This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit radixjournal.substack.comIn this episode of “Real Euro Hours,” Richard offers his take on the Ron DeSantis’s immigration stunt at Martha Vineyard, and the gang discusses the latest.
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| I know this is real Euro hours, but I wanted to talk a little bit about the Ron DeSantis stunt. | |
| I was just taking care of my kids for the last four or five days, so I've kind of been off social media to a large degree, and I haven't really commented on it. | |
| But I do think the whole thing is pretty fascinating. | |
| So I did want to talk about that, but we can take the conversation. | |
| Wherever we want to go. | |
| And there's just some kind of crazy things that were occurring this weekend as well with a Trump rally in Ohio and stuff like that. | |
| So I guess I want to make this an American, or at least my impulse is to make it an American-centric real Euro hours. | |
| But of course, you guys can change the conversation as you will. | |
| I found the... | |
| The DeSantis stunt. | |
| I found it pretty stupid and grotesque. | |
| And I found the response that I saw from conservatives to be equally stupid. | |
| And I actually think it's going to be a long-term... | |
| Problem, if not a disaster. | |
| And it might actually become a disaster. | |
| So this morning, I was just editing this video to get up for subscriber video and all that kind of stuff. | |
| But I was doing some research and I saw these Venezuelan immigrants came originally from the San Antonio area. | |
| Now, first off, just in case you have no idea what I'm talking about. | |
| I presume you have heard that there was this shipment by plane of migrants to Martha's Vineyard. | |
| I think it happened last Friday. | |
| And they've been processed and so on. | |
| And this was really played up. | |
| I mean, it was probably tightly coordinated with Tucker Carlson and Fox News and other social media people. | |
| So you have all of this, you know. | |
| There's accusations of hypocrisy, I guess is what it is, of sending diversity and migrants to Martha's Vineyard. | |
| And, oh my gosh, look at how hypocritical they are. | |
| Although I don't think the thing makes sense at all. | |
| So there have been a lot of shipments of migrants from mainly Texas where... | |
| Greg Abbott, the governor, is basically taking a lot of people who have been processed to some degree and sending them to big cities. | |
| I mean, he's saying they're sending them to blue states, but they're sending them to these big cities that are governed by Democrats where there are millions of immigrants, illegal and otherwise, like Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, etc. | |
| And there has been some pushback from even, I've noticed it's been brought up even in press conferences for the Biden administration where they're saying, oh, this is cruel, you're just moving people around and so on. | |
| And I guess you can fairly say, well, you know, we're in Texas, we happen to be on the border. | |
| And you don't know what we're going through. | |
| You don't know how difficult this is, where there are millions. | |
| There's actually more border crossings than ever before. | |
| I think there was an article I also read that was in the New York Times. | |
| It was in the exact stat, but it's over a million a month or a year, something like that. | |
| Now, that might be a bit deceptive. | |
| Because there are far more border agents now, and the way that illegal immigration in the United States is measured is through apprehensions, because that's kind of the only way when you can get a number. | |
| I mean, they are illegal immigrants after all, and the whole point of what they're doing is to work in a secret manner. | |
| I generally don't believe that immigration, like illegal immigration across the Mexican border is higher than it was 20 years ago. | |
| And I do think that, I don't doubt that it's high and that it's out of control. | |
| I don't doubt that at all. | |
| But I'm just saying this purely anecdotally. | |
| But we didn't have a Department of Homeland Security. | |
| In the turn of the 21st century, I guess that came in like 2002 or 2003, it was post 9-11. | |
| We had far fewer border agents. | |
| And so what I have heard from people, I mean, I grew up in Texas. | |
| I remember hearing from my mother and sister who went to some like flea market kind of thing in Mexico, or you could, you know, create amazing prices on, you know, antiques and all this kind of stuff. | |
| And they were just describing it as almost comically out of control, where they were sitting in their hotel in Mexico and just watching people cross the border. | |
| Perhaps they were on the border, like staying at a Hilton or whatever near the Mexican border and just watching dozens of people cross at will. | |
| I do think it was actually worse 20 years ago, but... | |
| I don't doubt that it's out of control now. | |
| And obviously, it seems worse now because we have more information. | |
| But anyway, I get it. | |
| It is a huge problem. | |
| They're claiming this is a Biden issue. | |
