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Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
, 3 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
LEFTIES: We're proposing this big idea to shift the Overton Window

ME: Actually, this is a pretty mainstream, center-left idea

LEFTIES: Shut up you neoliberal scum

ME: Wait, I thought you said you wanted to shift the Ov--

LEFTIES: HOW DARE YOU SAY OUR BIG IDEA IS CENTRIST
ME: Capitalism helped bring billions out of poverty

CENTRISTS: RIGHT ON!!

ME: Now we just need to raise taxes on the rich

CENTRISTS: Well, OK, provided we --

ME: And expropriate landlords to give poor people houses

CENTRISTS: Now wait just a --

ME: Bolivia is doing great
RIGHTISTS: Restrict immigration to raise wages

ME: Immigration doesn't lower wages

RIGHTISTS: But ILLEGAL immigration --

ME: It's been in reverse since 2007

RIGHTISTS: But diversity lowers trust

ME: The evidence doesn't actually show that

RIGHTISTS: Western Civiliz --

ME:
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Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
A rough calculation says that if Central American immigration pressure lasts for another 20 years, then stringent, draconian Trump-style policies might be able to prevent at most around 750,000 Central Americans from coming to America, in total.
We have to ask ourselves: Is it worth militarizing the border and turning the entire border zone into a "papers, please" police state in order to keep out 750,000 Central Americans?

That's an absolutely ridiculous tradeoff.
And keep in mind that so many Mexicans are going back to Mexico that even with the Central American influx, the overall number of undocumented immigrants is dropping year after year.
Read 4 tweets
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Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
Americans have been massively misinformed about the nature of immigration in their country.
See also:

I bet even fewer Americans know that net illegal immigration ended 12 years ago.
Read 3 tweets
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Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
1/Violence in America has declined so much that I feel like I'm living in a different country than the one I grew up in.
2/When I was a kid, it was just assumed that fighting was a thing everyone did. Kids at my school got disfigured and disabled in fights. Kids drove around with guns. And we all knew that this was one of the safest towns; cities were assumed to be no-go zones.
3/Movies like "Escape From New York" (a little before my time but still representative) would show cities descending into chaos. Everyone assumed that things would just get worse and worse.

imdb.com/title/tt008234…
Read 18 tweets

Related threads

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Jason Segedy 🇺🇸 🇭🇺🇮🇹
@JasonSzegedi
1) Another not-so-short thread on poverty and urban decline. These thoughts are culled from my review of Alan Mallach's "The Divided City". His book is a must-read.
2) The national urban policy conversation, particularly with regards to affordability, housing policy, and gentrification, is completely dominated by voices from the superstar cities on the coasts.
3) Mallach's book reminds us that while downtowns and some favored close-in neighborhoods may be thriving, the vast majority of urban neighborhoods in our older post-industrial cities are getting worse, and experiencing visible, potentially irreversible decline.
Read 38 tweets
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Mangy Jay
@magi_jay
1/ The media is constructing a false narrative around Pelosi & Duckworth's comments. The false narrative has already been picked up by Ocasio-Cortez & will likely spread (hopefully for just a few days). Here are some facts. . . . .
2/ In the aftermath of Ocasio-Cortez's victory, almost everyone I know on here who identifies as either center-left or farther-left CELEBRATED. Or, if they didn't celebrate, people were like: "cool."
3/ Most of us endorsed the idea of the Democratic "big tent," such that leftward movement will look different in given districts than the nation as a whole. Leftward movement will also vary district-to-district.
Read 15 tweets
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Centrism Fan Acct 🔹
@Wilson__Valdez
There are a lot of prominent people, who claim to be principled anti-war activists, who led us to believe that Hillary was the *real* threat, that should be absolutely ashamed to show their faces right now. Yet they're all pretending like it never happened.
None of this is surprising if you were paying attention & weren't looking to confirm your biases that #actually Trump might not be so bad (not as bad as Killary). Most of us saw the threat in real time & called it out. It wasn't subtle.
It's just so incredibly frustrating bc it was all so predictable. You demanded that every journalist & pundit who predicted the election results incorrectly be disgraced; yet this was infinitely more consequential. And yet, you've taken zero responsibility for your actions.
Read 6 tweets
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Dr. Elena M Chandler
@vrolijk5
I got yelled by the grocery lady because I had my earphones on and she was behind me and had to tap me on the shoulder to get my attention. So I was treated to a "That's right, take your headphones off. This is a public place - it's asocial" screed in front of everyone.
And I said "I am not wearing them for fun" as she walked away and everyone looked at me like I was crazy. So I put my groceries back (because I am not asocial) and left. But I stopped off to tell her that she had no right to yell at me...
that I wear my headphones because I am autistic and it is so loud in there, that I would not be able to buy food at all without my headphones. And she apologized and said "I'm sorry - if it is for medical reasons, that's okay."
Read 5 tweets
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James Murray
@James_BG
There's an awful lot going on at the moment, but important to recognise there were some hugely significant developments for the global economy in Paris yesterday - so, here's a bit of a thread on the main points from the #OnePlanetSummit
First up 225 global investors with more than $26.3tr in assets under management pledged to engage with 100 corporates estimated to be responsible for around 85 per cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions /1
What does 'engage' mean? It's stronger than it sounds. businessgreen.com/bg/analysis/30… BG+
Read 25 tweets

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