A reader of this blog is concerned about some people’s difficulty understanding Monetary Sovereignty (MS) and asks whether there is some way to present it so that the public can more readily understand it.
Of course, I’ve been attempting to do this for the past twenty-five years, with statements so simple that some economists tell me, “It’s not that simple.”
One risks omitting important details when they simplify an inherently complex subject.
The federal government can be viewed as a combination of Congress, the President, and the Federal Reserve. That combination can be compared to the Bank in the Game MONOPOLY, which, by rule and like the government, cannot run short of dollars.
If you skim through this blog, you will find repeated attempts at simplification.
I have concluded that any failures may be due to different ways of believing.
When I am contacted by someone who understands MS, the communication is cool and data-based. By contrast, I generally receive heat when I receive word from someone who doesn’t get it.
That’s natural, I thought. What is there to be angry about when you agree?
Months ago, I had another thought. It seemed to me that compassion is soft-spoken, while bigotry is angry.
Followers of Biden and now Harris seem to deal thoughtfully with facts, while followers of Trump seem to focus on passion, anger, and conspiracy theories.
Why?
Partly because bigotry is fear and fear is hatred, and those emotions lead to anger.
There is no calm reasoning with a bigoted MAGA who is shouting Fox News and QAnon lies
But I now believe it’s something even more than that. It is because admitting you have been wrong is too painful, even when the admission is secretly in your own mind.
It isn’t that Monetary Sovereignty is complex. It’s dead simple:
The federal government never can run short of its own sovereign currency.
Prices increase when products become scarce.
Raising interest rates increases business costs, which are reflected in price increases.
Deficit spending adds growth dollars to the economy.
Is that too complex for the average person? I think not.
Why do some people feel Monetary Sovereign is difficult to understand? It’s easy to understand, but it’s difficult to believe when you have been subject to many years of brainwashing.
And therein lies the difference.
I’ve spent years trying to help people understand Monetary Sovereignty when their problem is not one of understanding but of believing. That is a much more difficult problem; Reciting the facts won’t solve it.
The MAGAs despise facts. They love conspiracy theories.
When you know you have truth and facts on your side, you might be frustrated by those who blindly accept “alternative facts,” as right-winger Kellyanne Conway famously expressed in defending Sean Spicer’s lies.
You may be frustrated, but not spit-in-your-face, physically-attack-Congress frustrated.
The gun-toting, hate-mongering MAGAs spew vitriol because they know they are wrong. They know Trump is lying to them, taking them for suckers, using them for his own personal gain, and secretly sneering at their ignorance when he’s not on stage.
(“I could shoot someone on 5th Ave. and not lose any followers.” Are those the words of a man who respects his followers’ intelligence?)
So they are angry at being seen as dupes, especially in their own eyes.
They will double down against the obvious and do anything to build a barrier between reality and their foolishness.
They will cover their gullibility with bluster and blindness.
“Wha, wha, I won’t listen to you. I cover my eyes and ears. Your words can’t hurt me.”
To maintain their belief in what they know to be nonsense, they join a mob, scream loudly or even silently, and let the noise in their head cover the truth and their emotion to cover their shame.
Thus, they allow pure belief and worship to wash over them without the burden of honest evaluation.
Hatred and anger are their only defense.
But it is exhausting. As the harsh glare of reality reveals, Trump’s armor is rusty. Each day, more people see the emperor has no clothes.
There stands before them is a befuddled, pitiful, failing old man, mouthing the same lies and insults that no longer fool even the most naive,
He is an often bankrupt business failure, an often losing political failure, an often adulterous marriage failure, an often indicted and convicted moral failure, and a son not even respected by his own late father.
The thrill is gone.
The crowds thin.
Those few who remain look around in embarrassment at their own naivete.
At last, it ends, not with a bang but with a whimper.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary SovereigntyTwitter: @rodgermitchellSearch #monetarysovereigntyFacebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell;MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell; https://www.academia.edu/
……………………………………………………………………..
The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.
MAGA is a cult.
Like all cults, it is authoritarian and believes in authoritarianism. Cults are the antithesis of democracy. A democratic cult would be an oxymoron.
Cults are led by psychopaths. See the Robert Hare Checklist of Psychopathy Symptoms — the 20 criteria for psychopathy — here.
MAGAs don’t really believe the Biden/Trump election was stolen because they don’t believe in elections. Thus, no amount of evidence could convince them any election Trump loses was fair. Today, they are already preparing to claim that the next election was stolen if Trump loses.