| But again, that also is rather not exactly accurate. | |
| Biden has, to the chagrin of most of the liberals, maintained... | |
| The Trump-era policy. | |
| Now, they've tried to reverse things of separating children from their parents and some of the more draconian things, but they haven't really gone towards open borders. | |
| I mean, it's an out-of-control situation. | |
| And I'm forgetting the exact... | |
| I'm forgetting the exact piece of regulation that they've maintained, but there's a name for it. | |
| It's like Section 7 or something like that. | |
| Anyway, I'll have to go look into it. | |
| I'm sure it can get lost in the details. | |
| But the overall picture is that they have maintained that. | |
| Kamala Harris traveled to Mexico and told people not to come. | |
| The border is closed. | |
| So we're just basically in the status quo. | |
| But of course... | |
| Conservatives. | |
| And we're also in a very different environment than we were in COVID, where not only did you have the pandemic, but you just had this major slowdown, shutdown for a long time, but certainly a massive slowdown in terms of the economic incentives to migrate. | |
| So there were less construction, restaurants were closed down, etc. | |
| But, you know, it is an issue. | |
| It's a real issue, but it's also this kind of theatrical issue. | |
| So Ron DeSantis saw what Greg Abbott was doing in terms of moving migrants to big cities. | |
| And he also saw the pushback that it got, that the liberals were freaking out and seemingly... | |
| Being racist in a way. | |
| Because they're saying, you know, what are you doing? | |
| This is extremely cruel. | |
| And you can counter, well, what? | |
| You've told us that, you know, people don't have borders or, you know, diversity is our strength. | |
| So why are you complaining? | |
| And so it becomes this kind of passive, aggressive maneuver. | |
| And, you know, Ron DeSantis just one-upped everyone. | |
| By not sending them to, say, Chicago or Boston, but sending them to Martha's Vineyard, which is this beautiful, and as you've heard, extremely luxurious and wealthy island in Massachusetts. | |
| I've actually been there many, many years ago. | |
| It was when I was actually a child. | |
| Yeah, an awesome place to live. | |
| And it is kind of an image of an older America. | |
| I was actually up in Boston just a couple of weeks ago. | |
| Because I got shipped on a plane by Ron DeSantis. | |
| No, just kidding. | |
| I was just visiting Matt and a mutual friend. | |
| And yeah, Massachusetts is gorgeous. | |
| You do when you're around Concord and other places. | |
| Concord is much more of like a working class place. | |
| But nevertheless, it just, yeah, there's a really nostalgic kind of older America that is still visible. | |
| And so basically they shipped them to Martha's Vineyard. | |
| Now also, Barack Obama has this gigantic estate in Martha's Vineyard. | |
| I'm sure there are other. | |
| Celebrities are just extremely wealthy people. | |
| I'm not quite convinced that it's entirely liberal. | |
| I mean, granted, it's Massachusetts. | |
| And there is a strong tendency for wealthy people to adopt the Democratic Party now. | |
| There wasn't one, say, 20 or 30 years ago. | |
| But I imagine you could find quite a few Republicans. | |
| But putting that aside, it just becomes this really kind of strange political stunt where they passively, aggressively force the migrants to be in Martha's Vineyard. | |
| And then it's a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose situation. | |
| And I saw some of these... | |
| Opening monologues from Tucker Carlson that I just found on YouTube because they're put up there. | |
| I saw some clips on Twitter as well. | |
| And it's kind of this weird thing of like, what exactly do you expect them to do? | |
| And so he did one monologue on Friday, I believe. | |
| Where he was like, oh, well, look, finally, at last, this, you know, 89% white Martha's Vineyard will be diversified. | |
| You know, they should have a ticker-take parade, but oh, no, there's nothing going on. | |
| There's just crickets. | |
| He actually showed a live image of Martha's Vineyard, like the center of Martha's Vineyard, and they played crickets as an audio track over it. | |
| But what do you... | |
| Like, what are you talking about? | |
| Like, this was a political stunt created by a governor, and the whole point of it was that no one was notified. | |
| These people were promised, well, we learned later, they're promised jobs, they're promised food and shelter, etc., and they were put on a plane and flown up there clandestinely. | |
| So how could they possibly... | |
| Throw a ticker tape parade to embrace diversity in this situation. | |
| It's just total nonsense. | |
| And then you have, again, this heads I win, tails you lose attitude with Martha Vineyard people. | |
| So basically, the people there said, and they're obviously being accurate. | |
| Maybe they're, I don't know. | |
| I mean, I get the hypocrisy thing, but they're just being accurate. | |
| This is a... | |
| Super wealthy, elite town. | |
| There is no homeless shelter here. | |
