The republic is in danger. How Texas quarreled with Washington

There will be no civil war, it will be replaced by showdowns in courts of different levels. But there is still no way out of the budget impasse in the House of Representatives. The conflict too seriously affects the interests of the parties in the autumn elections, пишет journalist-observer Sergey Ilchenko for "DS".

US President Joe Biden

The essence of the dispute between Washington and Austin is extremely simple. The flow of illegal migration brings a significant part of the votes to the Democratic Party, and it is interested in keeping this flow to a minimum. For this purpose, the federal authorities actually removed the protection of the border with Mexico and began to prevent the authorities of Texas from organizing it on their own. In turn, the residents of Texas were greatly affected by the flow of migrants.

The fence is not ideal, but a good solution

The history of migration to the United States from Mexico is hundreds of years old, and the problem is not stopping it, which is impossible, but keeping the flow of illegal migrants within reasonable limits. There are different people in this stream, but all together they bring with them a full set of immigrant problems. From the heavy burden on the courts, which have to decide who to leave and who not, and the increase in spending on social welfare for those who will be left, and for the deportation of those who will be refused, to the growth of crime, since illegals are not hired for legal work, but live they need something.

It is clear that some of the unwanted guests skip Texas in transit, but the heaviest sediment remains in Texas. And the transportation of illegals across the border and the accompanying narco-trafficking is not empty-handed, is it? — became a separate specialization of criminal activity.

But since this problem is not new, in Texas they know how to fight it. Not 100% reliable, but not bad: you need to build a fence. A dozen spirals of barbed wire rolled out behind the fence also have a good effect on the migration climate. Plus patrolling the border with catching illegal guests immediately after crossing it and sending them back.

As follows from the experience accumulated over decades, this does not solve the problem radically, but it allows to reduce its severity to an acceptable level.

If things are going worse in Mexico, then the fence needs to be higher, and other measures - more extensive. In some cases, it is possible to help the Mexican neighbors to reduce rampant crime a little, in order to reduce migration pressure. Because if hell is coming in Mexico, then any fence will not help.

And if hell still grows, it is necessary to tighten the legislation and catch illegals throughout the United States, not just on the border with Texas. The fence will be built even stronger, and the number of patrols will be increased.

But the USA is 50 states, each with its own laws and its own set of lobbyists. And a situation is possible when the migration flow is against the force, and no one catches the migrants because they are politically advantageous. For example, they bring votes in elections.

Who will the recent migrants who came to the USA illegally, legalized, obtained citizenship and the right to vote, and who are trying to transfer their relatives the same way, vote for? Obviously, for the one who will not build a fence, but, on the contrary, will understand it, remove border patrols and provide migrants at various stages of legalization and obtaining citizenship with social benefits. By the way, in addition to federal elections, there are also state elections. Even non-citizens with a residence permit can vote for them - not in all states, but in many.

And which category of politicians is profitable to bet on the actual buying of votes of migrants and their relatives? Obviously, the one that citizens who have lived in the country for a long time will not vote for. At least, in the amount that would ensure victory for these politicians.

So, the essence of the conflict is that the US Democratic Party found itself in a situation where migrants are its most important electoral resource. Not only them, however, but different categories of the population living on social benefits intended for citizens who find themselves in a difficult situation - like the three-story bus "Night Knight" in the novels about Harry Potter. By the way, in the film, the situation is shown only on the first floor of the Night Knight. Surely on the second and third floors, where regular passengers settled, everything was much more interesting. Exactly the same as in the case of the payment of allowances, around which a layer of social scum of voters who live on them permanently and are no longer looking for a second life soon forms. Of course, you won't get fat on benefits, but you can make up for the missing money due to criminal activity. The late George Floyd was just such a semi-marginal semi-criminal.

Why are Democrats put on the sidelines?

Because more prosperous citizens do not want to vote for her - in any case, in a quantity sufficient to win the elections. This happened because today's Democrats are infinitely far from the type of American people who made modern America the first country in the world. This position brought America to real production, which created a large layer of highly qualified and highly paid workers, who made up the American middle class.

Then the world began to change. Today, the USA is the source of global governance and influence; global financial center; a factory of new ideas and a base of fundamental science, and, finally, a small sector of modern military production, which in theory can be quickly expanded widely. In fact, as we see, it is more likely no than yes. In any case, in the short term.

Most of the real production over the past 50-60 years has been moved outside the United States, as corporations sought to replace the expensive labor of American workers, who managed to develop mechanisms to protect their rights, with relatively cheap, because they are powerless, labor of workers on the undemocratic periphery. And the stock value of the remaining productions, compared to the stock value of the global instruments listed above, turned out to be insignificant.

But global tools from the above list have a relatively small staff of qualified and highly paid employees. As a result, property inequality is growing in the US, and there is an empty space between the top of society in the form of owners of global tools and highly paid specialists — and low-skilled, low-paid workers employed where their replacement by jobs is still unprofitable.

And the stock value of such global instruments is, in fact, the stock exchange price of shares and other financial obligations, as well as the intellectual property belonging to them. This is a very volatile and conditional value that changes for the slightest reason, and within very wide limits, by tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars. The price of material assets will not jump within such limits under any circumstances. But these assets exist in a single financial space. with global instruments. And wide opportunities for financial speculation on shares of global instruments further reduce the cost of tangible assets.

