Ask not for whom the pol trolls. He trolls for thee. Politics is now indistinguishable from performance, and performance is an art. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gave a masterclass at the expense of the inmates of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, by dumping 50 illegal immigrants on them, but if anyone can afford it, they can. Whether a democracy can afford to turn everything into trolling and entertainment is another question.
As the Washington Examiner
reported
last November, in the summer of 2021, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Health and Human Services shipped more than 70 flights of illegal immigrants from the southern border to Jacksonville, Florida, under cover of darkness. DeSantis returned the favor and dumped everyone’s problem on the doorstep of some of the nation’s richest liberals in broad daylight. They choked on their Nantucket Nectars and ate the words in the third phrase of their catechism, the “In this house we believe” lawn sign: “No human is illegal.”
DeSantis, as the political scientists say, owned the libs. It’s great as political theater, but it isn’t true that affluent Democrats insulate themselves from the effects of mass immigration, legal or illegal. Their big blue cities are packed with wonderfully affordable leaf-blowers, cleaners, and nannies. The rich lefties don’t want to do the dirty work. They certainly don’t want to see the inhumane shambles at the southern border. Nor, though “Black Lives Matter” is the second principle of their catechism, do they give a damn about the inarguable fact that unskilled immigrants depress the wages of native-born unskilled workers, notably African American ones.
First, the administration denied there is a border crisis. Then it tried to hide it, preventing cameras from filming inside processing sites. Kamala Harris eventually went to the border for a quick photo-op, only to disappear faster than a Guatemalan gangbanger. The president barked his usual cocktail of belligerent half-truths when asked about the border crisis. Somehow, a federal government that managed to fly thousands of terrorist suspects to torture sites and prisons all over the world is incapable of returning a Honduran to Honduras.
Good on Ron DeSantis for exposing this theater of hypocrisy and exploitation. But it won’t be more than theater if nothing is done. And it is not clear that anything will be done. It is no longer obvious that the Republicans will regain both chambers of Congress in November. The Supreme Court didn’t exceed its rights or duties when it overturned Roe v. Wade, but it seems to have swung further than public opinion desires. Add the specter of Donald Trump’s return, and independent and moderate Republican women have two incentives to vote Democratic.
In this house, we believe illusions and delusions can only take you so far. A “trans woman” is a biological man with a transvestite fetish. A state that cannot control its borders will eventually cease to be a nation. Last Monday, we watched Queen Elizabeth II’s spectacular send-off. But, as I described in last week’s issue of the Washington Examiner, Britain’s political reality is not stability and unity. It is disorder and bitterness. The same goes for the manufactured reality promoted by this administration. DeSantis’s stunt follows the Trump tradition of lifting the curtain like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Meanwhile, reality goes on somewhere else — and in directions we will not like.
Some other images from last week tell us what’s really happening while we watch The Truman Show. In Iran, thousands of brave women are defying the mullahs and asserting their right to choose whether they cover their hair. America’s liberals and feminists, usually so ardent at detecting “microaggressions,” are silent. On 60 Minutes, Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, said he wouldn’t believe that the Holocaust had happened until it had been “investigated and researched.” Jewish Democrats in Congress said nothing. This administration, like the Obama administration, is determined to rehabilitate the foul regime in Tehran, reality and decency be damned.
In Russia, Vladimir Putin announced partial mobilization. Two weeks ago, most of the U.S. media were telling us that the Ukrainians were about to drive his troops back into Russia. Now, Russia is about to hold plebiscites in the largely Russian-speaking border regions he still holds. We are coming to a crunch point that the Biden administration told us would never happen and are about to get the geopolitical tab that, like a student loan, we were told we’d never have to pay.
Meanwhile, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization met in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The new world order everyone expected when the Cold War ended is finally here. The leaders of China, India, Russia, Turkey, and the Central Asian ‘stans are, as Beyonce said, getting in formation. The information on America’s loss of global credibility and influence is right there in plain sight, but we are too busy stanning our team and trolling the other side to look up.
Dominic Green is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Find him on Twitter @drdominicgreen.