They believe in the authoritarian power of the cult leader, and they believe this authoritarian power is what was taken from Donald Trump. When MAGAs chant “Stop the steal,” they don’t mean the steal of an election. They mean the steal of Trump’s unconditional, god-like power.
Mao: A psychopath who was never wrong. Demanded absolute obedience.
Donald Trump acknowledged MAGA is a cult when he said he could “shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any followers.” Recent events prove him correct; his indictments and criminal convictions yielded more campaign contributions from his followers.
To a MAGA, evidence of Trump’s guilt merely is proof that the “deep state” did something dishonest.
Trump follows the familiar scripts used by Charles Manson, Jim Jones, Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, and other dictators.
One sure symptom of a cult is when a leader can commit any crime, no matter how heinous, and not lose followers. The irony of Trump’s followers brandishing American flags is lost on them.
They genuinely think they are being patriotic by supporting the man who sent a mob to overturn an election he lost by over 7 million votes and 74 electoral votes,Mao:
We describe cult realities in The Most Common Personality Traits of a Cult Leader.
A comment on that post came from reader “rawgod” who asked, “How do people protect themselves from falling into the clutches of a cult, especially one as widespread as MAGA?”
Opinions about that can be found in many places on the Internet. Here is my take:
Some people are forced into cults by parents and caretakers. Some join willingly. Cults offer the willing members something they do not receive elsewhere: Protection from their fears.
While cults can be fearsome, they exist partly because members feel that “the fear I know is better than the fear I don’t understand.”
The fears can include one or more of the following. Fear of: Blacks, browns, yellows, reds, gays, men, women, immigrants, foreigners, a religion, peers, parents, siblings, loss of status, strangers, a political group, a secret organization, and or the government.
Hitler: A psychopath who was never wrong. Demanded absolute obedience.
There may be others that are less common but no less fearsome.
Fear is the mother of hatred. One cannot hate someone or something without fearing it. A cult leader plays on the fears of his/her followers.
Donald Trump is an expert fearmonger. He calls Mexicans “rapists.” He says blacks come from “shithole countries.” He tells his followers that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the nation,” an example of replacement theory.
His message always is some variant of: “These people want to destroy you, but I will protect you.”
Who are the people who fall for his blatant lies? Who are the gullible people who would vote for him, even if he “shot someone on 5th Avenue”?
Begin with the rich, who care about one thing: money, or more accurately, The Income/Wealth/Power Gap between them and those who have less.
They fear and despise the poor. They invent reasons: “I work hard for my money. I pay taxes. Why should they be able to do nothing and get everything free from my tax money?”
Never mind that lower-income people generally work harder than upper-income people (unless one considers numerous vacations, living in mansions, riding in private planes and the chauffer-driven cars of the rich to be “work.”)
Never mind that lower-income people do not benefit from the tax breaks the rich receive and the fact that in a Monetarily Sovereign nation, federal taxes do not fund benefits to the poor. See: Monetary Sovereignty)
Stalin: A psychopath who was never wrong. Demanded absolute obedience.
One thing is clear: Facts don’t matter to cults. They invent their own facts, “alternative facts.”
“Alternative facts” was a phrase Kellyanne Conway used to defend Sean Spicer’s false claim about the attendance numbers at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration.
When Chuck Todd pressed her to explain why Spicer would “utter a provable falsehood,” Conway stated that Spicer was giving “alternative facts.” Todd responded, “Look, alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods.”
Donald Trump made more than 30,000 false or misleading statementsduring his four years as President of the United States. MAGAs don’t care about Trump’s lies. Loyalty to Trump is the only measure that matters in the cult.
The astounding figure, which roughly equates to 21 false statements per day during his tenure at the White House, comes after he spent weeks falsely alleging that the 2020 election was “stolen.”
He continues to make the false claim, which his followers want to believe despite 60+ lawsuits, investigations, and recounts finding no evidence to support it.
In a cult, the only evidence members need is the leader’s utterance. Nothing else matters.
If facts don’t matter, what is the answer to rawgods’ question?
Being in a cult resembles being addicted to alcohol or other drugs. Physical addiction and psychological addiction have similar symptoms and similar results. To an addict or cult member, facts are evidence of a secret effort to hide the facts.
Cult members often don’t believe they are in a cult. They believe the “truth” is whatever the cult leader tells them.
