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These Nice People CAN'T WAIT For Border Shutdown To Wreck The Economy!
We need some pain, tell you what!
Now that Donald Trump has said shutting down the US-Mexico border would totally be worth a little economic pain , other deplorables are coming out of the woodwork to insist that a nice economic crisis is exactly what this country needs in order to Get Serious about immigration policy. Never mind that auto manufacturers would start shutting down assembly lines within days, or that supermarket produce sections would quickly look like Bulgaria after the collapse of the USSR. That would be just nifty, in principle, since closing the border with Mexico would totally end illegal immigration and anyone claiming asylum, which these geniuses know is actually just another word for illegal immigration since 100 percent of asylum claims are fake. If we shut the border, all our problems would be over, that is just OBVIOUS!
In case you missed Trump's official policy statement, here he is explaining why suddenly shutting off $1.7 billion in daily US-Mexico trade would be a great idea. Because "security" is a far higher good than mere money, especially since no autoworkers or produce farmers stay at Trump hotels:
"Sure, it's going to have a negative impact on the economy," Pres. Trump says when asked if closing U.S.-Mexico bor… https: //t.co/JfMQuUaeGh
— ABC News (@ABC News) 1554265650.0
Besides, Trump finally has an answer to those who keep insisting that WALL wouldn't stop drugs, since most drugs come through ports of entry already! If we shut the ports of entry, NO DRUGS! Also, no fresh produce and no components for lots of US manufacturers, but we will finally have security! At least until the food riots start, but people who have bought enough guns should be fine.
And of course, now Trump has idiots aping him, like Federalist editor Mollie Hemingway, who thinks we just need some pain to teach us a lesson.
The Federalist's Mollie Hemingway dismisses the economic chaos to come if Trump shuts down the southern border: "So… https://t.co/cYAhVD9auJ
— Bobby Lewis (@Bobby Lewis) 1554296426.0
Fox's Ainsley Earhardt seized on the one international trade fact everyone in Trumpland knows: If the border is closed, the US would run out of avocados in about three weeks. In fact, avocados are the only thing that come from Mexico, so WHO EVEN CARES?
Earhardt: Many in the media continue to say that there is no crisis down at the border but guess what they are concerned about? An avocado crisis. [...]
The president said there will be a negative impact if he has to close the border but he's saying more important is national security. Do you agree?
Hemingway: Well that's what I think this media coverage shows. Some people, when they look at our border crisis, they're worried about rule of law, they're worried about national sovereignty, they're worried about a humanitarian crisis, or the drugs that are flowing over the border. And those are very serious concerns, also economic impact from a possible shutdown is serious. But when the media focus on whether they're going to get their breakfast with avocado toast instead of these bigger, pressing issues, it just shows how unserious they are about this very big issue.
Astonishingly, Earhardt then acknowledged that "almost half of our veggies and about 40% of our fruit does come from Mexico," a rare descent into fact. But presumably, since Fox viewers don't eat fresh food anyway, giving up frou-frou nutrition seems like a pretty good trade-off. Hemingway was very excited at the prospect of a good economic self-flagellation to get Americans thinking seriously about keeping immigrants out:
[Sometimes] you want to have a little bit of hurt so that people are incentivized to do something about the situation. That's true not just in this country but in other countries. And facing economic consequences for not taking this problem seriously or not doing enough to stop it, is one of the ways that you can make people care more about it.
Also too, maybe Congress will realize that by protecting children from being arbitrarily sent back to home countries where they might die in gang violence, we're really just giving people an excuse to bring them here so they won't die. What a stupid loophole!
[There] are things that our legislators should be doing, closing loopholes. We have laws that incentivize trafficking children, either having children come as unaccompanied minors or knowing that if people come with children they kind of get a free entry into the country. These are things that our lawmakers should be worried about right now.
But why, Mollie, WHY won't Congress do something about these children and families who aren't dying in Central America like they should? The woman who edits a rightwing publication paid for by anonymous billionaires explained,
I think a lot of elite people don't face the negative consequences of a porous border the way that the rest of the country does. [...] We've known this crisis is looming, but we just don't have very serious people who are willing to make tough decisions to enforce rule of law or spend the money or change the laws that are necessary to change the situation, and even the fact that there is humanitarian crisis or other problems does not seem to motivate people. If avocados motivate people, then maybe it's a good thing, I don't know.
Silly elites and your avocados!
Absolutely nothing else will be affected, as the people of Wingnut Twitter just KNOW for a fact:

Dead Breitbart's Home for Very Excitable White People didn't quite go so far as to insist we NEED economic pain, but they know for sure that Mitch McConnell's warning that closing the border would have a "potentially catastrophic economic impact" was ridiculous. As with many insta-outrage stories at Breitbart, the editors simply reported what McConnell said and left the howls of butthurt up to the readers.

Nope, not a single Breitbart reader will be affected by higher food prices, because again, it's only avocados. Nobody works in manufacturing or buys things, that's for sure.
Over at Gateway Pundit, Stupidest Man on the Internet Jim Hoft was a bit more directive about McConnell's warning:

Why no, the article didn't mention anything about the likely economic effects of closing the border. Why would it? It was all about McConnell's disloyalty. What economic effects? AVOCADOS!
If this demand that the US take swift action against its nose to stop the crimes against its face sounds a bit familiar, you might recall that time in 2013 when Tea Party types were demanding the US default on its debt, because wrecking our credit rating and crashing the economy would teach Barack Obama a real lesson.
[ Media Matters / Detroit Free Press / Politico / Breitbart / Gateway Pundit ]
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These Nice People CAN'T WAIT For Border Shutdown To Wreck The Economy!
Works a charm, never mind that they never can explain how it's their fault, the accusation is enough for the incurious GOP base.
As Evan said in another column, this is why some of us don't go home for the holidays any more.