Not everyone thinks this, but I know an extreme right-winger who thinks this. He is also a conspiracy theorist who thinks non-white people are out to get white people so, yeah, odd.

Not every immigrant is illegal or bad. I know a girl who didn’t speak English for 3 years when her family legally immigrated, so of course she’s been told this.

  • @eronth@lemmy.world
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    142 months ago

    Short answer is “propaganda”. News agencies against immigration will pretty regularly swap between “illegal immigrants”, “immigrants”, and <insert current target race here> as if they’re practically interchangable to build whatever narrative they want, and also to slowly build an association between ‘people of <insert race>’, ‘being a drain on society’, and ‘being here illegally’ to get the average person to side with them.

  • @IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
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    22 months ago

    First, think about how smart the “average” person is.

    Next, think about how half of the people in the world are dumber than that and you start to get an idea.

  • @JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
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    112 months ago

    See, back then, there used to be this thing called ‘an education’ that every functioning member of society was expected to have. Basic reasoning skills, the ability to reason and all that - it was meant to separate sapient species from animals and solve problems by means of discourse, debate and, worked well for a while. Then this group started shouting really loud, and the other group thought not to engage in uncivilised behaviour, hoping good sense would prevail and restrain what was largely seen as an anomaly. Only the shouting didn’t end. Instead it turned to screaming, then hollering, and started to drown out reason and logic and everything we had developed as a society up til that point. And it worked, so more people started screaming their basal instincts, until the voice of reason was eventually drowned out, then silenced. And here we are today.

  • @fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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    22 months ago

    It’s called manifest destiny and it’s part of the propaganda machine that’s been worked on us since before all of us were born.

  • queermunist she/her
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    112 months ago

    White conspiracy theorists know they stole this land and are terrified that what goes around, comes around.

  • Lovable Sidekick
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    2 months ago

    For some reason it seems like human nature to treat everybody in a recognizable group like they’re the same person, and that person is either good or bad depending on your background and attitudes - immigrants, trans people, cops, boomers, tech nerds, hot women, republicans, democrats, musicians… there are probably stereotypes you have broad opinions about which you will spend all day defending/rationalizing because a) “it’s true” and/or b) “I’m not bigoted!” We’re all bigots, just do it in different ways. And no, that’s not a defense for any particular bigotry or saying they’re all equal.

  • @Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    So people are programmed to be biased towards their own self interest, it’s not as malicious as it sounds, it’s unfortunately human nature.

    So naturally they would think that the new world conquest was justified for whatever reason (maybe cause there was no flag?).

    And conversely, naturally they would think of new people coming here as less justified, after all, we live in a modern world with borders now.

    What I’ve learned from politics in the last few years, especially during the pandemic, is to never trust someone’s opinion when there is conflict of interest.

    • @shalafi@lemmy.world
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      12 months ago

      We’re also heavily biased towards our own group. Humans are so tribal it’s kinda wild if you think on it.

      Get a bunch of Ford and Chevy people in the same room, see what happens. And we divide ourselves along 100,000 other lines.

      Lemmings look down on redditors.

      “But I’m on the right side! The others clearly are not!”

      In college there were 3 restaurants owned by the same guy, all very popular and everyone wanted a job at one. When we would all get together for Christmas or other event, we would self segregate and snob the other employees. Our restaurant was the cool one.

  • @rumba@lemmy.zip
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    22 months ago

    Oligarchs are seizing control of the country. Wages have been declining for decades; there was a time when you could buy a house with just a few years’ salary. As the rich become richer and the poor become poorer, the middle class slowly sinks towards the poverty line. To shield themselves from public scrutiny, the oligarchs use propaganda to spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. They deploy their most charismatic and beautiful individuals to tell you that if it weren’t for all those foreigners, you’d have a stable job.

    Meanwhile, all manufacturing companies have been sold and moved overseas. Unskilled and uneducated labor is at an all-time low. Drug use is up, crime rates are soaring, and neighborhoods are falling into poverty. Is it time to protest, to start an uprising? But wait—straight from Fox News: all those immigrants who came over are criminals. It’s gang violence. Other countries are exiling their criminals and sending them to us. Our poor, uneducated, unwashed masses are eager to believe this, allowing the right to swoop in, carrying these people back home. They believe that finally, they’ll land that big job, get the big raise, the big truck, have nine kids, and live happily ever after.