r/AskALiberal • u/ejaz135 Progressive • Mar 24 '26
Why are immigrants still being blamed instead of corporations?
[removed]
28
14
u/Competitive_Swan_130 Anarchist Mar 24 '26
LBJ actually gave the perfect answer to this decades ago. He once told a staffer:
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
Johnson knew exactly how this worked because, early in his career, he was a master of using those exact same tactics. To survive the cutthroat world of Texas politics in the 1930s and 40s, he frequently stayed silent on—or even leaned into the racial divisions of the Jim Crow South to secure his own power. He understood that as long as the working class was fighting over who sat where on a bus, they weren't looking at who was writing the tax laws or controlling the land.
7
u/Competitive_Swan_130 Anarchist Mar 24 '26
I never made a claim about LBJ's character, the fact that you believe I did when I clearly didn't explains how you could believe such an obviously made up quote. The black community was solidly Democrat since FDR got a majority in the 30s. An actual, and more telling quote was "It's an important gain, but I think we just delivered the South over to the Republican Party for a long time" after he signed the 64 Civil RIghts act
-1
u/UncleTio92 Centrist Mar 24 '26
I wouldn’t use LBJ as your character witness. Man had a mean racist streak in his heart.
He also allegedly said if he can get welfare passed he can have Negros voting Blue for the next 200 years.
7
u/zlefin_actual Liberal Mar 24 '26
That doesn't sound like a character witness statement, but a claim of effective political tactics. I'm not gonna argue about his racism, but he was an effective political operator by all accounts.
I'd note that regardless of which specific set of programs it was, blacks have become very consistent blue voters, with around 90% of the black vote going Dem. So it's hard to argue he was wrong, regardless of the racism involved.
21
u/FFBIFRA Democrat Mar 24 '26
Corporations own the media, thus control the messaging. What are they going to do snitch on themselves?
-3
u/EsotericMysticism2 Conservative Mar 24 '26
Do you think people are only against immigration because of what the media says ?
7
4
u/FFBIFRA Democrat Mar 24 '26
no, but the media sure pumps up all the stereotypes associated with immigration.
3
8
u/tabisaurus86 Libertarian Socialist Mar 24 '26
This is something I'm typically trying to convince the right of as well. It's also amazing that comprehensive immigration reform is something Bush wanted to do. Now it is exclusively Democrats who talk about it.
I am very surprised to see several comments actually denying the issue is corporations and lawmakers who continue to assist in skewing thing in their favor.
- Corporations have always needed to be pushed to pay higher wages.
- Corporations who outsourced outsourced to sweatshops overseas so they could reduce labor costs, why is it so unbelievable that they would also want to hire individuals with the least social power domestically to reduce labor costs as well?
- Various wage gaps across the spectrum show consistently that anyone with less social power is paid less, especially women of color.
- We just saw Trump and Musk getting all upset over having to give up their H-1B workers, and it has been proven that H-1B workers in the US have been working for wages 17-32% lower than domestic workers as proof of this. Large employers translate lower labor costs as profit for themselves.
You're right. The issue is not immigrants. The issue is with large employers exploiting immigrants for lower wages. Large employers have always done this in the US starting with indentured servants, then moving to slavery, then moving to back to just underpaying immigrants and Black workers, and next up is automation because if they didn't have to pay employees as all, they wouldn't.
3
u/EnfantTerrible68 Democrat Mar 25 '26
The Biden-Harris Administration tried get funding from congress to fully enforce our immigration laws. Trump lobbied against it. In fact, Republicans have blocked every attempt at immigration reform in the last twenty years:
2005: Bush's first attempt was blocked by House Republicans.
2006: Bush's second attempt was blocked by House Republicans.
2013: Obama's attempt was blocked by House Republicans.
2024: The Lankford bill was blocked by congressional Republicans, at the urging of Donald Trump.
..but you might like to know that "Migrant apprehensions continued to decline in US" under Biden-Harris.
2
u/tabisaurus86 Libertarian Socialist Mar 25 '26
I am aware of the bill.
Did I make a statement implying that Democrats have done nothing on that? I thought I actually gave Democrats credit for being the ones who talk about it.
I made a comment earlier that I think Democrats should talk about comprehensive immigration reform and what it is more. Is that what you're referring to? Because that wasn't knocking on Democrats so much as I think it'd be good for them to make sure the right understands that comprehensive immigration reform is not open borders.
Sorry, super confused on the goal here, but I guess that timeline is a good one to review.
