These things, they don't exist
It’s Thursday, which is a good a day as any to skip my typical satirical prose and dig into some things that don’t exist. Buckle up.
There is no such thing as too much immigration.
In the lead-up to 2016, Trump resurrected nativism from the (almost) dead—and its fervent ghoulish supporters have become a nightmare for those who, much like the ancestors of about 99 percent of the people in this country, seek a better life for themselves and their families. Arguments against Trump’s mass deportation orders often highlight the unfathomable amount (upwards of $100B1) that undocumented immigrants contribute in taxes to state and national programs, budgets, and social safety nets (while receiving little-to-nothing in return); that mass migration offers a net social good for any nation; and that the economically necessary jobs they perform that U.S. citizens by-and-large do not want2. While these kinds of arguments are factually correct, they miss the same truth that anti-immigration hardliners can’t wrap their heads around: there does not need to be an argument for welcoming people into this absolutely enormous country. Consider: the US ranks 184 out of 248 in population density—roughly similar to that of Denmark’s mostly empty Faroe Islands3. We have the space.
More-so, we need them. Given our nation’s falling life expectancy rate, abysmal worker protections, and general genuflecting to the whims of the billionaire class, opening our doors is one of the last great things this place still does. It is necessary for the health and future of our economy and society. If anything, we need more public resources for faster, more efficient processes toward welcoming people and offering them pathways toward citizenship, like we did for the first half of the 20th century when, per the Library of Congress, Ellis Island saw “12 million immigrants pass through its gates, at a rate of up to 5,000 people a day.”4 Instead, Trump-led deportations will deeply hurt our economy and standing—worse still, they will create a cash-grab by inhumane private prisons, which already run detention centers akin to interment camps in this country, right now. Immigration is a solution, not a problem. This thing, this too-much-immigration, it does not exist.
There is no migrant crime surge.
This xenophobic myth was perhaps born of control. Class consciousness is a threat to the oligarchy—but it can be avoided by blaming the Other for violence and looting, while the real violence and looting are carried out by health insurance companies, tech conglomerates, and energy monopolies. Or maybe the myth persists because of plain old racism. Most likely, it’s both.
The fact is this: undocumented immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes than people born in the US5. This makes sense when you stop and think for even one single second about the risks people take to get here in the first place—something Trump and his ilk either never consider or, more likely, never want to acknowledge because of how immensely hateful they are. This hatred, by the way, is an easy-out stop-gap solution for the lazy. Can you imagine a less interesting, leakier, worse solve to an imagined problem than “Leave”? It’s the reaction of a child—a child who happens to control the nukes.
The reason Trump leans on the illusion of migrant crime is that, at its core, deportation rests upon white supremacist ideals. If the ultimate goal is to get rid of people behind increased crime and drugs in the US, then there would be some kind of movement to deport a pretty large amount of white US citizens—the kind, for instance, who stormed the Capitol and assaulted and killed police officers in 2021. Instead, those actual terrorists are given a Get Out of Jail Free Card by their instigator (also a convicted felon), and the people who pick our crops and build and clean our buildings are ripped from their homes.
Alongside the consolidation of wealth and power, Trumpian dogma is built on a foundation of racism, through which action is taken as fast as necessary to avoid the slightest glance under the hood. There is no better example of the this than Trump and his allies’ immediate false claims that the suspect in January’s New Orleans attack was an immigrant, when in reality he was a U.S.-born citizen and Army veteran6. This thing, this migrant crime surge, it does not exist.
There is no violent crime surge in general.
The fear tactics of the fascists will always be entrenched with falsehoods, much like the baseless claim that America has gone haywire with crime. The lie that we’re no longer safe—that liberal-led cities have allowed the underworld to take root, and danger lurks around every corner—has become akin to canon. Yet violent crime, property crime, and murder rates have all fallen in recent years,7 despite Trump’s unfounded claims to the opposite. Anecdotes often prove stronger than hard data, and end up defining the entire conversation, but since the 90s violent crime rates have dropped by nearly 50 percent. The power of story explains why, as Pew Research Center reports, “in every Gallup crime survey since the 1990s, Americans have been much less likely to say crime is up in their area than to say the same about crime nationally.8” This thing, this violent crime surge, it does not exist.
There is no such thing as merit.
