Demographics Deployed For Political Control

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

People are talking ever more about the possibility of civil war in the United States.

The scenes on the streets do not look good, to be sure. That said, we are nowhere near this point and certainly don’t have to be.

The trigger for the unfolding of events speaks to a tactic of control that unleashes resistance (and counterresistence) like no other.

If this issue is resolved in peace and within the rule of law, normalcy can be restored.

Let’s review some of the deeper history.

At the height of the Roman Empire, when conquering ever more territory was regarded as regime triumph, a strategy for control emerged that would long persist into the modern age. The military would urge Romanization of the conquered provinces. The aristocracy would flood provinces and towns, bringing language and technology and administrative leadership.

Roman citizens, often veterans of these wars, were settled with land grants and created loyal Roman outposts. Many modern European cities trace origins to these settlements. The tactic assured regional loyalty, lessened local resistance, and helped blunt the efficacy of independence movements.

The Spanish Empire took a similar approach in the Americas. Massive settler migration from Iberia led to the demographic replacement of indigenous populations. Spanish was imposed as the dominant language. Indigenous tongues were suppressed. Localized religions mutated to match priorities of the imperial faith.

So it was in the Soviet Union. After the archives opened following the fall of communism, scholars found proof of what they had long suspected. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians were directed to migrate to the Baltic states following the 1940 annexation. The priorities were the same as the above examples: spread the Russian language, intermarry, and build and administer infrastructure. This weakened national identities and secured Russian holdings.

All of these are examples of what is called settler colonialism. It’s a tactic, often a brutal one because it touches the lives, languages, educations, and religion of everyone. It can often be pitiless toward the settled traditions that are being displaced.

The USA was born as an experiment in the same way via the British Empire. The English Court and its industrial partners had every intention of using the colonies for the empire’s own purposes, restricting trade and taxing its residents. It did not go so well. After 150 years of experience with freedom in the colonies, Americans developed a sense of independent identity that led to a war of independence that the colonies won.

It is true that the United States began as a nation of immigrants and has always been a welcoming country. The early Founding documents left the issue of citizenship to the states because people were citizens of their states. Following a horrible Civil War, the federal government took charge of determining citizenship, alongside a peculiar model of earning the right to vote. All people born within its borders were automatically granted citizenship rights.

Immigration became a source of controversy in the late 19th century with floods of new asylum seekers from Russia, Italy, Ireland, and elsewhere, thus taxing infrastructure and giving rise to ethnic and religious tensions. The immigration acts of 1921 and 1924 sought to settle those problems with a strong legal preference for European migration.

Forty years later, this prioritization was deemed discriminatory. The immigration act of 1965 reversed priorities and opened up the country to a wider range of newly arriving residents to become citizens.

Even with this change, the subject of immigration was regarded as a manageable domestic policy dispute, with people on all sides favoring this or that. The debates concerned economics, religion, and the issue of acculturation.

What was not in question was the idea of using demographics for purposes of political control. There seemed to be an established political rule in this country: These debates can be settled without resorting to old-world tactics of settler colonialism. No one overtly sought to use demographics to shore up political power.

Something changed dramatically following President Donald Trump’s first term. Many people in the upper echelons of power perceived Trump to be a unique threat, not just in his person but in what he represented. His movement crossed class barriers to tap into a sense of American identity itself, complete with nostalgia for old forms of freedom and independence.

At this point in the story, matters turn dark.

I will introduce this by telling of a visit to see my mother in Texas in the summer of 2020. I had expected the topic of conversation to turn entirely on the COVID-19 pandemic response and the lockdowns. I could hardly get anyone interested. At gatherings and meals, at church or at civic meetings, the only topic on anyone’s mind seemed to be the open southern border. They spoke about it with unusual fire and passion, as if a fundamental deal had been broken.

It was this, even more than the lockdowns, that concerned them, and why? Because they could feel themselves losing trust in the main mechanism that permits the people to exercise some control over the regime. If elections are compromised—they could see this coming—all is lost.

That experience was a revelation to me. I had not previously seen how much the shift in policy had affected their lives. It was causing huge burdens on educational infrastructure and hospital systems. There was a widespread perception that seemed to confirm what Trump had said on the campaign trail in 2015. This was not normal, legal immigration, but something else. Someone or something was using demographics for purposes of political manipulation. Now even the plebiscite was in question.

The election later that November did not allay the fears, as what looked like an in-person-voting landslide turned the other direction overnight thanks mostly to mail-in ballots. It had already evaporated in the system and now the very legitimacy of a nationwide election was in question. Regardless, Trump was declared the loser and Joe Biden the winner.

The subject of immigration and its political uses would only intensify over four years, as millions (10 million to 20 million) were allowed in, went on welfare, contributed to rising crime, and generally raised alarms about what was happening to American democracy.

The United States was founded to be a land governed by the people themselves: not a king or an aristocracy but by representatives elected by the people. The Founders set up such a system with great hope that it would last. Much of the credibility of such a system turns on a clear distinction between citizens and non-citizens. As welcoming as America is and always has been, a people’s government needs standards and enforcement for who can participate in elections and partake of public welfare.

These questions have become the burning issue of our time. We see this play out in Minnesota right now as protesters on the streets work to interfere with federal efforts to find and capture undocumented people let in under the lax rules of 2021–2024.

What appears to be a battle between federal enforcement and liberally minded protesters actually has a deeper root. The perception within the administration is that the immigration system had been weaponized (by an autopen president) for purposes of fastening down a particular brand of political control.

No American wants to live in a society in which federal enforcement officers come to their communities and demand papers from regular citizens. That seems incompatible with the ideals of this country. What’s also incompatible with American ideals is for a single political party to take a page out of the history books of Rome, Spain, and the Soviet Union and use people as tools in an effort to maintain political control.

This is the point at which immigration has more in common with invasion.

Sadly, these struggles are not going away anytime soon. They will likely expand to other blue states where voting patterns seem reliant on lax standards of voter eligibility. My friends, these tactics are playing with fire. When you mix generous welfare benefits, sketchy voting rights, and elections that turn on just a few percentage points, you have a highly volatile environment.

One can only hope for American liberty to survive these struggles. After that, there is no question that we need national consensus on citizenship and its meaning, lest the republic established by the Founders be lost forever. If we can get this one point settled, much of the rest will fall into place.