by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Talking to my conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — I am taken aback by how while in general they’re all-in for rounding up 20 million undocumented people and their families and forcibly removing them from the country, they…really haven’t thought through the implications of doing such a thing.
They just, in general, want brown people out of the country so white people can be on top again. Or something. Something like that. I have tried my best — to little success — to make this extremely abstract issue (in their minds) as concrete and personal as possible. I point out that a lot of the people who would be deported would have adult children who are Americans and they just wave this concern away.
“Oh, I haven’t really thought about the specifics,” is what they tell me.
And Trump has specifically said he wants to do away with birthright citizenship as soon as he’s in office again. I’ve pinned my conservative relatives down NOW to establish that at least as of early 2024, they believe that if you’re born in America, you’re an American citizen.
I have a feeling despite having done that, that once the MAGA propaganda and talking points of the issue are issued once Trump does do away with birthright citizenship, they will just chuckle and not answer when I point out that they have had a change of heart.
The ONLY THING that gives me some hope is how ill-thought out much of the tyrannical MAGA agenda is. First and foremost, there’s no MAGA SA. And any of the various options that MAGA might use to create such stormtroopers will take time to build out. Also, the moment people married to brown men and women find themselves stopped an interrogated about the citizen status of their mate….there is going to be a lot of hell to pay.
As I keep saying, maybe some Black Swan event will give us an exit ramp that allows us to not to have to worry about MAGA fascism in the United States…but I dunno. I’m just not one to not at least game out various scenarios. I like to make my abstract fears, concrete.
