Tom Nichols

So we have to begin to tell a story about how immigration policy has been connected in interesting sorts of ways to what J.D.

Vance talked about.

That is, we're not just simply about creed and ideas.

We're about blood and soil.

And we can look at the history of immigration law.

And that's quite evident.

The second part of it, Nicole, is the selfishness, the zero sum game.

We're sold a bill of goods that there's only so much to go around, and big government is putting its thumb on the scale to benefit these black and brown and poor folk who are lazy, who don't want to work, and they're going to take it from you, who are working hard.

I came of age in the 80s, not the 70s, Tom, and that discourse was prevalent in terms of how we talk about the attack on the social safety net.

So when we think about all of these things together—

It seems to me that we can't disentangle them.

Race is operating.

Class is operating.

A certain conception of government is operating.

And we have to try to keep track of it all.

But it seems to me that we can't get better.

We can't become the kinds of people that democracies require if we keep lying to ourselves about who we are.

And I think...

Being honest, that decency isn't the defining attribute of the American public.

It's something that we aspire to be.