

    That’s not my argument for tolerating it. My argument for tolerating it is how much it would cost vs. how little it would accomplish, along with the fact that the more people in the economy, the larger the economy. You are looking at immigrants only as earners and are discounting their spending.

    My position is that fixing some of the other causes for wage stagnation you listed would cost less and could achieve more — they’re just harder pulls politically.

    I can get behind a greater enforcement level if we repurposed the current DEA and other drug squads to immigration duty; that way we could end the drug war without creating economic disruption in the criminal justice industry. So I’m willing to go part-way towards what you propose.

    But as with every issue, if we go into this with an achieve-it-damn-the-cost attitude, I’m against it.

  44. Steve Newton says:

    @puck: horseshit. Anybody can go back and look at the way you presented it. They can decide for themselves what games you’re playing.

    The Pew study does NOT support your editorializing, and to pretend otherwise would easily have earned you a D.

  45. anonymous says:

    “as a progressive, none of the proposals involve closing the door after amnesty.”

    Why is closing the door progressive?

  46. puck says:

    Because leaving it open defeats or dilutes other hard-won labor gains, assuming of course you consider labor gains to be a progressive goal.

  47. puck says:

    “the more people in the economy, the larger the economy. You are looking at immigrants only as earners and are discounting their spending.”

    When a job is being done by an illegal worker, that creates one legal worker who doesn’t have a job and has nothing to spend. Unless you think jobs somehow multiply like the fishes and loaves. I would like both the earning and the spending to be done by legal workers.

  48. anonymous says:

    “When a job is being done by an illegal worker, that creates one legal worker who doesn’t have a job and has nothing to spend.”

    Whoa there. Not so.

    “Unless you think jobs somehow multiply like the fishes and loaves.”

    The multiplier effect is not that large, but you have heard of the multiplier effect. Read that link I provided for Bob. It’s from a labor-based think tank, and it addresses many of your concerns.

    Their take, to do it injustice by stating it in a sentence, is that during tough economic times immigration is a short-term loss but long-term gain — but neither is all that significant compared with other factors.

    Now I can’t swear that they aren’t motivated by the thought of more immigrants equalling more Democratic voters somehow, or some other political consideration, but if a labor-leaning outfit thinks it all works out for the common good on the economics, I’m willing to give it a shot.

    By the way, if the fields you mentioned were unionized, the unions would be the ones enforcing legal immigration status. A lot of unions are pretty picky about who’s allowed to join.

    Also: Cost?

  49. puck says:

    “the more people in the economy, the larger the economy. ”

    “The economy” keeps getting bigger every year. So what? All the gains are going to the 1%. US prosperity won’t be saved by having more and more low-wage workers buying stuff from the dollar store – it will keep getting worse.

  50. ex-anonymous says:

    re: no votes on the moral high ground. ok, cliche alert accepted. but progressives do seem to believe they are more moral than conservatives. helping the poor, advancing black causes — progressives think of them as “moral” or at least “the right thing to do.” conservatives think the same about themselves. if progressives don’t value the things that make them “better” than conservatives, then what’s the point?

    of course, the whole “morality” idea might be bogus. maybe it’s about power and little else and the “ideas” and values are just trappings. if that’s true, we should just admit it and beat the hell out of somebody.

  51. anonymous says:

    @puck: You’re just picking at threads. Seriously, go read the link and respond to that instead of hunkering down on your position.

  52. ex-anonymous says:

    i still think trump will eventually offend so many people he will self-destruct without a need to consider violent resistance. (i just now saw a trump interview about the mexican-american judge. he will go too far. right? right?)

  53. cassandra_m says:

    advancing black causes

    W.T.F.

  54. cassandra_m says:

    US prosperity won’t be saved by having more and more low-wage workers buying stuff from the dollar store

    US prosperity won’t be saved by demonizing immigrant labor, either. US prosperity will be saved when employers need to hand over more of the productivity gains to their employees. And you still have to work out a solution for farm labor. Agricultural labor has been powered by immigrants and cheap labor since there were indentured servants.

  55. ex-anonymous says:

    cassandra, i don’t understand where i’ve offended. advancing black causes is not what progressives do? i see a lot of black lives matter support here (as there should be). isn’t that a black cause? is the wording somehow offensive? is there a new rule about how we should speak of such things??

