Harmonize diverse immigration views
Steph Turner
Career coaching online around the world, ‘anankelogist’ understanding your needs, author, ‘need-responder’ serving your needs where detached institutions fall short.
Connect diverse immigration views to diverse psychosocial needs
Steph Turner, Value Relating
OVERVIEW
- Illuminating diverse needs behind diverse beliefs
- Tweeting politicos to harmonize these diverse politicized needs
- Stepping further outside polarization
Previously, I harmonized your immigration politics to your underlying psychosocial needs. I invite you to see how your affected psychosocial needs correlate highly with your political outlook, if you lean politically left or right. Now we delve into how much you lean in either direction. Now let’s unpack the diversity of immigration views across the political spectrum.
Eight hot button issues get us started. Later, I may introduce more. For now, I delve deeper into these eight issues to illuminate the diversity of views along the psychosocial spectrum discussed previously.
Left leaning immigration views generally appeal to wider relationships. I see wider relationships result from unmet social-needs relative to guarded self-needs: specifically, a lack of societal inclusion from persisting and perhaps subtle forms of discrimination, compared to confidently being unacculturated, or unalike, with traditional norms of society.
“I see myself in migrants struggling to escape painfully oppressive conditions for a promising better life. You preventing migrants to live fully is little to no different from you preventing me to live fully here. And I find that unacceptable!”
Right leaning immigration views generally appeal to deeper relationships. I see deeper relationships result from unmet self-needs compared to guarded social-needs: specifically, a lack of personalized cohesion free of outside pressures, compared to preserving social cohesion of their traditional relationships and most local support bonds with each other.
“I see my sacred ways of life under increasing assault as fewer migrants assimilate into our common values. You allowing migrants to pour in without adopting basic norms unravels our cohesion. And I find that unacceptable!”
1. Illuminating diverse needs behind diverse beliefs
Spots along the continuum are less about fitting into neat categories, and more for comparing with each other. There easily can be some spillover across categories. Let’s focus more on the vulnerable needs beneath the visible expressions of immigration politics.
Harmony politics is not about finding harmony between the left and right. No, harmony politics supersedes the political divide by linking outward political rhetoric with inward vulnerably felt needs. Sometimes the sharpest differences are not between left and right, but between those within the left and those within the right. You tend to expect more from those in the same camp. Your sharpest disagreements about immigration tend to be among those you’d expect more agreement.
Harmony politics links you to the diverse needs in each of these camps under the big tent of each partisan wing. You are challenged here to listen for the hard-to-express needs behind the declared rhetoric. You can disagree all you want with each declared position, but isn’t disagreeing with its underlying vulnerable needs downright pointless?
?OPEN BORDERS
WIDE-YET-SHALLOW - Far Left Progressive/Democratic Socialist:
It’s easier to visibly declare
National borders reinforce systems of racism, classism, and other forms of oppression benefiting others at migrants’ expense. Knock down all borders and let every human freely go wherever they can survive and perchance thrive.
It’s harder to vulnerably admit
We as nontraditional people feel systemically excluded from advantaged spaces by arbitrary national borders. And we feel utterly powerless to coexist almost anywhere based on rigid yet arbitrary political borders.
Listen for their underlying intractable needs. Affirm those needs as their experience. Offer your understanding and respect.
RELAX BORDERS
WIDE-THEN-DEEP - Social Progressive/Social Democrat:
It’s easier to visibly declare,
Fewer migrants would seek refuge here if it wasn’t for our intrusive foreign policy blunders. We should at least provide relief with sanctuary cities and abolish ICE.
It’s harder to vulnerably admit
We need to admit most immigrants are desperate to leave situations largely of our interventionists making. I’m ashamed to be a part of a nation interfering with the domestic affairs of other countries damaging vulnerable lives.
What particular needs to you see here? How different are they from your own?
EASY ENTRY
WIDE-AND-DEEP - Center Left Liberal/Moderate:
It’s easier to visibly declare,
We need migrants to fill low skilled jobs most citizens will not do. We need to support children born to migrants, since it’s not their fault they are not documented. We need comprehensive reform of immigration processes.
