I live in Florida, and I know what it’s like. When you wake up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water and flip on the light, you’ll find cockroaches playing in your kitchen. First one, then two, and soon, whole battalions of them. You can never eliminate them, at best, you can only control them. You keep things as clean as you can, you spray, and eventually you tent, but sooner or later you have to do something or they’ll run you out of your own house. And if you’re gone on vacation, even for a short time, they will take advantage of your absence and you’ll have to clean house thoroughly when you get back. Well, damn it, I live here too, and I’m not going to let the fascists run me or my family off. And if they don’t like it, then THEY can move.

So the wingnut whine du jour is “refugees”, eh? What bullshit. I come from a family of refugees, Cubans, so I can speak with some authority on this. They were welcomed! They were invited over, they got to move to the front of the line, they were subsidized with tax dollars! Why? Because it was politically convenient to encourage them to come over. There was vetting, but if they came on the airlift, it was cursory. It was a Cold War maneuver to embarrass Fidel, (and he cynically took advantage of it to get rid of potential dissidents and expropriate their property). And even though we knew there were spies and saboteurs mixed in with the legit exiles, it was a risk worth taking because it was a way to poke a finger in the Commies’ eye.

I remember how when counter-revolutionaries hijacked Cuban airliners to escape the island they were welcomed in Miami as heroes; freedom fighters! It wasn’t until Castro’s agents started hijacking our airliners that we hastily signed a treaty with the Reds to put a stop to the practice. What hypocrisy. Those fleeing the Soviets or their satellites, and later, Vietnamese collaborators fleeing the Viet Minh, were welcomed too, even though no doubt there were sleepers mixed in with them as well. Self-righteous knee-jerk anti-Communism trumps (no pun intended) good old fashioned American racism every time.

Illegal immigration from South of the Border is treated in much the same way. A lot of hand waving about “border security”, “building walls” and “amnesty” but the one action that would solve the problem overnight, fining and jailing Americans who hire illegals, is never brought up. This time, the hypocrisy is economic, not political, but its still allowed because Republicans find it convenient and profitable and it makes their knuckle dragging redneck constituency feel like Real ‘Merkins while they get to exploit an entire race of helpless workers with complete impunity.

Its an old American tradition. We love the Jews now because they fit in so neatly with Evangelical End Time fantasies, but pre-WWII we refused to let them come here fleeing the Nazis, and the poll numbers on the same issue back then were hauntingly familiar with ours today viv-a-vis Muslims. Remember the St.Louis?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis

So now its Syrians. Why? Not because Conservatives are necessarily racist, and CERTAINLY not those who come here. But the “Larry the Cable Guy” constituency the Right relies on for votes is a bunch of drooling bigots, and without them the Right can’t win elections without gerrymandering and voter suppression (which doesn’t work for national office). The Republicans have consistently lost the popular (not electoral) vote since Bush the Elder was elected, with the exception of the wartime 2nd term of the Bush Baby. And we know how that turned out, war abroad and economic holocaust at home. And now with the country at peace, and the economy on the mend, (yes, Obama did save capitalism from its stupidity and greed, just like Roosevelt) they know they can’t stop another Democrat from gaining the White House.

The trogs must be pandered to and regularly fellated, worked up to a fever pitch of patriotic outrage and jingoistic indignation, because the Republican Party is in a demographic crisis. They are not only running out of angry old stupid white guys, they have decimated their lower middle class reservoir of voters through their own economic short-sightedness as well.

Yes, it is that simple. And I gotta go.