Cult “truths” can range from “The world is coming to an end” to “You always must obey (the leader)” to “The election was stolen.”
You can see some cult “truths” and realizations at 20 Cult Members Talk about The Moment They Knew.
Alcoholics Anonymous suggests a 12-step program for escaping alcoholism, which resembles a cult, with the leader being alcohol. Sadly, the program suggests that alcohol could be replaced by “a higher power.” Cult leaders generally claim to be that higher power.
Trump: A psychopath who is never wrong. Demands absolute obedience.
As one cult member said, “Fundie (fundamentalist) cults are the worst.”
This is not to suggest that religion, per se, is bad. On the contrary, religion benefits many people. Rather, for all groups, religious or otherwise, the group has transitioned into a cult when the belief becomes so powerful that the leader can do no wrong.
Some of the most populated cults are sects (a subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system, usually an offshoot of a larger group).
The power of religious sects comes from the leader’s claim that he/she speaks for God.
When you are part of a group that sets strict rules against what your common sense says, you may be in a cult.
If you are punished for disagreeing with the leader, you may be in a cult.
When your leader can make thousands of easily disprovable claims, and you don’t care, you may be in a cult.
When you are proud that your leader is a convicted criminal, you may be in a cult.
When your status in an organization relies on the depth of your love for and obedience to the leader, you may be in a cult.
When the group leader orders you to commit acts that are not in your best interest but are in the leader’s best interests, you may be in a cult.
If your leader says he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any followers, you are in a cult.
When you are in a cult, you have given your beliefs, ideas, creativity, compassion, sympathy, love, and indeed your humanity to another person. You are less than human.
In that sense, you resemble a pet, an obedient dog. You accept unquestioningly your master’s words. He may kick you, but you forgive him and lick his hand.
Children can be forced into a cult. Some people willingly accept that subservient role. Devoted MAGAs do not question Trump. They not only believe his lies, but they don’t even question them.
When he was proven in courts of law to be a traitor and a convicted criminal, they sent him money. When he offered them worthless online pictures, which one easily could access by turning on a smartphone, they sent him money.
When Trump said, “I was never indicted,” and then boasted that he’s been indicted more times than Al Capone, MAGAs accepted both opposing statements and sent him money.
When he sold gold sneakers at four hundred dollars a pair, MAGAs bought them, even though the website explicitly said, “Trump Sneakers are not designed, manufactured, distributed or sold by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals.”
When he sold T-shirts showing his arrest mugshot, MAGAs bought them. MAGAs ignored Trump’s cheating of students with his fake Trump University and fraudulent Trump Foundation.
Trump claimed he would “drain the swamp.” MAGAs believed him.
What do you think “Drain the swamp” means? Do any of these names sound familiar? What do you know about these people? What do they have in common?
Steve Bannon, Tom Barrack, Elliot Broidy, Kenneth Chesebro, Michael Cohen, Chris Collins, Jenna Ellis, Michael Flynn, Igor Fruman, Rick Gates, Rudy Giuliani, Scott Hall, Duncan Hunter, Brian Kolfage, Ken Kurson, Corey Lewandowski, Paul Manafort, George Nader, Peter Navarro, George Papadopoulos, Lev Parnas, Brad Parscale, Sam Patten, Sidney Powell, Roger Stone, Allen Weisselberg, Imaad Zuberi
Trump still talks about “draining the swamp.” MAGAs still believe him.
So, in answer to reader “rawgod’s” question, I suspect people cannot protect themselves from falling into the clutches of a cult. Just as with a dog, this propensity relies on a combination of DNA and upbringing, the teachings one receives through life.
Some people have grown up to meekly accept authority. Some believe that rebellion from authority requires the acceptance of a harsher authority. Some are emotionally or even physically trapped by authority.
If facts don’t matter to cult members, what does? Their fears.
The path out of a cult is built with protection from a member’s unique fears. It requires identifying those fears and reassuring the member that protection will come from outside the cult.
And therein lies the rub. It’s an enormously complex problem that is beyond my pay grade. But that is the direction one must take.
To escape from an addiction, the addict first must recognize that he is addicted and that life without the addiction would be better.
To escape from a cult, members first must recognize that they are in a cult and that what they fear is less onerous than submitting their life and common sense to a psychopath.