  56. cassandra_m says:

    The progressive project is quite a bit broader than “advancing black causes”.

  57. ex-anonymous says:

    it was just an example, not meant to be the sum total of “the progressive project.” good grief.

  58. Bob J. says:

    hey anon, i read a lot from the epi. It’s laughable. When they make statements such as, “But for native-born workers, the effects tend to be very small, and on average, modestly positive.” They cite an article written on their own site. Nice. I can easily post an article from another independent, nonpartisan, think tank that says the opposite.
    http://cis.org/all-employment-growth-since-2000-went-to-immigrants

    It’s really easy to cherry pick “studies.” Try reading Wealth of Nations, then look at the situation again.

  59. anonymous says:

    It’s easy if you want to ignore facts on the ground, you mean. Your source ignores all sorts of detailed research in favor of counting how many people between the ages of 16 and 65 exist. Laughable indeed. If you actually learned anything from the EPI you’d realize that immigrants are almost all working age, so of course an increase in their percentage of the population will increase their percentage in the work force.

    My source isn’t “non-partisan” in terms of choosing sides on the issue, it’s biased in favor of unions, so when it says immigration helps working people, I take notice. Meanwhile yours is biased in favor of low immigration, a position it takes BEFORE doing its research. What a surprise that its research supports its pre-existing condition.

    Wealth of Nations has virtually nothing to do with it, being written as it was before industrialization. And you clearly don’t understand the value of research done in search of facts instead of in support of a position.

    So back to my question: What’s the obsession with the issue? There is scant evidence that it’s the economic force you claim, so what’s the real story? You sound like another white guy with a bug up his ass because he doesn’t make as much money as he’d like.

    Don’t try to sell your hatred of immigration as progressivism. It’s nativism and libertarianism, but it’s not progressive.

  60. Bob J. says:

    Ok, I can see you drank the EPI kool-aid. This one line on their about us page: “For instance, EPI researchers were the first ones to profile the emerging gap between growing productivity and the wages and compensation of typical workers.” I call bullshit.

    Henry George wrote about that in 1879 in Progress and Poverty. so epi was beat only by a little over 100 years.

    Wealth of Nations has nothing to do with it because its old? wow, you just showed your hand. I guess any mathematics, or other sciences that were created before industrialization have no use today.

    I love the scant issue bit. you tell the unemployed carpenter that he is better off with the illegal immigrant framing walls, or hanging drywall for pennies on the dollar.

    Obsession with the issue? It’s just one of the major issues facing our country at this time. I like how you threw race in there, good to know where the true racists are. You want to know who isn’t making as much money as they’d like? African Americans, Latino Americans, [insert ethnic group here] Americans. Americans in general across the board haven’t seen their incomes rise in over a decade. Their buying power has been severely depressed. This isn’t a “oh no, it’s the brown people!” problem with immigration. it is the immigration in general. It just happens that, Mexico, central and south americans make up the bulk of were the immigrants are coming from. Your own source said 46% percent, beating the next group by 20%. If this were politics that big of a gap would be a “landslide.”

    Beside, I do not have a hatred of immigration, I have a hatred of irresponsible policies that bring hardship and ruin onto our country.

    So, I’m gonna have to end this here, you can have the last word. I’m sure you’ll say I’m bigoted against latinos or something.

  61. puck says:

    (I posted a longer comment on this that never showed up. Probably just as well).

    ” so when it says immigration helps working people, I take notice.”

    The EPI article suffers from a common fallacy: it presents statistics about the benefits of “immigrants,” but does not separate out the effects of “illegal immigrants.”

    All pro-comprehensive advocates quickly change the subject from “illegal immigration” to “all immigrants” where they have a much better case.

  62. anonymous says:

    No, I don’t know if you’re bigoted or not. I just don’t see the reason for the obsession. It’s not the driver of low wages, no matter how much you want to believe it is. EPI isn’t the only source for that; lots of studies show pretty much the same thing.

    My question is simple: Why the focus on immigration when there’s no evidence that’s the major part of the problem? Puck has been beating this same drum for years here, and I’ve never understood that, either. When you pick one cause out of many and focus on it so hard, it’s scapegoating, whether you realize that or not.