From the point of view of the economy, this has strong destabilizing effects. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the overall wealth of American billionaires grew by 19%, or by $565 billion. But it was the holders of global instruments and advanced technologies who got rich — for example, Bezos became rich by $36 billion. And most of the real economy was in deep trouble crisis, and the number of Americans who applied for help due to job loss rose to an all-time high of 42,6 million people.

In other words, every time the Fed turned on the printing press, the money injected into the financial market went mainly into financial assets; relatively little went to social programs, and almost nothing went to the real sector.

This process happened earlier: yes, as a result of the 2008 crisis, 0,01% of the US population increased the amount of national wealth they owned from 1% in 1980 to 5%. But the American middle class lost up to 2007% of its annual income from 2010 to 40, falling to the level of the 1990s.

In Europe, the real sector is also being washed away, but to a lesser extent, and there are almost no enterprises whose shares open up equally wide opportunities for financial speculation. Today, Europe is a forge of technologies, the type of activity is also very advanced, but incomparably less speculative. There are many of their own problems, and very serious ones, but, nevertheless, the middle class feels somewhat more confident.

Moreover, based on the graph, in 2015, the middle class on both sides of the Atlantic owned 67% of the national income. There are no more recent data, and the picture is probably worse now, but it has hardly changed fundamentally.

There is 67% and here is 67%, but there is a nuance. In the USA, the bottom 50% of the population can no longer live without social benefits. And they cling to those who promise to continue paying them benefits — the Democratic Party. And 49%, who exist between obese one percenters and impoverished 50 percenters, feel extremely uncomfortable because their social space is shrinking. In addition, they are already sitting up to their ears in loans, which is why their situation is extremely vulnerable. And these people support MAGA, which offers to turn the situation back, reviving real production in the USA, and giving the bottom 50% a chance to get out of poverty on their own.

It sounds nice, but, again, there are nuances. First, the marginalization of a significant part of the bottom 50% has reached the point where they no longer want to change anything. In particular, they do not want to work: the social niche created by allowances and petty crime with periodic prison terms is perceived by them as the norm and does not burden them. And, secondly, all the recipes based on the idea of ​​"turning everything back", as a rule, either do not work at all, or work badly. Leading, among other things, to unpleasant side effects.

Tactically, this gives rise to the current conflict between the two parties over border control. And in strategic, it means a type of crisis from which capitalism has no economic and political mechanisms. Paul Mason in the book "Post-capitalism: a guide to our future" talks about the "big gap" due to the digital revolution, when the information capacity of the individual sharply resonates with the benefits he receives. This is not the only problem, and Mason does not offer an acceptable solution. But he is right in that the old recipes no longer work. The system has reached the limit of development, not by 1-2-3, but by many parameters, and must be radically rebuilt. But there are no politically and economically viable projects for its reconstruction today. The conversation about how and under what conditions they can appear is a separate topic. And the elections and the fight for the White House, and for the votes of the electors, are here and now.

Texas, here and now

On January 22, the US Supreme Court ruled that federal agents and the National Guard must remove barbed wire from the Texas-Mexico border, installed by the Texas state authorities.

Responding to the sentiments of the state's residents, most of whom support the Republicans, and who are already overwhelmed by the Democrats' immigration chaos, the state's governor, Greg Abbott, said that Texas had been invaded. This created a new reality in which the ruling of the Supreme Court issued before the invasion could not be implemented, and which allowed Abbott, referring to Article 1, Section 10, Paragraph 3 of the US Constitution, to declare martial law. After that, start acting without regard for the federal government, using the State National Guard as an instrument.

In Washington, they grumbled in displeasure - they say, the "invasion" mentioned in the Constitution is a military invasion, not a migration crisis, but another 25 republican states expressed solidarity with Texas and sent units of their National Guards to help.

The point here is not in quantity - Texas itself has enough strength and resources to cope with the situation, but in what was sent. The federal border guards pretended that they could not see the wire installed by the state, and declared that it did not interfere with them, and they would not remove it. And they began to guard the border together with the National Guard - however, they had no other options. Other options are to be expelled from the border with kicks in the ass, and the border guards don't need that. They are also Texans, they still live and work there. And migrant lawlessness got them, as residents of the state, too.

In general, the situation has not left the legal field, and there are no signs that it can leave it. All parties maneuver and work within the framework of the law. So, although the analogies with the beginning of the Civil War are obvious, they are wrong in principle.

Biden, seeing the scale of the resistance, took a step back, saying on Friday that he was ready to close the border in exchange for a deal to finance Ukraine, and "if the bipartisan border security law [drafted in the Senate] is passed by Congress."

In response, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Michael Johnson, said that the compromise bill drafted in the Senate, where the Democrats have a majority, will not pass the House of Representatives. Moreover, no new law is needed at all to solve the problems on the southern border. Johnson also listed the actions that Biden could take within the framework of the already available powers of the president.

"As I said in my letter [at the end of last year], President Biden can secure the border by ending the practice of 'catch and release', restoring the 'Stay in Mexico' program, expanding the use of expedited deportation powers and restarting construction of the border wall."

In general, the end of the conflict is not in sight, and, therefore, the prospects of unblocking Ukraine's financing are not yet visible. But that's another story.

Read also on Newsky "By mutual consent. Azerbaijan demonstrates exit from PACE" and look at Boring Pence YouTube channel.

To always be up to date, subscribe to TG channel Newsky. We also recommend the current discussion of friends of Ukraine in North America on Rashkin Report YouTube channel.