| I guess they could maybe work in a restaurant bussing tables or something, but this is just not the place for them. | |
| There's no processing center here. | |
| That would be in Boston or something. | |
| There's nothing for them to do. | |
| And then the conservatives would be like, well, you should just take them into your homes, just, you know, set up a new room for them, have them marry your daughter or whatever. | |
| I mean, it's just all this really extreme, unreasonable, passive-aggressive nonsense. | |
| And the fact is, those people, the people of Martha's Vineyard dealt with... | |
| The situation in a reasonable manner. | |
| They were like serving them food or something. | |
| And again, I saw this one clip where Tucker Carlson was accusing them. | |
| Why are you giving them just, you know, kind of like Mexican food or hamburgers or whatever they gave them, some basic thing? | |
| Why didn't you give them kale? | |
| I don't know, some kind of confit or, you know, why didn't you give them the elaborate food that you eat or something? | |
| This is just totally ridiculous. | |
| And I don't, you know, again, if they had like lynched them or something, then the conservatives would be like, oh, look at these racist bastards. | |
| Dems are the real racists. | |
| That's horrible. | |
| Treated them in a reasonable manner. | |
| Then they're like, oh, well, why didn't you give them chocolate eclairs and moose and so on? | |
| It's just heads I win, tails you lose. | |
| It's just totally ridiculous. | |
| And it's just this kind of like passive aggressive thing. | |
| I mean, I noticed this one, I saw this other monologue from Tucker Carlson where I thought he was actually, because Tucker is smarter. | |
| Due to his dad's fortuitous marriage, was raised in the lap of luxury, the Swanson TV dinner fortune, whatever. | |
| And so he is smarter. | |
| He is kind of more cultured and educated. | |
| And he's done this thing that I've seen him do before, where he's saying something that is actually real. | |
| And that I totally sympathize with, which is like, you know, most of America used to look like Martha's Vineyard. | |
| Well, that's not exactly true. | |
| But we get your point that things used to be a little more human-centered, walkable, just pretty nice wooden buildings, colonial architecture. | |
| Okay, we get it. | |
| That's an exaggeration, but I get your point. | |
| And he was like, well, now the wealthy are just hoarding things for themselves, as if this is some sadistic act done by wealthy liberals. | |
| I think it is pretty telling that where there isn't a lot of wealth, you have the dollar store, which is this metaphor that Tucker uses, and McDonald's, and truck stops, and Walmart, and all this other stuff. | |
| And it is interesting that when people of, you know, wealth, education, and refinement are given the opportunity, they find a way to live in a kind of nostalgic, like, world of America's past. | |
| That is very interesting. | |
| And I, you know, there's some... | |
| Counter examples to that, of course, but I get it. | |
| It's correct. | |
| But then Tucker's response to that is that, like, this is great that we're just sending this diversity there. | |
| It's this kind of, like, passive-aggressive, we're going to go put a turd in your punch bowl. | |
| And I just, I don't know. | |
| This whole thing just strikes me as... | |
| Grotesque. | |
| Why is it that we have Walmarts and dollar stores and so on? | |
| There are actually some real reasons to that. | |
| And it has not been created by sadistic white Democrats because they hate Americans or something like that. | |
| It's largely a product of car culture, unadulterated capitalism. | |
| Lack of zoning laws, and to be frank, a real problem of bad taste among developers and even the people who patron this stuff. | |
| So it is what it is. | |
| It is a serious issue. | |
| I resonate with the kind of conservative, you know, almost kind of hoity-toity lament at the lack of culture and... | |
| I get it. | |
| But it's not a product of, like, white Democrats who did this intentionally to harm people because they hate America. | |
| It's just ridiculous to say that. | |
| And when you do say that and you make it this kind of, like, neo-Southern strategy technique, you're going to be completely, you'll be completely unable to actually solve that. | |
| There are ways of making the current fallen world we live in nicer. | |
| You can actually have real strict zoning laws. | |
| You can promote the creation of public infrastructure and public parks. | |
| You can have architectural committees, which become the bane of the existence of developers. | |
| And I get that, but maybe there's actually a good reason why you should maintain some kind of consistent style that is connected to tradition. | |
| You can actually do these things, and it is very often liberals who do do these things. | |
| And liberal, hoity-toity, fruity people who actually care about this stuff. | |
| And want to engage in some kind of historic preservation and so on. | |
| And in doing it, drive up property values. | |
| So yeah, there's kind of like a yin and yang to it or a flip side to it. | |
| I get all of that. | |
