Cosmopolitan bias

Aug 3rd, 2017 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog
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Down into the muck they go.

On Wednesday, for reasons known only to whatever critters inhabit the ravines and gullies of the presidential cortex, they trotted [Stephen] Miller out to talk about the administration’s new proposal to limit legal immigration. Miller is not equipped to be the public face of a phony real estate scam, let alone the executive branch of the government of the United States. Jim Acosta of CNN asked him a question. It did not go well.

Transcript via Adweek:

Acosta: This whole notion of they have to learn English before they get to the United States, are we just going to bring in people from Great Britain and Australia?

Miller: I have to say, I am shocked at your statement that you think that only people from Great Britain and Australia would know English. It reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree that in your mind — this is an amazing moment. That you think only people from Great Britain or Australia would speak English is so insulting to millions of hardworking immigrants who do speak English from all over the world. Have you honestly never met an immigrant from another country who speaks English outside of Great Britain and Australia?

Ah yes your “cosmopolitan bias”…you dirty Jew. That’s what “cosmopolitan” means in the mouths of the Stephen Millers of the world.

The way Miller leaned into the word “cosmopolitan” while answering Acosta has a long and ignoble history in 20th century authoritarianism, especially the anti-Semitic variety. During World War II, for example, the Soviet government under Stalin used to rail regularly at “rootless cosmopolitanism,” especially in the arts. The Nazis were fond of tossing it around, too. There is no context in which Miller’s use of the word against Acosta makes sense except as a historical signaling device.

The muck is rising around us.

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