Ron DeSantis' plan to bring Venezuelan migrants to Martha's Vineyard got a lot of media attention, and the reaction from the right and left about it was...well, let's just say, not good. Also, I talk about how out of control things are across the border, and why it's a problem.
00:01:50.440Now, first off, just in case you have no idea what I'm talking about, I presume you have heard
00:01:56.920that there was this shipment by plane of migrants to Martha's Vineyard. I think it happened last
00:02:04.000Friday, and they've been processed and so on, and this was really played up. I mean, it was probably
00:02:13.100tightly coordinated with Tucker Carlson and Fox News and other social media people.
00:02:19.540So you have all of this, you know, accusations of hypocrisy, I guess is what it is, of sending
00:02:28.760diversity and migrants to Martha's Vineyard. And oh my gosh, look at how hypocritical they are,
00:02:37.120although I don't think the thing makes sense at all. So there have been a lot of shipments of
00:02:44.200migrants from mainly Texas, where Greg Abbott, the governor, is basically taking a lot of people
00:02:53.800who have been processed to some degree and sending them to big cities. I mean, he's saying they're
00:03:01.640sending them to blue states, but they're sending them to these big cities that are governed by
00:03:05.460Democrats, where there are millions of immigrants, illegal and otherwise, like Chicago, New York City,
00:03:12.340Los Angeles, etc. And this has been, there has been some pushback from even, I've noticed it's been
00:03:22.640brought up even in press conferences for the Biden administration, where they're saying, oh, this is
00:03:28.040cruel, you're just moving people around and so on. And I guess you can fairly say, well, you know,
00:03:36.200we're in Texas, we happen to be on the border, and you don't know what we're going through. You don't
00:03:41.960know how difficult this is, where there are millions. There's actually more border crossings
00:03:47.980than ever before. I think there was an article I also read that was over, what was the, it was in
00:03:55.840the New York Times, I forget the exact stat, but it's over a million a month or a year, something like
00:04:01.280that. Now, that might be a bit deceptive. Because there are far more border agents now. And the way that
00:04:13.760illegal immigration in the United States is measured is through apprehensions, because that's kind of the only
00:04:19.940way when you can get a number. I mean, they are illegal immigrants, after all. And, you know, the whole point of
00:04:30.500what they're doing is to work in a secret manner. I, I generally don't believe that immigration,
00:04:41.120like, illegal immigration across the Mexican border is higher than it was 20 years ago. And I do think
00:04:49.500that I don't doubt that it's high and that it's out of control. I don't doubt that at all. But
00:04:53.980I'm just saying this purely anecdotally, but we didn't have a Department of Homeland Security
00:05:01.980in the turn of the 21st century. I guess that came in like 2002 or 2003, it was post 9-11.
00:05:10.880We had far fewer border agents. And so what I have heard from people, I mean, I grew up in Texas.
00:05:20.340I remember hearing from my mother and sister who went to some like flea market kind of thing in
00:05:26.440Mexico, or you could, you know, create amazing prices on, you know, antiques and all this kind
00:05:33.400of stuff. And they were just describing it is almost comically out of control, where they were sitting
00:05:41.120in their hotel in Mexico, and just watching people cross the border, perhaps they were perhaps they're on
00:05:48.300the border, like staying at, you know, a Hilton or whatever, near the Mexican border, and just watching
00:05:56.420dozens of people cross at will. I do think it was actually worse 20 years ago, but I don't doubt that it's
00:06:04.000out of control now. And, and obviously, it seems worse now, because we have more information. But anyway, I get it,
00:06:14.740it is a huge problem. They're claiming this is a Biden issue. But again, that also is rather
00:06:22.400not exactly accurate. Biden has, you know, to the chagrin of most of the liberals maintained
00:06:31.440the Trump era policy. Now they've, they've tried to reverse things of like, separating children from
00:06:39.900their parents, and some of the more draconian things, but they haven't really gone towards all
00:06:46.000open borders. I mean, it's an it's an out of control situation. And I'm forgetting the exact
00:06:53.560I'm forgetting the exact piece of regulation that they've maintained, but they have effective,
00:07:00.240there's the name for it. It's like section seven, or something like that. Anyway,
00:07:03.720I'll have to go look into it. I'm sure it can get lost in the details. But the overall picture is
00:07:09.980that they have maintained that Kamala Harris traveled to Mexico and told people not to come
00:07:15.760the borders closed. So we're just basically in the status quo. But of course, conservatives,
00:07:22.500and we're also in a very different environment than we were in COVID, where not only did you have,
00:07:27.880you know, the pandemic, but you just had this major slowdown, shutdown for, you know, for a long time,
00:07:36.880but certainly a massive slowdown, in terms of the economic incentives to migrate. So there were
00:07:43.820less construction, restaurants were closed down, etc. But you know, it is an issue. It's a real issue.