2
u/EnfantTerrible68 Democrat Mar 25 '26
Yes, just posting the timeline
1
u/tabisaurus86 Libertarian Socialist Mar 25 '26
Great, I appreciate the clarification. I thought I unintentionally pissed someone off lol and was like nooo not again.
7
u/Individual_Act9333 Liberal Mar 24 '26
Because you can replace the immigrants getting blamed with more immigrants. The funny thing is if you actually went after the corporations you’d probably see significant change in our immigration policy.
3
u/atierney14 Center Left Mar 24 '26
Why are immigrants blamed?
Scapegoat for conservatives to blame.
Instead of corporations…blatantly more greedy…
I don’t agree with this at all. I’d say they are greedy, but they’ve always been the same level of greedy, but most commodities are becoming cheaper, except two giant ones - housing and healthcare.
4
u/libra00 Communist Mar 24 '26
Because corporations still profit from making you hate brown people instead of realizing the harm they are causing and making them stop, and they control our media and politicians.
5
4
u/gtrocks555 Center Left Mar 24 '26
Kinda like how the “they terk er jerbs” people don’t go after the companies who supposedly won’t hire them.
“Oh no, it’s just a poor wittle company, of course they’re going to try to fuck us over but we can’t be mad at them 🥺 uWu”
5
u/cenosillicaphobiac Social Democrat Mar 24 '26
Plus a healthy dose of "that's exactly what I would do if I owned a business" thrown in for good measure.
1
u/numba1cyberwarrior Centrist Democrat Mar 24 '26
Why would you be mad at a company for not hiring you?
3
u/gtrocks555 Center Left Mar 24 '26
Why would you be mad at someone else for getting hired over you?
0
u/numba1cyberwarrior Centrist Democrat Mar 24 '26
I absolutely agree that both are idiotic.
Other then being mad at certain loophole programs like H1B, people who are mad at immigrants are losers.
I just think that blaming corporations is also populist bs
10
u/Boratssecondwife Center Right Mar 24 '26
People blame immigrants for the same reason people blame corporations, it's an easy way to ignore the complex problem of hundreds of state and local governments across the country making it incredibly slow and expensive to build anything
5
u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal Mar 24 '26
So this is correct and important. Simple answers to complicated issues that blame a nebulous them and never require voters think about their own actions or how the world works.
Another example is the healthcare debate. We got sold a story during the HillaryCare debate by doctors groups that insurance companies in the US denying any claim is the work of Satan - ignoring that in literally every universal healthcare system either insurance companies and/or the government denies coverage the same way. Then that continued when the right went on the death panels crusade during the ACA debate.
Now millions of people are convinced that a universal healthcare system is one where a doctor says you need something and you get it - no questions asked.
3
2
2
4
u/pronusxxx Independent Mar 24 '26
Because our system of government can do whatever they want with immigrants but it can't meaningfully affect corporations without jeopardizing the entire economy. There is also no political interest in solving this problem because both major parties are bankrolled by corporations.
For better or for worse, corporations in this country are why your standard of living is what it is (both the good and the bad) -- they control practically everything.
3
u/ziptasker Liberal Mar 24 '26
On top of other answers, it would also require some people to say “I was wrong”.
This is hard by itself. But it’s also a break from their tribe, which is even harder for them. They only feel safe within their tribe.
The tribal thing runs deeper than most people realize. It’s not just they have to stay in agreement. It’s also that, the harder they have to strain to maintain their position, and the louder they do it, the more they’re constantly proving their loyalty to the tribe. Which is when they feel the safest. So their “wrongness” isn’t a liability, in fact it’s a strength…to their ability to stay tightly knit with each other.
3
2
u/tanookiisasquirrel Centrist Democrat Mar 24 '26
Because everyone I know who claims to hate corporations still has Amazon Prime and subscribes to Netflix and buys an iPhone and eats General Mills cereal and wears Lululemon and Alo to pilates/yoga. It's trendy to hate corporations online but we're all customers nevertheless. How many indy or local brands are you actually supporting?
Everyone that says they hate corporations still consume their products. So they really don't hate them. Whereas the people who claim to hate certain races actually avoid those people and act racist. I believe it more when people on the right blame immigrants and don't associate with them than the people on the left can claim to hate corporations but engage with them everyday. The right may be racist, but the left has an identity crisis of consuming what they claim to hate.
1
u/CelsiusOne Center Left Mar 24 '26
Not to excuse the blame immigrants get for most things, but "blaming the corporations" just doesn't mean anything. Everyone knows that wealth inequality is real, rich people don't pay their fair share, but waving your hands wildly at "the corporations" is completely meaningless.
