[rayiner]

> Congress can debate immigration laws on the books, but this cultural shift seems to be something else entirely. Instead of measured enforcement, it appears to be the normalization of cruelty.

That's because Congress has been promising "measured enforcement" for 60 years, but in that time the foreign-born population has ballooned from 4.7% in 1970 to 15.6% in 2024--higher than it ever was in the 20th century. The goal is big, visible enforcement actions that will disincentivize people from immigrating above the limits set forth in the law.

[dtjb]

I fail to see how the percentage of foreign born citizens is a problem in any way.

[dfxm12]

It's only a problem for white supremacists.

[rayiner]

It's only "white supremacy" if you'd object to, e.g. a majority-Bangladeshi town or neighborhood where people behaved indistinguishably from people in Idaho, Wyoming, or Vermont. But if assimilation was real--if people could be transplanted from one cultural context to another seamlessly--opposition to immigration would be almost non-existent.

[ViewTrick1002]

It is interesting how far the American Overton window [0] has shifted. With white supremacy now being featured on HN.

I truly never could comprehend how Hitler got to power. Now we’re seeing it in action, and it scares me.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

[jacquesm]

> I truly never could comprehend how Hitler got to power.

There are two great movies about this. 'The Third Wave' and 'Er ist wieder da'.

Of course we have reality now and we see how ostensibly smart people are lured in by soundbites and simple solutions to complicated problems. The dumb ones I can't really blame but the smart ones are a much bigger problem. They twist and turn like eels on a hook to try to justify that which can't be justified at all, not even in the abstract. And yet, they persist. And in doing so they normalize the language and the attitude that goes with that. It's like watching something viral replicate.

> Now we’re seeing it in action, and it scares me.

Yes, it scares me too. It scares me in ways that I did not think I could be scared. It scares me to the point that I wonder if we're not already past the point of no return, that this - like WWII - has to burn out before things can get better again. Assuming there will be anything left. Too many forces are working really hard to destabilize the world that we've come to take for granted.

What I have realized though is that at the head of these movements are a relatively small number of people, each with their own agenda. And you have to wonder: if it hadn't been Hitler, who would have come to power there? None of the cast that we know had the power of oration that Hitler had, his ability to make people believe that he had the answers, when he clearly did not. The dissatisfaction of the German populace with the outcome of WWI and the finger pointing are very much reminiscent of what is happening right now in many places all over the world. The exact same patterns. And instead of radio (which never lost its power) we now have the TV and the internet to push our buttons and make us act against our own interests.

'May you live in interesting times' always was a curse, not a blessing.

[onetimeusename]

What are some solutions to the complicated problems?

I don't mean to put words in your mouth but what you are describing is an anti-Fascist worldview. To be clear, that means you believe Hitler-esque figures and fascism leading to mass destruction are recurring patterns to be avoided. So would being anti-Fascist require a commitment to more immigration? Would you say criticism of immigration should be suppressed because it's being used by demagogues to gain power?

[rayiner]

You're welcome to your belief, but that puts you in an extreme minority not only among Americans, but among people anywhere in the world. It's simply a fact that culture is real, that it shapes the society, and that immigrants bring foreign culture with them in ways that change the destination society. https://www.sup.org/books/economics-and-finance/culture-tran... ("In The Culture Transplant, Garett Jones documents the cultural foundations of cross-country income differences, showing that immigrants import cultural attitudes from their homelands—toward saving, toward trust, and toward the role of government—that persist for decades, and likely for centuries, in their new national homes. Full assimilation in a generation or two, Jones reports, is a myth. And the cultural traits migrants bring to their new homes have enduring effects upon a nation's economic potential.").

I'm a foreigner myself. Even though I grew up in the U.S. since age 5, the cultural difference between me and my wife (whose family immigrated here from Britain before the American Revolution) are stark. I think most Americans have a hard time understanding just how foreign their foreign-born acquaintances are, because many of the differences are below the surface: https://opengecko.com/geckoview/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/C....

[ericfr11]

This argument has no weight. First, a lot of people in the US are in favor of multi-cultural society: from St Patrick's (Irish) to Cinco de Mayo (Mexican), ... If anything, the US is a multi-cultural nation from the beginning: German was almost the official language of the US. Railroads would not have been built without the Chinese. NY pizza wouldn't exist without the Italians. And more. We need some laws obviously, but let's stop pretending the US is a single culture