There is a unifying factor in nearly everything Republicans have to say about immigration these days. It is that, upon hearing any of it, a normal person who thinks normal things cannot help but think, “OK, I know this is offensive, I can see that it is offensive, but what does it actually even mean?”
Unless that’s just me. It could be just me.
Recently, Senator Ted Cruz from Texas sat down with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo to discuss the border and immigration. This has been the topic du jour on the Right lately, I assume because even they got a little tired of crying about drag queens all the livelong day. And what else do they have, really?
During this discussion, Cruz complained that those he considers to be on the “far left” — such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and others who would be relatively centrist in most European nations — think that America is “fundamentally illegitimate.”
Via The Hill:
Cruz said politicians like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), along with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and the “radical open borders crowd,” are driving Democrats’ agenda and believe that it’s wrong to have a border.
“Some of those nuts believe America shouldn’t exist, that our existence is fundamentally illegitimate,” Cruz told Fox’s Maria Bartiromo.
What does that even mean? Is it like when a spoiled child responds to criticism by screaming, “I bet you wish I’d never even been born!?”
What is it that he’s interpreting here as people believing “our existence is fundamentally illegitimate?” Is it criticism of the United States? Are we not allowed to do that? Because it does feel a tad warranted to at least point out that many of the countries that today’s immigrants are fleeing are countries where the United States has fought wars, supported dictators, assisted right-wing military coups and trained death squads over the years in the name of “stopping the spread of communism.”
Or is it that we welcome immigrants? And if immigrants make our country “fundamentally illegitimate,” why has he not yet sent dear old Dad back to Cuba?
The issue here, really, is that our own personal egos and sense of self are simply not tied up with borders and nationalism and homogeneity in the way that the Right’s are. We’re not scared of criticizing the things our country has done wrong. We’re not scared of people who are different, so we are able to look at this with clearer eyes. We want to help people, we know we have lots of wide open spaces in this country and we also know that despite the fact that the immigration waves of the past 100 years have brought us both Ted Cruz and Maria Bartiromo, it has largely been a blessing.
Cruz continued, saying that the Biden administration “is all politics all the time” and they “don’t care” about national security, and that the withdrawal from Afghanistan was an “entirely political operation” and was “disastrous.”
Democrats look the other way when migrants enter the country because “they just see future Democrats,” the Texas lawmaker alleged.
No, we see people. People who may very well end up with children and grandchildren like Ted Cruz, the son of an immigrant from Cuba, and Maria Bartiromo, the granddaughter of immigrants from Italy who think all of the current immigrants are just as dangerous as people thought their relatives were.
I would argue that it is people like Cruz and Bartiromo who believe that America is “fundamentally illegitimate.” To the extent that we have any unifying culture here at all, it is not the culture the WASPs considered “the founding stock” of this nation. Rather, it is made up of the contributions of Black people brought against their will and waves of immigrants bringing new cultures, new perspectives and delicious foods to our shores. And thank goodness for that because I think we all prefer eating pizza and tacos to cucumber sandwiches.
We are the ones who are honoring the inscription on the Statue of Liberty — “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” — and this history as a nation of immigrants, save for the fact that we do not want to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Or could it be that Ted Cruz is a disingenuous troll?
Remember...
"Here's the thing you have to understand about Ted Cruz. I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz." - Al Franken
"[Conservatives] love America like a 4-year-old loves his mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a 4-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad and helping your loved one grow.”
― Al Franken, Lies & the Lying Liars Who Tell Them