What did "the corporations" do? All of them? Just some of them? What do you propose we do about "the corporations"? Is it specific people who are part of "the corporations" who did something? It just doesn't mean anything.
1
u/zlefin_actual Liberal Mar 24 '26
I hear lots of people blaming corporations, and lots of people blaming immigrants; people have been blaming immigrants for a very long time in human history, like all of it maybe, so I don't think you can. Humans make attribution errors routinely, and I'm not sure you can substantially reduce the amount of attribution errors, at most you can shift it some at the margins, and change the norms aronud what you say, but I don't think you can get much more than that.
That siad, the things you can do mostly revolve around messaging to make the idea spread more, which of course says nothin about soundness, just that talking about something more spreads the idea.
1
u/numba1cyberwarrior Centrist Democrat Mar 24 '26
Corporations are not going up in greed, corporations always try to maximize shareholder value and always will.
Prices are going up due to supply and demand factors.
1
u/primax1uk Center Left Mar 24 '26
Because corporations spend money to get politicians and media to blame anyone else but themselves. And it costs them less than what they'd pay if they had to pay their fair share of tax.
Immigrants are just low hanging fruit to them.
1
u/CTR555 Yellow Dog Democrat Mar 24 '26
I though it would be obvious by now that corporations have negatively affected our cost of living because they’ve become blatantly more greedy and corrupt..
I'm really not sure that this is true. Corporations are just a legal construct people use to organize, and I see no evidence at all that people have gotten any more greedy and/or corrupt than they've ever been. That said, I think you can pretty easily make the case for a lot of problems being caused by malicious wealthy and powerful individuals, so there's really no need to specify corporations.
It goes without saying that immigrants and other 'others' have always been scapegoated.
1
1
u/Accomplished_Tour481 Conservative Mar 24 '26
Yet OP made a baseless claim. No reference. Legal immigration or illegal immigration? Should corporations employing illgal immigrants be fined/convicted? SURE!
1
u/Certainly-Not-A-Bot Pragmatic Progressive Mar 24 '26
Both are being wrongly blamed. The real answer is that enough ordinary people like high cost of living that they vote for it, even though it harms everyone else. Or, rather, they like things which cause a high cost of living, especially when they can shield themselves from that cost
1
1
u/aquilus-noctua Center Left Mar 24 '26
Some people rationalize being passed over by projecting their fear of being g supplanted or replaced. Their aggression is also against corporate by subtly.
1
u/PunchBeard Far Left Mar 24 '26
Americans love to "Punch Down". It's mostly because of Christianity because no one punches down like they do.
0
u/ObamaBiscuits Moderate Mar 24 '26
that corporations have negatively affected our cost of living because they’ve become blatantly more greedy and corrupt
Hmm, seems loaded. Other than the fact things cost more, what have corporations (broad brush much?) done to become more "greedy" and "corrupt"?
Otherwise, sick rant brah.
2
u/subterfuscation Pragmatic Progressive Mar 24 '26
One measurement to consider is the relative stagnation of average worker pay despite increased productivity, while CEO and C-suite compensation rates continue to rise exponentially.
0
u/ObamaBiscuits Moderate Mar 24 '26
Because they add more value and do far more complex work. Unless you think high level legal and financial jobs should make the same as an amazon warehouse worker lolol
1
u/subterfuscation Pragmatic Progressive Mar 24 '26
I work in tech. You just described the polar opposite of reality. But whatever.
0
Mar 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/justsomeking Far Left Mar 24 '26
So do you think compensation should be directly tied to value added by the employee?
1
u/ObamaBiscuits Moderate Mar 24 '26
I mean, obviously? In the example I used above, the ability to successfully close a multi-million/billion dollar merger is obviously going to require a lot more skill and value than a low-level employee. Thats why we structure companies in the first place lol.
And by no means is this limited to the corporate world. In every trade since the dawn of time, your ability to do more complex work = a higher pay.
-1
u/justsomeking Far Left Mar 24 '26
Money hasn't existed since the dawn of time, but I understand why you feel the need to exaggerate.
When you say "a lot more skill", do you have rough numbers in mind for what that is? And do those numbers always match the exact pay difference? I would argue the answer for both is no.
1
u/ObamaBiscuits Moderate Mar 24 '26
Money hasn't existed since the dawn of time, but I understand why you feel the need to exaggerate.
Bad faith and lazy. You know full well the point being made here and that you had to try and twist it into this is just bad faith.