A MAGAs sudden realization that Donald Trump is a fraud and a psychopath is the first step to reality.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary SovereigntyTwitter: @rodgermitchellSearch #monetarysovereigntyFacebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell;MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell
……………………………………………………………………..
The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.
I believe that the vast majority of voters in America are sane. That belief has had me wondering why Donald Trump is supported by people who otherwise would pass a sanity test.
By any rational measure, Trump is a lying, cheating, lazy, corrupt, ignorant, irreligious psychopath and traitor. His 40,000+ lies have been documented and refuted.
He denies losing the last election despite 60+ lawsuits, several vote recounts, many of his own attorneys, and thousands of independent thinkers telling him otherwise.
He fomented an insurrection- an attempted coup that was more serious than the crime committed by traitors Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed.
Trump has offered many different excuses for his inexcusable actions on Jan 6, 2021, as he has for other crimes he has committed.
He stole classified documents, denied he stole them, admitted he took them but claimed he was allowed to, and by a recent count, had more than 30 different excuses for what happened.
Recently, Trump refused to sign the Illinois pledge not to attempt to overthrow the United States government. Think about that.
He had to pay a $25 million fine for cheating thousands of students with his ‘Trump University” scam.
He had to pay a $2 million fine for cheating the government with his “Trump Foundation” scam.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, he criticized Greta Thunberg as the “prophet of doom alarmist.” The year 2023 was the hottest on record. 2024 is predicted to be even hotter.
As a result, species are dying. We are giving our children a world in deep trouble.
He claimed COVID was “just the common cold” that would “go away.” He discouraged vaccination and masks while encouraging the use of useless hydroxychloroquine.
More than a million Americans died, many of them because they obeyed Trump. Because of him, people didn’t follow medical advice to vaccinate or to take COVID seriously and avoid large gatherings.
He was the ultimate nepotist, giving important political jobs to his inexperienced daughter and son-in-law.
Not only does he continue to deny the election results, but he threatens: “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
He claims that as President, he can’t be prosecuted for any crime, even murder or assassinating a political opponent. That is the definition of a dictator. (Presumably, this means President Biden could have Trump killed, but Trump didn’t think of that.)
His online ravings are the work of a madman. No sane person would post anything like this, on Christmas, no less:
“Merry Christmas to all, including Crooked Joe Biden’s ONLY HOPE, Deranged Jack Smith, the out of control Lunatic who just hired outside attorneys, fresh from the SWAMP (unprecedented!), to help him with his poorly executed WITCH HUNT against “TRUMP” and “MAGA.” Included also are World Leaders, both good and bad, but none of which are as evil and “sick” as the THUGS we have inside our Country, with their Open Borders, INFLATION, Afghanistan Surrender, Green New Scam, High Taxes, No Energy Independence, Woke Military, Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Iran, All Electric Car Lunacy, and so much more, are looking to destroy our once great USA. MAY THEY ROT IN HELL. AGAIN, MERRY CHRISTMAS!”
He has posted many crazed screeds of similar ilk: Fear, hatred and lies.
After being convicted of defaming E. Jean Carroll, he began defaming her again — 70 times more on his Truth Social account.
Trump has expressed bigotry against people of color, non-Christians, gays, women, and immigrants.
The list could go on and on, far too long for this post.
The point is that Donald J. Trump not only is unfit to be President of the United States and unfit to hold any political office, but he even is unfit as a human being.
And it’s no secret. He doesn’t bother to hide his lack of fitness; instead, he boasts about it.
Each time he is charged or convicted of some misdeed, he immediately goes online to use his shameful conduct as an example of his so=called “persecution” and as a ploy to ask his brainwashed followers for money.
Latest headline: Trump Makes New Court Filing Demanding the Election Crimes Case Against Him Be Dropped Because No One Told Him Overturning an Election Was a Crime (thereby admitting he tried to overturn the election.) Think about it. The man who wants to be President claims as his defense, that he didn’t know that a coup is wrong.
The question is: Why does Trump have any followers at all?
I can understand the Republican Party. Long ago, they put party before country. They are no different from the Nazis who worshipped Hitler while knowing exactly what he was.
There is no crime Trump could commit — from murder to child molestation — that would turn the GOP away from him. For each crime, they immediately would blame the Democrats, Hillary, Biden, Hunter, and/or George Soros.
Not that they believe their claims. Attacking is what Republicans do instead of governing. It is a party without morals or a plan for improving the lives of Americans. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are the epitome of today’s “do-nothing-but-attack-Democrats,” Republicanism.