It’s harder to vulnerably admit
We need immigrants willing to do jobs citizens won’t and offer amnesty for citizenship after they show such merit. Because I rely on an economy that provides relatively cheap food provided by relatively cheap labor.
Do you hear the needs behind those words? How different are they from what you need?
STEM ENTRY
DEEP-AND-WIDE - Center Right Conservative/Moderate:
It’s easier to visibly declare,
Slow the tide of migrants. Accept those with a compelling claim of hardship, such as threats to their life. Economic complaints hardly qualify. Offer amnesty to children of illegal migrants if they qualify. Send back all others who fail to meet a hardship standard.
Slow the tide of migrants. Accept those with a compelling claim of hardship, such as threats to their life. Economic complaints hardly qualify. Offer amnesty to children of illegal migrants if they qualify. Send back all others who fail to meet a hardship standard.It’s harder to vulnerably admit
We can offer amnesty to children born to illegal migrant parents after they show merit. We cannot absorb the economic problems of other countries simply because their economies are not as successful as ours.
Can you hear the differing needs behind those words?
MERIT ENTRY
DEEP-THEN-WIDE - New Right Reactionary/Alt-Lite:
It’s easier to visibly declare,
Only allow in migrants who add value to our nation. Immigration law must close exploited loopholes, such as chain migration. We must do better to stop the flow of drugs, violence, and importing other nations’ problems. Build the wall. American first!
It’s harder to vulnerably admit
We need to limit migration to those first showing merit before crossing any of our sacred borders. I constantly dread losing ground to unlawful others, as I’m already struggling with lost wages and mounting debt from weak borders.
Listen for the needs behind the call for a wall. How does it impact your needs?
ETHNO-NATIONALISM
DEEP-YET-NARROW - Far Right/Alt-Right:
It’s easier to visibly declare,
Send them all back. America for Americans. We built this nation for ourselves, not for migrants to enter illegally and then get free healthcare from our taxes. Why should I pay taxes from my hard-earned money to support foreigners who failed in their own country?
It’s harder to vulnerably admit
Nativist Americans feel smothered by excessive immigration, pressurizing already strained cohesion. We used to freely support one another and thrive, but now our people get easily stuck on welfare competing with migrants.
The needs you don’t hear will not go away simply because you patently reject their ideological expression of them.
2. Tweeting politicos to harmonize these diverse politicized needs
It’s one thing to talk about these diverse differences. Now let’s take this to the people, and their political influencers. To do that, I utilize Twitter to engage politicos with the Harmony Politics (HP) issue infographics of the previous series.
I searched on Twitter for political leaders tweeting about immigration. To keep it simple at the start, I looked for representatives on the left and the right.
ENGAGING THE LEFT
First, I shared the HP Immigration Infographic in a reply tweet to Rep Ilhan Omar (D), whose tweet on the subject understandably represents a WIDE-THEN-DEEP perspective. You may see her position closer to a WIDE-YET-SHALLOW stance, and I welcome you to relate how that may be more accurate.
ENGAGING THE RIGHT
After my tweet reply to her, I looked for a rep on the right tweeting this day about immigration. Initially, all I found was a tweet by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), “an anti-immigration organization in the U.S.” according to Wikipedia. From what I perceived, they represent a DEEP-THEN-WIDE stance.
After tweeting this reply to FAIR, I found a tweet by Rep Dan Crenshaw (R), addressing news of WH termination of the infamous Flores Decree that enabled smugglers to exploit children for their illicit activities. Concern about such exploitation of the Flores Decree spreads across the political spectrum, on both sides, speaking to many psychosocial orientations.
For now, I’m only tweeting the primary HP issue infographic. Later, I will tweet the link to the LinkedIn Pulse article I posted earlier on this issue.
For now, my tweet replies echo the declarative style typical of tweets. Others tweeting their reply follow this popular form of expression. Later, I shift to a more engaging style. More on that later.
