The Larger Issue! Washington Post (finally) fingers immigration as the cause of Trump’s surge. But authors Jim Tankersley et. al. still manage to place the Trump phenomenon in a tradition of “less educated people” who think that “foreigners are to blame for [their] personal economic woes.” Perhaps these voters’ anger is self-serving, a belief that if they are falling behind they must be “being taken advantage of.” At best, they express a legitimate NIMBY-like interest that must, alas, be cast aside in the march of progress. … But there’s a difference between being a hand-loom weaver threatened by powered machines and being an uncredentialed, low-skilled worker when it looks like virtually all low-skilled work will be either shipped overseas or (if it must be done here) performed by hungrier, lower paid immigrants or guest workers. In that case, you aren’t saying immigrants are “taking our jobs” so much as that we’re heedlessly and unnecessarily creating a society where if you aren’t smart or schooled or beautiful (or lucky) or an upwardly-mobile newcomer you are a loser. [It’s odd, I agree, that Donald Trump would be the bearer of this grievance.] If you prefer a country where anyone who works every day earns enough to live a life of dignity, does that make you “less-educated” or more American? …
Pre-debate mini-rant: The Larger Issue (behind Trump’s popularity) http://t.co/Zx4XXup7XC
Read the @kausmickey “pre-debate mini-rant” on immigration and Trump: http://t.co/xs2slJYrJL
Jeb!’s vision of the future — get a good education/do well in school or you are SOL — is not very appealing http://t.co/Zx4XXuGIPa