And I can understand the right-wing media, Fox, Breitbart, and the toadies who work for them: Hannity, Bartiromo, Ingraham, et al. They are paid to support the psychopath. Money is a great motivator that soothes the conscience.
And, of course, Alex Jones et al. was fined a billion dollars for his lies. He and others “believe” Trump because it’s a lucrative gig. And there is Tucker Carlson, whose lies cost his former employer nearly a billion dollars.
Staying with the money theme, the rich believe Trump will be better for tax laws that benefit the rich. He already has demonstrated that. For the right-wing rich, favorable tax laws (for them) are all that matter.
But what about the rest, the proverbial “men in the street.” Why do they believe, and not just believe, but avidly idolize and adore this charlatan?
Something in the human psyche makes many of us crave a dictator.
The world is a dangerous, uncertain place. It’s beyond our control. We can die, young or old, slowly or suddenly.
We feel we need protection.
That is why we have dictators and religions. We will follow whoever or whatever says to us: “Here are the evils you will encounter, but I will protect you.”
The Ten Commandments listed the evils and said God would protect his followers, sometimes even providing a paradise for their afterlife. Despite surface appearances, religion has little to do with good and evil. Religion is a road to protection.
That is why an evil creature like Trump has support from white evangelicals. They have a persecution complex, and since God fails to protect them, Trump promises to do the job.
Trump tells his followers that the dangers are from Mexicans, blacks, yellows, reds, non-Christians, foreigners (except Putin and Kim), gays, women, and poor people.
Trump claims he will protect his frightened followers by building a high, impregnable wall for them to hide behind, by having his police kick down doors, and by deporting millions of non-citizens.
He will deny birthright to born-in-America children of undocumented parents.
He will protect the fearful rich from the have-nots.
SUMMARY
Trump’s primary appeal is to fear and hatred. He is a hatemonger and a fear peddler. He claims that he and the white, Christian majority are under siege by dangerous Mexicans, blacks, reds, yellows, gays, women, liberals, “wokes,” foreigners, and the poor.
It is untrue, but facts are unnecessary when one is spreading fear and hatred, our most powerful emotions.
Just as you cannot argue religion with a true believer, you cannot argue Trump with a MAGA. No amount of truth or logic will penetrate. MAGAs are willing to turn over their lives to an obvious scoundrel because, “after all, wasn’t Christ called a criminal?”
The best you can do is to keep telling the truth, again and again. You must keep reminding America of what Trump has said and done, so that the volume of MAGA lies doesn’t overwhelm sanity and decency.
Eventually, even the most blockheaded come to their senses. Belatedly, the Germans, Italians, and Japanese learned this lesson during WWII. The Russians, not yet, but perhaps, when Putin dies, a reasonable person will take his place.
Trump is mentally and physically sick. Will his successor be another Hitler, another Trump? Or will that successor believe the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty? More importantly, will his followers believe those noble words?
Lately, decency has been missing from the right. Lincoln has been gone too long.
Will Republican voters continue to believe the lie that cruelty and hatred are signs of strength. Or will they conquer their fears. Will they learn that real strength comes from the kindness and honesty that helped America benefit from immigrants and minorities?
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
That quote is widely known to come from Mark Twain. But he may not be the author. Ironically, his ownership is one of the many things some people know for sure that quite possibly ain’t so.
This blog is at mythfighter.com because it aims to dispel claims most people know that just ain’t so.
Regular readers recognize some of these “just ain’t so” beliefs:
For our Monetarily Sovereign government, continuing to run federal deficits is unsustainable.
The federal government’s finances are similar to personal finances.
The government should have a balanced budget.
“Excessive” federal spending causes inflation.
The solution to inflation is to raise interest rates, cut spending, and/or increase taxes.
The federal government spends taxpayers’ money.
Social Security and Medicare benefits are paid for by trust accounts.
Social Security and Medicare will run short of money without benefit cuts or tax increases.
You’ve read and heard these beliefs perhaps for your entire life. You may believe them ardently. You and your friends may discuss them frequently. No one doubts them.
Yet, they are wrong. Not even one of them is true.
And I’m not talking about slightly wrong, or wrong because of some technicality. They all are fundamentally wrong, diametrically wrong. Wrong in every way that something can be wrong.
Look through this blog to see the proofs of how wrong those beliefs are.
