Re: Biden Says the Quiet Part Out Loud

shawn <nanoflower@notforg.m.a.i.l.com> wrote:

Sat, 11 May 2024 14:33:05 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:

BTR1701 <no_email@invalid.invalid> wrote:

But no, the Dems aren't trying to dilute your vote and change the
demographics of the nation.

Pshaw! That's just nonsense.

Even without the influx of Hispanics into the country it makes sense
for both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to court those Hispanic
voters. Ignoring them makes no sense in the long run.

Such voters cannot be courted as a single demographic, and this confuses
political campaigns. Those who immigrated speak Spanish (but there are
so many variations in Spanish that it's hard for people from different
countries to communicate, or even between different regions in Spain).
If their children were born here, they probably didn't grow up speaking
Spanish. I've told the story that my very own high school Spanish
teacher, born in Cuba, had not taught his own children to speak Spanish
in the home and expected his own kids to take high school Spanish. His
son was in my grade.

People from different countries have different attitudes. People from
different parts of Mexico have different attitudes. It depends on their
social status before they were forced to immigrate, and it depends what
they've achieved in the United States.

I would prefer that politicians win votes using practical politics, good
ideas, not insulting voters who won't vote for them, and not assuming
they are entitled to anybody's vote just because the voter is of a
certain demographic or the demographic is shared with the politician.

Assuming that
the majority are going to end up voting Democrat also doesn't make
sense. It will be years before anyone entering the country from
South/Central America will be able to vote so it will be the policies
in place at that time that are more likely to impact which party they
tend to vote for.

Similarly, Republicans are morons for demonizing all immigrants to play
scapegoat politics to shore up the votes of disaffected older white
voters. Ok. I take that back. Scapegoating when done correctly works
quite well in the short run. Just look at anti-Semitic college protests.
Lemme go find my yellow armband.

-----------------
President Biden referred to illegal aliens as "voters" during an interview
on a Spanish-speaking radio show released Tuesday.

"It's even a bigger influx now in terms of Hispanic voters, or Hispanic -
Hispanic citizens, who want to become citizens," President Biden said of
the current migrant crisis.

Could we have the entire quote in context of a portion of the transcript
please?

Looks like BTR was quoting this Fox News article:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/biden-roasted-freudian-slip-referring-immigration-influx-hispanic-voters

President Biden appeared to accidentally refer to Hispanic migrants as
"voters" during an interview on a Spanish-speaking radio show released
Tuesday.

"It's even a bigger influx now in terms of Hispanic voters, or
Hispanic - Hispanic citizens, who want to become citizens," President
Biden said of the current migrant crisis.

He argued that the current wave of immigration is "a little bit like
back in the 1840s and the great exodus of Ireland, because of the
famine and the way Irish Catholics were treated. They said no, no, we
don't need any more of those folks. There was a large influx."

"The Hispanic community is part of the future of America," Biden told
a host from Spanish radio show Chiquibaby this week. "Twenty-eight out
of every 100 students in school speak Spanish, the idea that you're
gonna ignore that? That's our future. One of the reasons that we're
growing so much is we have a significant influx of immigrants coming
into our country, only reason our economy's so good. We're not a
xenophobic nation. Other nations are, we're not, that's why our
economy is the best in the world."

-----
It's the sort of typical miss step that people have when speaking. Fox
News naturally chooses to read into it some nefarious meaning when it
is more likely that Biden just used the wrong term by accident. After
all the people coming in today aren't going to be voting for some time
to come.

I don't agree with you on what his misspeak was. The term he left out was
"future", as in "future voters". He's thinking of them as future Democratic
voters, that a demographic change is being forced upon America and that
the Democratic Party can therefore sit on its hands and do nothing to
benefit from it. After all, the assumption that Democrats are entitled
to the black vote post-Goldwater has worked out spectacularly well (cough
cough Hillary).

I think that attitude, which leads to taking votes for granted, stinks.

Are children of immigrants learning English quickly enough that they are
catching up in public school? Unlikely. Teaching them in their native
language probably doesn't work all that well either given the great
difficulty of assessing what education they already had. No, the old
instant immersion and continuous English lessons to learn the new
culture and new language that we used to expect of immigrants was
probably the best idea. Also, if we expect children to learn another
language and culture quickly and do it right (a la a lot younger than
high school, 'cuz that just doesn't work for most of us), they can
accomplish it.

The immigrant crisis has been a disaster for everyone affected because
Biden put zero thought into any of it. Let's treat them as asylum
seakers knowing they don't qualify. Let's not allow them to work legally
even though no one came here to be on welfare.

I don't oppose immigration. I never have. But nothing leading to the
crisis is being addressed in our foreign relations, and the way we are
treating them upon arrival has been just awful.