David Brooks, Immigration, and the Fallacy of Practical Politics
There used to be a joke on the left in the late 1980s and early 1990s regarding Michael Kinsley, then the liberal co-host of CNN’s…
There used to be a joke on the left in the late 1980s and early 1990s regarding Michael Kinsley, then the liberal co-host of CNN’s Crossfire. He wasn’t particularly liberal — more of a Clinton Democrat than an old-school labor-style progressive — so it was said he wasn’t a liberal but he played one on TV.
I don’t disagree with this assessment — or not completely. Brooks is reasonable, often humane, and sometimes offers ideas that a liberal could get behind. But Brooks’ reasonableness — which is as much about tone as it is about ideas — masks his ideology. He wants us to believe he has risen above ideology. But his conservative pragmatism, his center-right argument for compromise, is an ideology of its own. Brooks claims only to be interested in action. That action, however, belies a set of assumptions he never fully reveals. On the immigration issue, he uses the language of pragmatism to assail “extremism,” which he defines using the received wisdom tied to partisan divisions, even as he dismisses the very real ideological divide that exists on this issue.
In a column earlier this week, he characterizes the argument as being between extremists — Trump and his aggressively punitive and xenophobic approach on one side and open borders on the other. This simplification allows him to ride in as a white knight of moderation with a prescription that we are not supposed to question. After all, he tells us that the solution is easy — or, at least, “in theory, not hard.” Set priorities, he says, then act. Of course, what the priorities should be is the sticking point. His priorities go unstated, but are fairly apparent when you look at his plan:
Over the short term do the things any practical mayor would do: build new detention centers at the border; expand the capacities at the ports of entry; expand the number of judge teams, to speed through the backlog; create an orderly release procedure coordinated with humanitarian agencies; increase the number of counselors so refugees can navigate the system; vet children in their home countries for refugee status so they don’t have to make a fruitless trip.
Some of this is logical, even needed. But it also focuses on mostly punitive measures and limiting access to the United States. It is at base a restrictionist short-term agenda — but less problematic than his long-term solution, which is all about law enforcement and pre-selecting the “good immigrants.” Here’s what he offers:
Over the long term, you help build better police and justice systems in the home countries. You cooperate with Mexico to jointly tackle this challenge we face together. You might shift to a more skills-based immigration system while increasing the number of refugees we take in each year.
This, he says, is the practical approach, offered in a non-ideological manner, without presumptions. That’s BS, of course. His assumptions are fairly clear: change the system to a “skill-based” one, which implies that the other approaches — family unification, for instance, or the so-called visa lottery, which is designed to foster diversity and to focus the system on the immigrant and not on what business wants — would be de-emphasized or eliminated. He doesn’t say this directly, but sometimes one must look at what has been left out to understand what is being argued.
His moderation here, he says and many will agree, should make him an honest broker between two opposing and unreconcilable philosophies. But dig down. Look at the unstated assumptions. Consider how he misrepresents those two arguments. He’s far from offering an honest, “politics of practical action.”