Today’s blog discusses yet another set of wrong beliefs I’ve seldom touched on. Until now. They have to do with immigration.
The false beliefs begin with this chart, which few people would have predicted.
The alarmist rhetoric, mainly from the Republicans, may have made you believe that America is swamped with undocumented immigrants, especially since President Biden took over in 2021.
But, according to Britannica ProOrg, the percentage of undocumented immigrants vs. total populationhas hardly budged in many years:
Percentage of US populationundocumented immigrants
2022 3.5%; 2021 3.1%; 2020 ?*;
2019 3.5%; 2018 3.5%; 2017 3.5%;
2016 3.3%; 2015 3.4%; 2014 3.5%;
2013 3.6%; 2012 3.6%; 2011 3.7%;
2010 3.8%; 2009 3.5%; 2008 3.8%;
2007 3.9%; 2006 3.9%; 2005 3.5%
*Unable to calculate estimate due to COVID-19 pandemic complications with the 2020 census.
Everyone who starts geographer Hein de Haas’s How Migration Really Works will have opinions about migration – few will finish with their preconceptions intact.
Drawing on three decades of research from his time at the University of Oxford and the University of Amsterdam, de Haas shows that everything we know about migration is wrong.
This isn’t because migration is an especially complex matter but because economic and political interests, on both the left and the right, have lost sight of the evidence – that is when they haven’t actively misrepresented it.
De Haas explores trends in global migration patterns, examines the impacts of migration on both destination and origin societies, and closes with a series of fairly devastating takedowns of popular ideas.
The problem runs deep. Take the frequently quoted figures released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which “seem” to show that the global total of displaced people increased nearly 50-fold from 1.8 million in 1951 to 100 million in 2022.
What explains this shocking rise? Globalisation? War? Climate change? Issues with the statistics?
“What appears to be an unprecedented increase in refugee numbers,” de Haas explains, “is, in reality, a statistical artifact caused by the inclusion of populations and countries previously excluded from displacement statistics.”
UNHCR’s current figures are now truly global. But, its 1951 baseline figure was drawn from a database covering just 21 countries.
It is the direction of migration after the second world war that some in Western nations have found so disconcerting. The numbers have hardly changed.
At any time, around 3 percent of the world’s population are migrants. A tenth of those are refugees.
The figure for unsolicited border crossings (de Haas refuses to use the term “illegal crossings,” as it doesn’t capture the legal position outlined in the UN Refugee Convention) fluctuates erratically, depending on labor demand in destination countries and conflict in origin countries, but the underlying number remains stubbornly consistent.
People go where jobs are available, and they flee turmoil. In short, people come to where they can work, contribute to an economy, and raise their children safely.
They are not troublemakers. Quite the opposite. Immigrants are less likely to break the law than are citizens.
This graph shows results in Texas
If migration levels are stable, historically, why all the emotion?
De Haas pulls no punches: “Although they may advocate very different solutions, politicians from left to right, climate activist and nativist groups, humanitarian NGOs and refugee organizations and media have all bought into the idea that the current era is one of a migration crisis.”
That this results in staggeringly wrong-headed policy-making comes as no surprise – witnessed massive US investment in border enforcement since the late 1980s.
This writes de Haas, has “turned a largely circular flow of Mexican workers going back and forth to California and Texas into an 11-million-strong population of permanently settled families living all across the United States”. They stay because it is too costly in every sense to keep moving.
Think about it. Strong borders keep undocumented immigrants from returning home.They fear they will not be able to return — a classic example of a law accomplishing exactly the opposite of its stated intention.
Catastrophizing migration also has a cultural impact. In host nations, nightmare migration scenarios are peddled to tickle every political palate.
An international cabal runs people smuggling. (No evidence.) The mafia are trafficking young women for sex. (No evidence.) Migration flows mainly from the poorer southern hemisphere to the wealthy north. (Wrong.)
Migration lifts all boats. (No. It overwhelmingly benefits the already affluent.) Where is the scenario that credits migrants themselves with connections, ambitions, foresight, agency, or even intelligence?
Politicians, especially on the right, describe migrants in the most negative terms as a criminal hoard invading America and planning to destroy our nation.
The facts are quite the opposite:
The Secure Communities Programis pitched as a way to deport criminals before they can commit more crimes in the United States
But at least two independent studies suggest Secure Communities didn’t affect crime rates, according to UW–Madison sociology professor Michael Light , despite deporting more than 200,000 people in its first four years.