  63. puck says:

    What’s wrong with scapegoating illegal employers? Why are you so obsessed with letting them off the hook?

    I also scapegoat Reagan Democrats and their descendants who swallowed the demonization of unions. And the investors and executives who move jobs offshore. And the politicians who authorize ever-increasing imports of skilled labor. Don’t you scapegoat all of them too?

    Who else do I need to scapegoat?

  64. anonymous says:

    Simple: Cost. There’s no evidence doing what you want will pass muster in a cost-benefit analysis.

    You don’t write nearly so much about those other reasons for low wages. “Demonization” of unions isn’t the problem, it’s laws written to weaken them.

    You have a hard-on for employers, obviously. If there were a bunch of native downstaters complaining about Central Americans taking jobs at the chicken slaughterhouses, you might have a point, but that’s not the case.

    See, I wonder if any of this is about putting those lazy people to work. I hear a lot of that from non-liberals, and I’m trying to determine if that’s a factor here.

    PS: Scapegoating means blaming unfairly or, if you go back to its roots, piling all the sins upon a single source, which takes all the punishment deserved by others. So there’s that.

  65. puck says:

    What cost? The cost of a few high-profile trials of illegal employers? The cost of mandating e-Verify? The cost of finally building a visa exit tracking system? All well within reason.

  66. puck says:

    “Demonization” of unions isn’t the problem, it’s laws written to weaken them.”

    One and the same. Those laws were written by red-state Congressmen elected by Reagan Democrats and their ilk. Congress was in Democratic hands until 1994.

    “You don’t write nearly so much about those other reasons for low wages. ”

    Do you want me to write more about how Hillary has no plan to strengthen unions or discourage offshoring? It falls on deaf ears around here. She does however have a plan to strengthen illegal immigration, and to strengthen displacement of Americans by skilled imported labor.

  67. anonymous says:

    I’ll take your word that building a verification system for tracking visas is “within reason,” but only because I don’t know anything about the cost of technology like that. You are ignoring the significant costs of hiring enforcement to carry out the policies. The cost of the drug war might give us a ballpark price tag.

    But you seem to think pressuring employers is a cure-all, and I’m not sure why. You can eliminate all the illegal immigrant jobs that require a legitimate paycheck and you won’t reach those who work in the nation’s $2 trillion underground economy. So you might displace all those working in slaughterhouses, but you won’t touch the lawn-care guys.

    You seem to have decided on a problem and a solution and you’re not going to listen to anything that conflicts with either.

  68. puck says:

    ‘You can eliminate all the illegal immigrant jobs that require a legitimate paycheck”

    Exactly. Those are the most troubling, because those jobs used to be staples at the low end of legal blue-collar jobs. I’m less concerned about seasonal farm labor, which should be converted to legal (and protected) guestworker status as soon as possible.

  69. Dave says:

    “a verification system for tracking visas is “within reason,” ”

    I’m not sure how “within reason” is defined. However, the CBP is automating the I-94 system and captures the manifests for exit on air and sea travel. This data will be included in the Arrival and Departure Information System (ADIS). The system cannot yet handle land border crossings.

    The tools are there, including e-Verify, but the will to use them must exist.

  70. anonymous says:

    Well, I guess we’ll have to disagree. I don’t see the result as being worth the effort, and you clearly do.

    Any reason you have come to such strong opinions on this? I mean, I see the same things you do, but I put this pretty far down the scale of corporate malfeasance while you place it much higher, or at least it seems that way from what you write here.

  71. puck says:

    “But you seem to think pressuring employers is a cure-all, and I’m not sure why. ”

    Because I would rather pressure a dozen or so employers than 11 million illegal immigrants.

  72. puck says:

    “Any reason you have come to such strong opinions on this? ”

    I told you. I hate to see our standard of living drop. That’s just a thing with me. Illegal employers are part of the race to the bottom.

  73. cassandra_m says:

    Arizona is a good example — all hiring must include E-Verify checks and they haven’t made much of a dent in the illegal worker pool. Even with Joe Arpaio doing the occasional workplace raid. E-verify can be defeated with a good SS# and high-quality ID docs. So instead of reducing the rate of illegal workers being hired, a new marketplace is created with jobs of creating good fake IDs.