| But even if there are these contradictions, there are ways of solving that problem. | |
| And to just blame it on rich whites is... | |
| Kind of absurd. | |
| And I guess even more absurd knowing Tucker Carlson's background. | |
| But anyway, I do think that DeSantis' plan was a little too cute by half. | |
| So as of this morning, the police chief in San Antonio is considering He's leveling charges against DeSantis for, in effect, human trafficking. | |
| Now, it was interesting that he said these are, the police chief said that these people were here legally, and he, of course, didn't mean that they're citizens. | |
| What he meant is that I presume they're applying for asylum or applying for some kind of status. | |
| So you are there legally. | |
| Kind of like a tourist in a way, in the sense that you can travel to another country and not get expelled immediately. | |
| So what they were doing was illegally, but they were actually enticed under a false premise to engage in this political stunt. | |
| And so I don't know exactly what law might be applied to this, but it could very well be kidnapping or human trafficking. | |
| And this... | |
| Could very well end up as a total disaster. | |
| Now, obviously, DeSantis didn't kill them. | |
| He did seem to lie to them. | |
| This was tightly planned. | |
| There was a videographer on board. | |
| There was a hired plane. | |
| They were giving them maps and all this kind of stuff. | |
| Telling them that they were actually misinforming them about where they need to go visit immigration processing centers. | |
| But they were absolutely lying to them. | |
| And so it's just, you know, no, I don't think DeSantis wanted to kill them or whatever. | |
| But, you know, you still cannot, you know. | |
| You can't kidnap someone under false premise, even if your intentions are not totally maligned. | |
| You know, you can't just tell me, oh, you know, I'm going to take you on a... | |
| You've just won a free hiking trip. | |
| Congratulations. | |
| You know, come with me right this way. | |
| And then you fly me to St. Louis, Missouri or something and be like, ah, psych. | |
| Ha ha ha. | |
| Well... | |
| Don't worry about it. | |
| No skin off your back. | |
| Even if it is somewhat benign, it is still illegal to do this. | |
| And so I think this might very well turn into a complete disaster. | |
| There's another report that the plane is actually scheduled to fly to where Joe Biden has a summer home or something. | |
| So again, it's just this... | |
| Endless kind of passive, aggressive attempt to rub the Liberals' face in diversity. | |
| And so it's a kind of double message. | |
| So on the one hand, it relies totally on a sort of racism in the sense that none of this makes sense if all of these people are from Finland and They're, | |
| you know, applying to be, they're asylum seekers because they're just too horrified by the prime minister's partying with Instagram influencers. | |
| And they're just horrified by this. | |
| It's gone too far this time. | |
| And we need to apply for, you know, asylum in the United States where at least your presidents aren't. | |
| Dancing and getting drunk and hanging out with bare-chested Instagram models. | |
| You know, no one, if that were the case, then you would expect these Finnish people to be completely upstanding, probably have, you know, money in the bank, able to handle themselves, find hotels, get a job, etc. | |
| No, the whole point of it is that these are the wretched of the earth. | |
| And it doesn't make sense otherwise. | |
| And so it relies on this kind of racism. | |
| And yet the overriding message of it is Dems are the real racist. | |
| So it's basically saying, oh, you Martha, you racist, Martha's Vineyard residing bastards. | |
| You want to keep out all this diversity because of your racism. | |
| And so we're going to force it on you. | |
| So it's a kind of weird. | |
| And I don't think it's going to work. | |
| I think, generally speaking, talking about illegal immigration, and particularly as it affects people's lives, there's crime, working class people can get displaced or whatever, I think these are all pretty much winning issues for Republicans. | |
| But this kind of political stunt and owning the libs Gamesmanship. | |
| Not to mention if it blows up in DeSantis' face and he has like a legal investigation. | |
| I just don't see this as winning at all. | |
| And I, yeah, I ultimately find it to be a stupid and grotesque stunt. | |
| And not at all surprising. | |
| Again, it's like... | |
| Taking Tucker Carlson as the most intelligent and cultured view of this, if you believe that Martha's Vineyard is beautiful and represents some timeless American value or style that you want to maintain, why are you forcing migrants there? | |
| Why would you do that? | |
| Isn't that kind of sadistic on your part? | |
| I mean, it's just, the whole thing strikes me as just very odd. | |
| I think it's a bad message and is, I think it will ultimately be a political failure and it might very well be a political disaster for DeSantis if he gets charged with kidnapping. | |
| But anyway, those are just some of my thoughts on the matter. |