“If the plan was to make communities safer, to reduce the likelihood of, say, a felony violent assault in these communities through deportation, it did not deliver on that promise,” Light says.
“Our results help us understand why that is. The population of people we deported simply was not a unique criminal risk. Removing them isn’t going to make you all that safer.”
While the new study can’t describe why undocumented immigrants commit fewer crimes, it’s a common finding that first generation immigrants tend to be less crime-prone — and undocumented immigrants are, almost by definition, first-generation immigrants.
(“Illegal immigrants are 44 percent less likely to be incarcerated than natives. Legal immigrants are 69 percent less likely to be incarcerated than natives. Legal and illegal immigrants are underrepresented in the incarcerated population while natives are overrepresented.” The Cato Institute)
Light believes there are many reasons to expect a lower crime rate among undocumented immigrants.
“They have a tremendous incentive to avoid criminal wrongdoing.
The greatest fear among undocumented immigrants is getting in legal trouble that leads to deportation,” says Light, whose work is supported by the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Justice.
Another factor at work may be that immigration, especially illegal entry into the U.S., is not easy. It attracts people with particular motives.
“There’s lots of opportunity to commit crimes in Mexico and Venezuela and other places people are emigrating from,” Light says.
“The argument is that many people who want to immigrate are selected on attributes like ambition to achieve, to find economic opportunities, and those types of things aren’t very highly correlated with having a criminal propensity.”
Criminals are people who have less fear of the law than do those who resist any impulse to commit a crime.
The traitors who invaded the Capitol on January 6, and tried to destroy America’s democracy, did not fear the law. They believed they would not be arrested and were confident they would not be deported.
They were not undocumented immigrants. They were home-grown from right wing MAGA extremist groups like the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and Three Percenters.
How Migration Really Works is a carefully evidenced critique of a political culture that would rather use migration as a domestic passion-play than treat it as an ordinary and governable part of civil life.
To be pro and anti immigration is to miss the point entirely. You wouldn’t ask an economist whether they are for or against the economy, would you?
We are constantly told we need “a big conversation” about immigration. I am rereading this book (something crabbed reviewers never normally do).
Until I am done, I am going to keep my big mouth shut.
Simon Ings is a critic and writer based in London
SUMMARY
As of this date, the book is not yet available to the public, but several things are clear.
Far from being a threat, immigrants are an asset to America, as they always have been. Part of America’s strength comes from immigrants, the world’s most motivated people.
By accepting immigrants, we receive those who are motivated to pull up roots in order to make better lives for themselves and their families, and in doing so, improve the nation that gives them refuge and opportunity.
In short, immigrants to America are the best their former nations have to offer.
Immigrants are less likely to be lawbreakers than are citizens.
America needs the immigrant workforce, especially for seasonal work or for jobs citizens don’t want.
The anti-immigrant rhetoric is based on bigoted, Trumpian fearmongering, not on facts.
So they are angry at being seen as dupes, especially in their own eyes.
They will double down against the obvious and do anything to build a barrier between reality and their foolishness.
They will cover their gullibility with bluster and blindness.
“Wha, wha, I won’t listen to you. I cover my eyes and ears. Your words can’t hurt me.”
To maintain their belief in what they know to be nonsense, they join a mob, scream loudly or even silently, and let the noise in their head cover the truth and their emotion to cover their shame.
Thus, they allow pure belief and worship to wash over them without the burden of honest evaluation.
Hatred and anger are their only defense.
But it is exhausting. As the harsh glare of reality reveals, Trump’s armor is rusty. Each day, more people see the emperor has no clothes.
There stands before them is a befuddled, pitiful, failing old man, mouthing the same lies and insults that no longer fool even the most naive,
He is an often bankrupt business failure, an often losing political failure, an often adulterous marriage failure, an often indicted and convicted moral failure, and a son not even respected by his own late father.
The thrill is gone.
The crowds thin.
Those few who remain look around in embarrassment at their own naivete.
At last, it ends, not with a bang but with a whimper.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell; MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell; https://www.academia.edu/
The false beliefs begin with this chart, which few people would have predicted.
The alarmist rhetoric, mainly from the Republicans, may have made you believe that America is swamped with undocumented immigrants, especially since President Biden took over in 2021.
But, according to 
They are not troublemakers. Quite the opposite. Immigrants are less likely to break the law than are citizens.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 