  74. anonymous says:

    Yes, part, but nothing close to all. The underground economy will still exist, and it will always draw people who want the jobs — much more so if the $15/hour movement succeeds in eliminating the low-wage part from low-wage jobs.

    In fact, according to most research on this, you could solve this problem overnight and it wouldn’t have nearly the effect passing a higher minimum wage would. That the problem would not be solved overnight and in fact would take a lot of money and time further erodes my support for your position.

    Further, your distinction between legal and illegal immigration draws a bright line where none actually exists. Many of the worst abuses are entirely legal because employers got laws passed to their benefit.

    I would expect that any changes in the current system would again be passed only if corporate America agrees. What you’ll wind up with is more foreign workers who are here legally, which will have the same depressive effect on wages we have now.

    Also, a dozen or so employers? You’re kidding, right? You think that high-profile cases will deter everyone else? When does that ever work?

  75. anonymous says:

    Also, your standard of living is not tied to what employers in the country pay their workers. American labor is worth less today because our laissez-faire approach has globalized the work force, more often by moving the jobs to the markets rather than by moving the workers to the jobs.

    (An aside: Someone earlier in the thread glibly said labor was always mobile. It took my grandfather’s family several years to obtain enough money to pay his passage, so I’m going to mildly disagree with that.)

    You see the big picture on many issues, but not this one. So I find that curious.

  76. puck says:

    “your distinction between legal and illegal immigration draws a bright line where none actually exists. ”

    HR professionals are acutely aware of the bright line. You are either authorized to work in the US or you are not. Try not turning in your I-9 documentation on a new job, and you’ll be shown the door (assuming professional HR).

    “You think that high-profile cases will deter everyone else? When does that ever work?”

    Most famously, with income tax. And on most regulatory issues, fear of audits inspires companies to self-audit. I get a lot of business helping companies with compliance in various regulatory frameworks.

  77. puck says:

    “Many of the worst abuses are entirely legal because employers got laws passed to their benefit.”

    Yes, US corporations are profiting at our expense from things that used to be illegal. Usury, market monopolies, banks investing in insurance, for starters. Democrats are determined to add one more to the list.

  78. anonymous says:

    “Most famously, with income tax.”

    Again, you must be kidding. The underground economy is $2 trillion; the unpaid taxes about $500 billion. Not a very effective strategy.

    As your list demonstrates, if it benefits business, business will see that it’s made legal. So, given that they’re determined to keep wages down, employers will probably push for the now-illegal workers to be retained as some sort of guest workers. Net effect on wages: zilch.

    So again, do you work in a field that has been affected by this? Because I’m having a hard time believing that such devotion to a cause has no genesis beyond principle.

  79. puck says:

    “The underground economy is $2 trillion; the unpaid taxes about $500 billion.”

    And how big do you think it would be if we didn’t occasionally send people to jail for tax evasion?

    Actually, I work in IT, which is not directly affected by illegal employment. What about yourself? do you have a nanny problem?

  80. anonymous says:

    I’m retired, too old to need a nanny, though I can’t swear the lawn service guys are all legal.

    IT certainly is a field affected by immigration. It’s one of the fields where what should be illegal has been made legal. Exhibit A, in fact. That would explain why you know so much, and care so much, about this.

    Just so I’m clear here, you are right about most of what you say, and I would not oppose the measures you want. It’s just lower on my priority list.

    Oh, I think you have the tax-evasion thing backwards. As in, how much would it be if the GOP didn’t starve the IRS for funds. We are fighting a political party that sees such lawbreaking as a reason to change the law to benefit the lawbreakers. So it’s a steeply uphill fight no matter which face of the mountain we battle on.

  81. puck says:

    In my niche I don’t directly compete with foreign-born workers, legal or illegal. As far as affecting my own career, I’m more directly concerned about offshoring which moves entire IT shops out of the US, reducing projects available to work on.

  82. anonymous says:

    I have a friend who works in a support shop for one of the big local chemical companies. One day he directed a shop full of worker bees. The next day he was alone, and all his worker bees were in India.