POPULISM, RIGHT & LEFT
Immigration policy emerged as a dominating issue in the era of Trump. Like him or loathe him, he brings the issue front and center. Which mirrors Euroskeptics’ pushback on the tide of Muslim refugees bleeding across their European national borders.
I see the rise of Trump corresponding with the global rise of populism mostly in the wake of the questionable U.S. 2008 government bailout of the banks—not exactly lasses faire capitalism. Then Brexit warmed up the clarion call of Trumpism. Laxed immigration, ostensibly serving political elites, added fuel to fire of right-wing populism.
Trumpism arguably fractured “fusionism” of the right’s recent coalition. Never-Trumpers on the right include Tea Party idealists and libertarian faithful who hate government overreach in ways Trump never really did. Meanwhile, I see Trumpism repudiating the neoliberalism of the Bush 43 era, with its dogma of free trade arguably lapsing into lost jobs for the middle class, apparently at China’s trade advantage.
Trump supporters include many deep-oriented dissatisfied with their own distasteful yet growing dependence upon government programs, which they understandably blame on an economy rigged by and for elites. Unlike left populism, they see it rigged for corporate elites in bed with big government—against the small business owner, against the struggling rural farmer, against the innovative entrepreneur. What good is free trade if you lose your job and house?
Where right populism appeals to the disillusioned with Republican elites, left populism (sparked by the Sanders 2016 campaign) spoke to disillusionment with Democrat elites. The Hillary campaign appeared tone deaf to the harmful extent of the Great Recession fallout. And Hillary’s connections to it. [Sanders image: Gage Skidmore]
Trumpism appeals to those feeling powerless, who share a common foe in party elites on both sides. The advent of the Internet raises expectations to exact a level of power impossible a few years ago. Most democratic processes, like the annual ballot box and partisan conventions, were built in an era of information scarcity.
The Internet incites the potential of the common person, in ways never before imagined. Why isn’t there an immigration solution a click away? Why isn’t there an app for that? Why aren’t the common person being heard?
Indeed, the Internet takes us into the opposite extreme, to echoing noise. Prognosticated by Huxley in Brave New World, we find the truth gets easily lost in a sea of irrelevance. Comment sections online usually express more trivial pain without disciplined solutions, as if this is how it should be. Populism raises the bar of expectations, but we remain stuck in the old days of placating pain—instead of solving the needs behind all that pain.
Into that storm, I introduce Harmony Politics. Against the grain of outrage tweets, I exhort us to relate to our diverse yet overlooked needs. Against the widespread bitterness of divisive politics, I dare replace it with the radical love of respecting one another’s intractable politicized needs.
3. Stepping further outside polarization
This article on immigration serves as the first in the second series of issue-oriented articles. Let’s harmonize our politics to our diverse needs, to replace bitter divisive politics with greater respect and love for one another. One issue at a time.
Follow each issue here. Links for articles yet to be published will understandably not work yet.
1 Harmonize your immigration politics. Harmonize diverse immigration views.
2 Harmonize your climate change politics. Harmonize diverse climate change views.
3 Harmonize your gun safety politics. Harmonize diverse gun safety views.
4 Harmonize your abortion politics. Harmonize diverse abortion views.
5 Harmonize your healthcare politics. Harmonize diverse healthcare views.
6 Harmonize your criminal justice politics. Harmonize diverse criminal justice views.
7 Harmonize your economy politics. Harmonize diverse economy views.
8 Harmonize your racial politics. Harmonize diverse racial views.
HARMONY POLITICS AND YOU
Consider how Harmony Politics could serve your needs. I consult with political leaders and influencers to link them with the vulnerable needs of their audience. Contact me to explore how I can fit this pioneering approach to your particular need to stand out more.
I cover much of this material in more detail in my eCourse Defusing Polarization: Understanding Divisive Politics. Check out the free units to see if it serves your needs. Share the link with others you know in need of this fresh understanding of politics.
Together, let’s revolutionize politics with love. If we don’t, who will?
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