As the (a-hem) White House revokes the Equal Employment Opportunity Act and seem poised to destroy 60 years of progress by rolling back the Civil Rights Act, their veiled public reasoning revolves around “merit.” Of course, their true intent is, as always, based around racism and supremacy—but if taken at face value, their catalyst for sweeping anti-anti-discrimination work is completely made up. Merit is, by definition, worthiness, which makes it one of the most subjective aspects you can vaguely assign to someone or something. The concept of merit barely survives in a vacuum or a thought experiment, never mind here on God’s Green Capitalist Earth. In the US, extreme wealth disparity coupled with some of the worst class mobility among industrialized societies9 render individual work ethic completely meaningless, “colorblind” or no.
A much better salve for inequality would be expanding the social safety net, decoupling money from politics, gutting the billionaire class of its wealth, and strengthening protections for equal opportunity. Meanwhile the word “merit,” no matter how many times it gets repeated, will do nothing except strengthen the oligarchy while dulling the blade of the people. This thing, this merit-based system, it has never and will never exist.
There is no energy emergency.
Trump and kin would have you believe that we’re facing an energy crisis in the US. That we’re desperate to drill. But actual oil executives don’t want to drill—they don’t want to drive prices down. Besides, as Bill McKibben writes, “America has been producing oil and gas at record levels.”10 Trump’s solution to a non-existent problem is, as always, to create a problem. McKibben points out, “by halting the leasing of federal waters for offshore wind farms” Trump will “effectively limit the amount of energy the country could potentially generate.” This thing, this energy emergency, it does not exist.
There is no mandate.
This is the one to hold onto. To clench with your fist, then shake that fist high in the air and in his face as he’s eventually dragged out of office, and his billionaire cartel is disbanded and de-moneyed, one way or another. Trump’s normalized electoral college victory margin in 2024 and 2016 rank 44th and 48th out of 60, respectively11. As a percentage of votes, his popular victory margin this past election was the sixth-lowest of those that are not negative margins—a should-be-losers club of which he is also a member, having attained in 2016 the third-lowest popular vote victory margin of all time12. The man has quite literally never received a majority of the popular vote. Taking it one step further, if you combine both of his popular vote totals, more Americans voted against him than voted for him. If there ever were an illegitimate claim to the Oval Office, it would be his.
Americans who vote remain deeply divided—not coalesced—and the other half of Americans simply don’t vote. Stepping around the tragedy of the latter, one truth is very clear: This thing, this mandate, it does not exist.
Of course, mandate or no, he will gorge himself on control. This bloated man, his sycophantic administration, and his many fervent bootlickers will do everything in their power to gain even more power and to keep it for as long as they can—all while throwing the working class and the poor under the bus. Remember, though: we get to decide how we act, how we show up for each other, and how we organize. This thing, his authority, it does not need to exist.
Q&A
Q: Wait, really? A Q&A for your first non-satire piece in months?
A: I need to let new readers know that this kind of writing is definitely part of my oeuvre, but more often than not they’ll be seeing stuff like this and this.
Q: I guess that makes sense. Did you really say anything “new” with this newsletter, though?
A: You’re obsessed with doing things that are part of the word “newsletter.”
Q: Still… was any of it eye-opening? To the people who already, like, agree with you?
A: Hopefully. And maybe it’ll arm others with ways of talking about all this.
Q: And that will… help?
A: Yeah, sure. Maybe it helps add fire to the pile of courage we’re all going to need when we actually have to start breaking the law in order to live compassionately.
Q: Yeah… you think this’ll do that?
A: What is this? What are you trying to pull?
Q: I just—I agree with you, but I just don’t know how this all helps.
A: Then I have just the thing!
Q: Wait, no, don’t use that as a jumping off point for promotion.
A: Too late—
Nothing helps, except for my book. Order a copy of This Won’t Help today!
My award-winning essay collection This Won’t Help is the only thing that really does exist—so order your copy right now! Don’t want to buy it online? Great thinking. Go to your local bookstore and ask them to purchase copies of my book in extremely high volume.
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What I’ve been reading
ICE Watch Programs Can Protect Immigrants in Your Neighborhood — Here’s What to Know by Nikki Marín Baena
“As deportations ramp up again, we have a choice: We can watch as our neighbors disappear or we can build on these proven strategies to protect the diverse communities we've built together.”
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I’d like to share this everywhere.
Not gonna lie, I'm 100% down for mass deportations of "merit"-less Whites.
Alas, since we can't have nice things, I'll share this piece widely.