00:07:52.400But it's also this kind of theatrical issue. So Ron DeSantis saw what Greg Abbott was doing,
00:08:02.080in terms of moving migrants to big cities. And he also saw the pushback that it got,
00:08:10.080that the liberals were freaking out and seemingly being racist in a way, because they're saying,
00:08:17.240you know, what are you doing? This is extremely cruel. And you can counter, well, what,
00:08:21.880you've told us that, you know, people don't have borders, or, you know, diversity is our strength.
00:08:28.620So why are you complaining? And so it becomes this kind of passive, aggressive maneuver. And,
00:08:35.460you know, Ron DeSantis just one-upped everyone by not sending them to, say, Chicago or Boston,
00:08:45.760but sending them to Martha's Venue, which is this beautiful, and, as you've heard, you know,
00:08:53.240extremely luxurious and wealth, wealthy island in Massachusetts. I've actually been there as many,
00:09:06.280many years ago is when I was actually a child. But yeah, an awesome place to live. And it is kind of a
00:09:13.120image of an older America. I was actually up in Boston just a couple of weeks ago. And
00:09:19.680because I got shipped on a plane by Ron DeSantis. No, just kidding. I was just visiting Matt and a
00:09:27.320mutual friend. And yeah, Massachusetts is gorgeous. And you do when you're around Concord and other
00:09:36.980places. Concord is much more of like a working class place. But nevertheless, it just, yeah, there's a
00:09:43.980really nostalgic kind of older America that is still visible. And so basically, they shipped them to
00:09:54.620Martha's Vineyard. Now, also, Barack Obama has this, you know, gigantic estate in Martha's Vineyard.
00:10:01.320I'm sure there are other celebrities or just extremely wealthy people. I'm not quite convinced that it's
00:10:08.120entirely liberal. I mean, granted, it's Massachusetts. And there is a strong tendency for wealthy people to
00:10:17.780adopt the Democratic Party. Now, there wasn't one, say, 20 or 30 years ago. And, but I imagine you could find
00:10:29.600quite a few Republicans in Martha's Vineyard. But putting that aside, it just becomes this
00:10:36.160really kind of strange political stunt where they passively, aggressively force the migrants to be in
00:10:49.400Martha's Vineyard. And then it's a heads I win, tails you lose situation. So, and I saw some of these
00:10:59.220opening monologues from Tucker Carlson, where, that I just found on YouTube, because they're, they're put up
00:11:10.540there. I saw some clips on Twitter as well. And it's, it's kind of this weird thing of like, what exactly do you
00:11:18.240expect them to do? And so he, he did one monologue on, on Friday, I believe, where he was like, oh, well,
00:11:27.000look, finally, at last, this, you know, 89% white Martha's Vineyard will be diversified. You know, they
00:11:35.380should have a ticker tape parade, but oh, no, there's nothing going on. There's, there's just crickets. He
00:11:41.240actually showed a live image of Martha's Vineyard, like the center of Martha's Vineyard. And they played
00:11:45.740crickets as an audio track over it. But what, what do you, like, what are you talking about? Like
00:11:53.780this, this was a political stunt created by a governor. And the whole point of it was that no
00:12:01.260one was notified. They, these people were promised, well, we learn later, they're promised jobs, they're
00:12:07.300promised food and shelter, et cetera. And they're put on a plane and flown up there clandestinely. So what
00:12:15.000do you, what do you, how could they possibly throw a ticker tape parade to embrace diversity
00:12:20.580in this situation? It's just total nonsense. And then you have, again, this heads I win, tails you
00:12:27.760lose attitude with Martha Vineyard, Vineyard people. So basically the people there said, and they're
00:12:34.980obviously being accurate. Maybe they're, I don't know. I mean, I get the hypocrisy thing, but they're
00:12:41.120just being accurate. This is a super wealthy elite town. There is no like homeless, there's no homeless
00:12:51.120shelter here. There's no, like, I guess they could maybe work in a restaurant bussing tables or
00:12:58.060something, but this is just not the place for them. There's no processing center here that would be in
00:13:04.640Boston or something. So there's, you know, you can, there's nothing for them to do. And then the,
00:13:11.520the, the conservatives would be like, well, you should just take them into your homes, just, you know,
00:13:16.860uh, uh, set up a new room for them, have them marry your daughter or whatever. I mean, it's just all
00:13:21.280this really extreme, unreasonable, passive aggressive nonsense. And the fact is those people,
00:13:29.720the people of Martha's Vineyard dealt with, um, the situation in a reasonable manner. They were
00:13:38.060like serving them food or something. And again, I saw this one clip where Tucker Carlson was accusing
00:13:43.680them. Why are you giving them just, you know, kind of like Mexican food or hamburgers or whatever they