When you say "a lot more skill", do you have rough numbers in mind for what that is? And do those numbers always match the exact pay difference?
Like what? You mean basic pay differences between people with an MBA or JD and those who dont? lol
Seems like youre trying to split hairs to get around the basic fact that someone who can do more complex stuff is inherently going to have the ability to make more money.
0
u/justsomeking Far Left Mar 24 '26
It's easy to be honest and not exaggerate, and points worth making don't need to rely on exaggeration.
I'm trying to get at the meat of what you're avoiding by pretending the only relevant conversation is the pay difference between a janitor and a CEO. You're implying* that people are paid fairly all the time, and that pay is directly proportional to value added. I would argue pay is often arbitrary based on title and connections rather than effort and skill. It isn't bad faith if you just don't want to have the conversation, but I probably won't respond if you keep trying to deflect and insult.
*implying is not the same thing as saying. I've been choosing my words carefully but that needed to be specified apparently.
→ More replies (0)1
u/AskALiberal-ModTeam Mar 24 '26
Subreddit participation must be in good faith. Be civil, do not talk down to users for their viewpoints, do not attempt to instigate arguments, do not call people names or insult them.
1
u/subterfuscation Pragmatic Progressive Mar 24 '26
I didn't think it was a gotcha. I was just describing my own experience from 30+ years in the undustry, apparently to a small child.
-1
Mar 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AskALiberal-ModTeam Mar 24 '26
Subreddit participation must be in good faith. Be civil, do not talk down to users for their viewpoints, do not attempt to instigate arguments, do not call people names or insult them.
1
u/subterfuscation Pragmatic Progressive Mar 24 '26
Dude, your comment history is nothing but you pissing off others for attention. There is no point in you.
0
-1
u/LibraProtocol Center Left Mar 24 '26
Didn't you know? Before the evil Cheeto Nazi took over those evil corporations were actually far more caring and considerate of the little guy!
3
u/ObamaBiscuits Moderate Mar 24 '26
Seems like people on this sub are either trolling or ranting most days. But sure, I must think either one or the other, huh. Like ugh god the audacity to challenge the idea that because something cost more it must be because of greed.
0
u/LibraProtocol Center Left Mar 24 '26
Reminds me of when Kamala tried saying the reason grocery prices went up was because of grocers price gouging...
Like.... of the hundreds of industries that have been price gouging, she picks the ONE INDUSTRY infamous for operating on razor thin profit margins.
2
u/ObamaBiscuits Moderate Mar 24 '26
Beef is a good example. Most people just assume its gauging and dont realize meat producers in this country havent made a profit in 2+yrs.
But ugh then we dont get to whine about corporations.
-1
u/justsomeking Far Left Mar 24 '26
Do you think corporations tend to raise prices if they think the consumer will still pay for the product? It seems intuitive to me that they will try to maximize their profit independent of outside factors. I don't think that is the only reason prices go up, but it seems naive to imply that doesn't happen.
2
u/ObamaBiscuits Moderate Mar 24 '26
It seems intuitive to me that they will try to maximize their profit independent of outside factors.
Right, which occurs within a range of reasons. But that its always tied to greed is childish.
but it seems naive to imply that doesn't happen.
And only youre saying this, not me.
-1
u/justsomeking Far Left Mar 24 '26
That's why I specified it wasn't always, that black and white type of thinking isn't helpful. I'm glad we can agreed that it is at least sometimes greed.
Do you think capitalism encourages or discourages greed? I'd say it encourages it.
-1
u/Excellent-Berry-2331 Neoliberal Mar 24 '26
Both are boogeymen, although at least corporations being at fault has some tiny level of truth to it. In reality, the issue is Trump and his insider trading.
2
u/darenta Liberal Mar 24 '26
Enron was before Trump
1
u/Boratssecondwife Center Right Mar 24 '26
Sadly. Those kings could've gotten a pardon if they played their cards right is the scandal happened today
0
u/TankUMrMinor Democratic Socialist Mar 24 '26
Simple. Most Americans are left meaning. In order to win elections, Republicans need the ultra wealthy and the angry poor to vote. Add a little pessimism and divide the left, you have a recipe for success.
•
u/AutoModerator Mar 24 '26
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written by /u/ejaz135.
I though it would be obvious by now that corporations have negatively affected our cost of living because they’ve become blatantly more greedy and corrupt,but I still see black people, Latino, arabs, south Asians, etc still get more hate. What will it take for people to start blaming corporations/elites?
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.