Normally this newsletter is locked for Bulwark+ members, but I’m leaving it open today because I think it’s kind of important. I’m trying not to be alarmist, but at the same time I’m seeing flashing red lights everywhere. I hope you’ll consider joining us. There’s power in community.
I’ve been listening to Robert Evans’ podcast series on Adolf Eichmann and one of the things Evans mentions is that throughout the Holocaust, many Nazis had in their lives a “Good Jew.” Some Jewish person who they liked and wished to save. Hitler’s Good Jew was Eduard Bloch, the family doctor from his childhood. Hitler granted Bloch special protection, eventually allowed him to emigrate to the United States, and as a result, Bloch and his family were not slaughtered. One of the things that made Eichman unusual among his class of Nazi was that he had no Good Jews in his life. He was happy to dispose with all of them. One of the hallmarks of Trump’s mass deportation regime has been the emergence of Good Immigrants from certain MAGA communities. We saw these people in the small Missouri town which rallied to Carol, a beloved member of their community who was arrested by Trump’s secret police because her papers were not in order. These MAGA diehards whined and complained until the administration relented and let Carol go. It seems to have occurred to precisely none of the townfolk that America is full of Carols. On Tuesday, we met another Good Immigrant. Her name is Geleny Allred. She is an illegal immigrant from Ecuador. Two years ago she married a man named Chris Allred. In 2024, Chris Allred voted for the man who promised to deport 20 million illegal immigrants. I’m not sure if this is a story about garden-variety stupidity or incipient genocide. At the end, I hope you’ll tell me what you think is going on. Chris Allred, a middle-aged white guy from Middle America, told the New York Times that he’s had a hard life.
But things worked out for him in the end. In 2018, he told the Times, “he got a job he liked, working for a trucking company that was part of the now-booming economy of northwest Arkansas.” His life stabilized. He met a woman he loved. He got married. And then he voted for a guy who promised to arrest and deport his bride. Who does Mr. Allred blame for how hard the first part of his life was? Immigrants.
Oh. My. Let’s connect some dots for Mr. Allred. First off, the net economic impact of illegal immigrants is positive. Even immigration restrictionists admit that while illegal immigrants consume slightly more in government services than they pay in taxes, those costs are swamped by the economic activity they generate. Here’s a paper by immigration super-restrictionist Steven Camarota. He claims that undocumented immigrants consume $42b in annual welfare spending against $30b in annual federal tax payments. You can question his numbers if you like—he’s trying to make the best case for getting rid of undocumented immigrants. But Camarota then admits, “Illegal immigrants do add perhaps $321 billion to the nation’s GDP, but this is not a measure of their tax contributions or the benefits they create for the U.S.-born. Almost all the increase in economic activity goes to the illegal immigrants themselves in the form of wages.” You can see him trying to wiggle out at the end, as if the wages these workers earn don’t count, since they accrue to the immigrants themselves. But that $321b then gets spent in the economy, consuming goods and services, creating jobs, and generating more taxable activity. And keep in mind, these numbers are from the guy who is desperate to paint undocumented immigrants as a net negative. If you go to more neutral sources, the economic effects of even illegal immigration look even more positive. Why is that? Because the illegal population is disproportionately working-age and disproportionately employed. In other words: The opposite of “takers” and “parasites.” And by the by, Mr. Allred does not seem to have connected the dots on how he arrived at his current station in life. Yes, domestic manufacturing dried up beginning in the 1990s. Those jobs moved to low-labor cost countries. This drove a decrease in the price of consumer goods in America. Which led to the importing of all the cheap goods we see at Walmart. But how does that stuff get from Mexico and Vietnam and China to Walmart? It goes by truck. Which is why the Times describes the “now-booming economy of northwest Arkansas,” where Allred lives. Maybe this is coincidence, but in what corner of what state did Walmart start? I’ll let you guess. And he probably makes more money—and is probably more fulfilled—doing this high-skill labor than he would be if he were doing the manual labor that many undocumented immigrants perform in the American economy today. This is how economics works. Chris Allred is a beneficiary of both globalism and immigration. But not only does he not understand this reality, he sees himself as a victim and demonizes the very forces which have helped him. 2. Stupidity or Bigotry?Later in the Times piece the reporter has dinner with the Allreds and the following exchange takes place:
I’m so glad he’s able to smile about it. Meanwhile, in California the bishop of San Bernardino, Alberto Rojas, yesterday lifted the obligation for Catholics to attend Sunday Mass. In the nearby Diocese of Orange, priests are now celebrating Mass in people’s homes in order to protect them from ICE. We are now a country which is driving religious practice underground. Ask yourself where you have seen this sort of thing before. Alligator Alcatraz is not a death camp and Trump’s mass deportations are not a Holocaust. But the parallels to the early stages ought to have our attention.
Not every slide into illiberalism ends in genocide. But every genocide starts with a slide into illiberalism. And we won’t arrest this slide by pretending it can’t possibly happen here. 3. The FighterDavid Epstein has a beautiful piece about his friend, Jill Dopf Viles. David was a famous author; Jill sent him an email after seeing him on TV. She had a genetic disorder and a theory about its origins. The two of them embarked on a years long friendship, with a side of collaboration.
Jill passed away last month. Read the whole thing. You’re a free subscriber to The Bulwark—the largest pro-democracy news and analysis bundle on Substack. For unfettered access to all our newsletters and to access ad-free and member-only shows, become a paying subscriber.We’re going to send you a lot of content—newsletters and alerts for shows so you can read and watch on your schedule. Don’t care for so much email? You can update your personal email preferences as often as you like. To update the list of newsletter or alerts you received from The Bulwark, click here.
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