00:13:48.500gave them some basic thing. Um, why didn't you give them kale? And, you know, uh, uh, I don't know,
00:13:55.940some kind of confit or, uh, uh, uh, you know, why didn't you give them some, the elaborate food that
00:14:02.260you eat or something? This is just totally ridiculous. And I, I don't, you know, again,
00:14:11.120if they had, um, like lynched them or something, then the conservatives would be like, oh, look at
00:14:19.160these racist bastards. Dems are the real racist. That's horrible. If they treated them in a reasonable
00:14:25.920manner, then they're like, oh, well, why didn't you, uh, you know, give them chocolate eclairs and,
00:14:33.140you know, moose and so on. It's just, it's just heads I win, tails you lose. It's just totally
00:14:39.320ridiculous. And it's just this kind of like passive aggressive thing. I mean, I noticed this one,
00:14:44.900I saw this other monologue from Tucker Carlson where I thought he was actually, cause Tucker is
00:14:51.600smarter. Tucker due to his dad's, um, uh, fortuitous marriage was raised in, uh, the lap of luxury,
00:15:02.460uh, the Swanson TV dinner fortune, whatever. Um, and, and so he is smarter. He is kind of more
00:15:11.220cultured and educated. And he, he's done this thing that I've seen him do before where he's,
00:15:17.020he's saying something that is actually real. And that I, I totally sympathize with, which is like,
00:15:23.480you know, most of America used to look like Martha's Vineyard. Well, that's not exactly true,
00:15:29.980but we get your point that things used to be a little more human centered, walkable,
00:15:36.420just pretty nice wooden buildings, colonial architecture. Okay. We get it. That's an
00:15:43.700exaggeration, but I get your point. And, um, and he was like, well, now the wealthier just hoarding
00:15:51.660things for themselves as if this is some like sadistic act done by wealthy liberals. Um, I think
00:16:01.900it is pretty telling that where there isn't a lot of wealth, you have, you know, the dollar store,
00:16:08.220which is this metaphor that Tucker uses and McDonald's and truck stops and Walmart and all this
00:16:15.420other stuff. Um, and it is interesting that when people of, you know, wealth education and refinement
00:16:25.500are given the opportunity, they find a way to live in a kind of nostalgic like world of America's past.
00:16:37.720That is very interesting. And I, uh, you know, there's some counter examples to that, of course,
00:16:44.460but I, I get it. It's, it's correct. Um, but then Tucker's, uh, response to that is that like,
00:16:54.400this is great that we're just sending this diversity there. It's this kind of like passive aggressive,
00:17:00.160we're going to go put a turd in your punch bowl. And I just, I don't know, this whole thing just
00:17:09.820strikes me as grotesque. Um, why is it that we have Walmarts and dollar stores and so on? There
00:17:20.580are actually some real reasons to that. And it has not been created by sadistic white Democrats because
00:17:28.780they hate Americans or something like that. It's a largely a product of, you know, uh, car culture,
00:17:38.500unadulterated capitalism, um, lack of zoning laws, and to be frank, a real problem of bad taste
00:17:48.680among developers and even the people who patron this stuff. Um, so it is what it is. It's a, it is a
00:17:57.400serious issue. I, I resonate with the kind of conservative, um, you know, almost kind of hoity
00:18:05.140toity lament at the lack of culture and sophistication and so on of so much of America. I get it,
00:18:14.440but it's not a product of like white Democrats who did this intentionally to harm people because
00:18:23.320they hate America. It's just ridiculous to say that. And when you do say that and you make it this
00:18:30.080kind of like neo Southern strategy technique, you're going to be completely, you'll be completely
00:18:37.160unable to actually solve that problem. I mean, there are ways of making the current fallen world
00:18:49.360we live in nicer. You can actually have real strict zoning laws. You can promote the creation of public
00:18:58.860infrastructure and public parks. You can have architectural committees, which become the bane of the existence of
00:19:06.840developers, but, and I get that, but maybe there's actually a good reason why you should maintain some kind of
00:19:15.660consistent style that is connected to tradition. You can actually do these things. And it is very often
00:19:24.600liberals who do do these things and like liberal hoity toity fruity people who actually care about this stuff
00:19:36.640and want to engage in some kind of historic preservation and so on. And in doing it, drive up property values.
00:19:45.000So there, yeah, there's kind of like a, a yin and yang to it or a flip side to it. I get all of that,
00:19:52.540but, you know, even if there are these contradictions, there are ways of solving that problem.
00:19:58.820And to just blame it on rich whites, it's kind of absurd.
