A foreign labor class

Comments

9 responses to “A foreign labor class”

1. 

   Feb 1, 2026 12:48 PM

   Sumi

   The obvious question is why? Putting aside the constitution for a minute, why is it important to tie voting rights to citizenship instead of, say, residency. Why should expats get to vote in a country they don’t live in, while green card holders don’t get to vote in the country where they live?
2. 

   Feb 1, 2026 4:42 PM

   chigau

   WTF is “The West”?

   The Roman Empire was not “Western”? The British Empire was not “Western”?
3. 

   Feb 1, 2026 4:46 PM

   Ophelia Benson

   Are you questioning the erudition of Stephen Miller??????
4. 

   Feb 1, 2026 4:55 PM

   chigau

   Not really. I’m declaring him to be an idiot.

   I read the Wikipedia article and he seems to have had a decent education. So he is the weak link.
5. 

   Feb 1, 2026 5:13 PM

   Ophelia Benson

   The West is Stephen Miller’s happy place.
6. 

   Feb 1, 2026 5:35 PM

   chigau

   Great. Nightmare fuel.

   moar rum
7. 

   Feb 1, 2026 5:44 PM

   Tim Harris

   Alas, having had a “good education” does not necessarily result in erudition, honesty in argument, a lack of vile prejudices, a refusal to entertain conspiracy theories, or the ability to think clearly. I have recently told a retired American linguist here in Japan – I have known the man for about forty years – that I want to have nothing more to do with him. He is a fervent supporter of Trump, his cruelties & corruption, and felt I could no longer keep up a shell and semblance of friendship.

   Carl Schmitt was a highly-educated & intelligent man. He was also a virulent anti-Semite & supporter of Hitler. He was also a Roman Catholic, as is the acquaintance I have spoken of above; Anne Applebaum has recently remarked on the number of Roman Catholics who are on the extreme right (including certain members of the Supreme Court).

   Pierre Bourdieu, for whom I have huge admiration, writes in The Rules of Art of “conservative intellectuals” that, being “intellectuals”, “they must engage in argumentation instead of making assertions or thrusts – thereby threatening to introduce a suspect distance from an immediate and indisputable adherence to the established order “ (and, one might say, with reference to the “intellectuals” of the extreme right, to the order that they would like to see imposed); when pressed, Bourdieu writes, these “intellectuals” “tend to justify themselves by making a final reversal and returning again to the original ground of simple verities – intellectual and stylistic – and giving lessons in political realism and common sense.” In the case of people like Stephen Miller, who is, despite his education, no intellectual, the recourse is to insist on simple “verities” such as the superiority in every respect of White Western civilisation, the inferiority of anyone else, and the dangers to White Western civilisation posed by immigrants from anywhere else in the world – except, perhaps, from South Africa. These “verities” are readily swilled down by a poorly educated white populace who have been taught that history began with the founding of “a shining city on a hill”, as Miller well knows.
8. 

   Feb 1, 2026 5:48 PM

   Tim Harris

   The African slaves imported to the USA & elsewhere were, of course, “a foreign labour class”.
9. 

   Feb 2, 2026 5:42 AM

   iknklast

   The African slaves imported to the USA & elsewhere were, of course, “a foreign labour class”.

   Yes. And my Irish ancestors were once a ‘foreign labor class’. The Chinese built a huge portion of this country as a ‘foreign labor class’. Initially both were hugely despised, but the Irish have assimilated enough that no one thinks of the as foreign anymore. (It probably helps that they are white.)

   Part of it, I suspect, is the contempt many people hold for the ‘labor class’ in general. A lot of people feel inherently superior to their maids and nannies, their gardeners and cooks, and people who perform other services for pay. That takes up most of the country, when you think about it. You have a privileged wealthy class looking down their nose at those of us who perform services that benefit them.

   That contempt is multiplied by an order of magnitude if the person performing the service is noticeably different – mostly skin color, but also accent. Tribalism coupled with classism is a powerful combination, leading to nothing but contempt for all but ‘your’ people. In the case of Stephen Miller, ‘your people’ is very narrowly defined, cutting out those at the bottom, and those who dislike Trump.

   The tendency for people to refer to anyone they don’t like or agree with as ‘not real Americans’ or ‘America haters’ operates to give them (in their mind, anyway) a justification for their hate.