Philadelphia Inquirer writer Will Bunch’s column on the Baltimore bridge collapse is a fantastic snapshot of how this tragedy reveals so much about the contemporary state of American society and politics. He notes how many on the right immediately re-purposed the accident to attack familiar targets like diversity equity inclusion policies, the purported incompetence of any minority group member who happens to hold a position of power, and immigration. If nothing else, such a reaction from the right helps confirm what’s been a central focus of The Hot Screen for years now — the centrality of white supremacist thinking to the contemporary, MAGA-fied GOP. This is a party and a right-wing media machine primed to vomit out the message, over and over and over, that American is under assault by darker-skinned citizens as well as dark-skinned immigrants, and that these groups should be blamed for basically every bad thing that ever happens.
Bunch rightly takes a scalpel to the surfeit of MAGA mud to reveal a contradictory truth settled inside the plain reality of the accident — the 6 immigrant men who tragically died in the accident put a spotlight on the central role that immigrants play in sustaining the larger American economy. And taking a humanizing look at those who were killed provides a potent reminder that the average immigrant to the U.S. is someone who works their ass off, makes sacrifices most native citizens could barely conceive of, and works for the common good in a way that is frankly incomprehensible to the right-wing commentators who can only think to divide and undermine the United States.
Bunch’s coverage helps remind us that the Republican’s anti-immigration stance is largely one long con, using lies about immigrants stealing American jobs and being inherently criminal in order to support a racist vision of American where only white citizens are to be considered fully legitimate. GOP sabotage of the recent bipartisan immigration bill has, as many have pointed out, revealed the party’s fundamental lack of interest in actually solving any issues at the border or with immigration administration more generally, as the party instead prefers to foment a sense of crisis that neatly supports extremist, Great Replacement theory rhetoric that the U.S. is being invaded by Latin hordes seeking to displace white (true) Americans.
Of course, Bunch doesn’t have a patent on telling the truth about immigration. Democrats could tell a similar history as he does if they were so inclined, instead of too often seeing defense of immigration as a liability where their best hope is to fight the GOP to a draw or acceptable loss. It should be clear at this point that the Republicans are not basing their opposition on reality, but on an irrational though motivating story that ultimately needs to be countered by a positive, reality-based narrative about immigration’s benefits to America.