If immigrants determine the outcome of U.S. elections, why pay for a military?

Front page of nytimes.com on November 10:

“An influx of immigrants has flipped a state….”

From the article:

Not long ago, this rolling green stretch of Northern Virginia was farmland. Most people who could vote had grown up here. And when they did, they usually chose Republicans.

The fields of Loudoun County are disappearing. In their place is row upon row of cookie-cutter townhouses, clipped lawns and cul-de-sacs — a suburban landscape for as far as the eye can see. Unlike three decades ago, the residents are often from other places, like India and Korea. And when they vote, it is often for Democrats.

In 1990, the census tracts that make up Mr. Katkuri’s Senate district were home to about 35,000 people — 91 percent of them white. Today, its population of 225,000 is just 64 percent white.

“If my parents came back today, they wouldn’t recognize the place. The changes came like a tidal wave.”

In the 13th Senate district, where Mr. Katkuri lives, one in five residents are immigrants.

Around the advent of the modern immigration system, in 1965, foreign-born people made up only about five percent of the American population. Now they are nearly 14 percent, almost as high as the last peak in the early 20th century. The concentrations used to be in larger gateway cities, but immigrants have spread out considerably since then.

The main purpose of funding a military is to prevent people from other countries from exercising political control, right? If the NYT is correct and people from other countries (“immigrants”) are exercising political control in the U.S. already, what is the point of working all of those extra hours each year to fund our $700 billion military?

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18 thoughts on “If immigrants determine the outcome of U.S. elections, why pay for a military?

  1. “Main purpose of funding a military is to prevent people from other countries from exercising political control” — not quite sure that is the main purpose. I believe we have leadership that quite openly invites people from other countries to exercise political control! And at the same time we keep increasing our defense department expenditures. Seems more like our defense spending is a big corporate welfare program or income redistribution system.

  2. The military is for defending the economy. All governments eventually turn socialist & run out of money. It’s hard to believe all these wealthy immigrants with superior foreign educations & superior jobs are going to turn away from the home equity Trump has brought to focus on the social justice crisis of the week.

    • Our government is showing that you don’t have to be “socialist” to run out of money. Deficits don’t care whether you give the money you don’t have to a welfare queen or a CEO. And whether rich or poor: Everyone loves a nice handout!!!

  3. Wait, have the trumpenführer and congress decided that everyone residing in the US can vote? because if the laws have not been changed overnight, and if people you are talking about are voters, the are *US citizens* not *immigrants*. Their backgrounds before becoming US citizens (naturalised or offspring of, gasp, non white US citizens) is irrelevant.

    • You can be a citizen and an immigrant. The background is irrelevant for voting, but it’s not irrelevant for a story of a community, of a country. You surely have realised that even today, many Americans present themselves saying “I’m Italian”, “I’m half Polish, half Korean”.

    • I have some friends who are Irish, i.e. that were born and raised in Ireland. They retch every time someone born and raised in the US by parents born and raised in the US tell them they are ‘Irish’. Your constant incorrect use of geographic qualifiers to describe yourselves is just another example of how profoundly divided and tribal you people are. One is Irish only if one is from Ireland, not because great-grandpa was born there (allegedly). A community that uses ‘anglo-polish’ (or whatever) to describe itself is a community of lunatics.

      Immigrants that are citizens are called naturalized citizens. If their loyalty is not with their new country and new community, use better screening.

  4. «The main purpose of funding a military is to prevent people from other countries from exercising political control, right?»

    Wrong. First, voting immigrants aren’t foreigners exercising control. If they’re illegally voting, that’s another topic, but you don’t need a military to solve that, like most other countries in the world

    Second, arguably the main purpose of funding US military is to exercise control (political or otherwise) over American interests overseas.

  5. I wish we had used the military to ensure that the Jews, Irish and Italians couldn’t mess up our political system too!!

    • And that’s the picture worth a million words. It’s the same thing here, just slightly different – all on purpose.

    • @anon: I mean its your picture, and you’re asking me questions about it?

      What b.s. narrative you want to spin I guess, go for it.

      PS the “GBTQ”s are in the picture ( hint you can’t tell by looking at someone ).

  6. The main purpose of funding a military is to prevent people from other countries from exercising political control, right?

    Historically, the main purposes of funding a military was to kill people and break things. The purpose of funding today’s military is to build an ever-increasing jobs program.

  7. Some good reading here, apropos of this post, regarding MS-13 in Fairfax and Northern Virginia.

    “As of late 2019, MS-13 has approximately 3,000 members, on par with recent years’ figures, according to two officials. Jay Lanham, executive director of the task force, named MS-13 “by far the largest gang in Northern Virginia,” adding, “Due to the transient nature of gangs and that many are here illegally, it is impossible to give accurate numbers.” ICE arrested 4,341 gang members in fiscal 2019, 10% of whom belonged to MS-13.”

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/they-escaped-ms-13-in-central-america-only-to-find-the-gang-thriving-in-northern-virginia

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