00:20:07.560And I guess even more absurd knowing Tucker Carlson's background, but anyway, I do think that DeSantis' plan was a little too cute by half.
00:20:24.260Um, so as of this morning, um, the, uh, police chief in San Antonio is considering, uh, leveling charges against, uh, DeSantis for, in effect, human trafficking.
00:20:42.220Now, it was interesting that he said, these are, um, the, uh, police chief said that these people were here legally.
00:20:50.320And what he, he, he, he of course didn't mean that they're citizens. Uh, what he meant is that I, I presume they're applying for asylum or applying for some kind of status.
00:21:01.040So you are there legally, you're, you're kind of like, you know, a tourist in a way, um, in the sense that, you know, you can travel to another country and not get expelled immediately.
00:21:12.420So what they were doing was illegally, but they were actually enticed under a false premise to engage in this political stunt.
00:21:21.040And so I don't know exactly what law might be applied to this, but it could very well be kidnapping or human trafficking.
00:21:30.320And this could very well end up as a total disaster. Um, now, obviously DeSantis didn't kill them. He did seem to lie to them.
00:21:42.160Um, he, uh, this was tightly planned. There was a videographer on board. There was a, um, hired plane. Uh, they were giving them maps and all this kind of stuff, uh, telling them that this, you know, they, they were actually misinforming them about where they need to go visit, um, immigration, you know, processing centers.
00:22:05.200But they were absolutely lying to them. And so it's just, you know, no, I, I don't think they, DeSantis wanted to kill them or whatever, but, you know, you still cannot, you know, you can't kidnap someone under false premise, even if your, uh, intentions are not totally malign.
00:22:29.980Um, you know, you, you, you can't just tell me, Oh, you know, um, I'm, uh, I'm going to take you on a, um, you, you've just won a free hiking trip. Congratulations. You know, come with me this right this way. And then you fly me to St. Louis, Missouri or something and be like, ah, psych. Ha ha ha. Well, don't worry about it. You didn't know skin off your back.
00:22:53.900You just simply, even if it is like somewhat benign, it is still illegal to do this. And so I think this might very well turn into a complete disaster. Um, there was another report that, uh, that the, the plane is actually scheduled to fly to like where Joe Biden has a summer home or something.
00:23:18.840So again, it's just this endless kind of passive aggressive attempt to rub the liberals face in diversity. And so it's, it's a kind of double message. So on the one hand, it relies totally on a sort of racism.
00:23:38.140And the sense that it, you know, none of this makes sense if all of these people are, you know, from Finland and they're, uh, you know, applying to be a side, their asylum seekers, because they're just too horrified by the prime ministers, um, uh, partying with Instagram, um, influencers.
00:24:05.580And they're just horrified by this. It's gone too far this time. And we need to apply for, you know, asylum in the United States, where, uh, at least your presidents aren't, uh, dancing and getting drunk and hanging out with bare chested Instagram models.
00:24:21.940Um, you know, no one, if that were the case, then you would expect these Finnish people to be completely upstanding, probably have, you know, money in the bank, able to handle themselves, find hotels, get a job, et cetera.
00:24:39.340No, the whole point of it is that these are the wretched of the earth. And it doesn't make sense otherwise. And so it relies on this kind of racism. And yet the overriding message of it is Dems are the real racist.
00:24:56.880So it's basically saying, oh, you Martha, you racist Martha's Vineyard residing bastards. You want to keep out all this diversity because of your racism. And so we're going to force it on you. So it's, it's a kind of weird game. And I, I don't think, I don't think it's going to work.
00:25:21.360I think generally speaking, talking about illegal immigration and particularly as it kind of like affects people's lives, there's crime, there, you know, working class people can get displaced or whatever. I think those are all pretty much winning issues, um, for Republicans. Um, but this kind of political stunt and owning the libs games, gamesmanship, not to mention if it blows up in DeSantis' face and he's
00:25:50.900has like a legal investigation. I just don't see this as winning at all. And I, I, yeah, I ultimately find it to be a stupid and grotesque stunt and not at all surprising. Again, it's like, you know, if taking Tucker Carlson as like the, the most intelligent
00:26:19.320and cultured view of this, if you believe that Martha's Vineyard is beautiful and represents some timeless American value or style that you want to maintain, why are you forcing, you know, migrants there? Why, why would you do that? Isn't that kind of sadistic
00:26:43.720on your part? I mean, it's just, the whole thing strikes me as just very odd. I think it's a bad message and is, I think it will ultimately be a, a political failure and it might very well be a political disaster for DeSantis if he gets charged with kidnapping.
00:27:03.720But anyway, those are just some of my thoughts on the matter. I don't know if you guys want to jump in on this.