The political news cycle is fast, and keeping up can be overwhelming. Trying to find differing perspectives worth your time is even harder. That’s why we have scoured the internet for political writing from the right and left that you might not have seen.
Has this series exposed you to new ideas? Tell us how. Email us at ourpicks@nytimes.com.
For an archive of all the Partisan Writing Roundups, check out Our Picks.
From the Right
John Daniel Davidson in The Federalist:
“Although his phrasing was crude and unnecessary, Trump wasn’t wrong about the actual countries in question. Haiti, El Salvador, and many countries in Africa — and all over the world, for that matter — are indeed a horrible mess by any objective measure.”
Mr. Davidson turns the conversation around the president’s words toward American exceptionalism. It is not because “Americans are uniquely virtuous or somehow better than people from poor countries,” but because the American “system of government and the constitutional order our founding fathers bequeathed us” make the United States a country worth immigrating to, he writes. That is why, he says, so many immigrants from those countries “come to America and prosper.” Read more »
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Pat Buchanan in Townhall:
“In U.S. presidential elections, persons of color whose roots are in Asia, Africa and Latin America vote 4-1 Democratic, and against the candidates favored by American’s vanishing white majority. Not for the first time, liberal ideology comports precisely with liberal interests.”
You cannot escape race in the immigration debate, Mr. Buchanan argues, while pointing to the demographic composition of the two major political parties. “Americans have the sovereign right to discriminate in favor of some continents, countries and cultures, and against others,” Mr. Buchanan further argues, “in a tradition as old as the Republic.” A tradition he reviews carefully. Read more »
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From the Left
“[Mr. Trump’s] comment was a clarifying moment. Such moments often make clear fundamentally contradictory visions of America. It’s impossible to negotiate with people who believe any change to America-as-they-see-it is an existential threat — and when they’re direct or boorish enough to say that out loud, it saves everyone the time and trouble of trying to compromise.”
Even if it appears “almost unimaginably hard to figure out a way to ‘end chain migration’ that would both pass Congress and avoid a collapse of the immigration system,” a policy debate can still be had. But, Ms. Lind argues, “you can’t negotiate” with those who want no immigration. She sums up: “Either America is a nation of immigrants or it is a nation of blood and soil. It cannot be both.”
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Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post:
“Republicans say they want a “merit-based” system of immigration. That has a nice, neutral sound. Who can argue against merit? But Trump has made clear that what he means to do is halt or reverse the demographic trends that are making this nation increasingly diverse — trends that are wholly consistent with U.S. history.”
Mr. Robinson thinks Mr. Trump’s language creates a wedge between congressional Republican leadership and the president. “There is nothing inherently racist about the free-market conservatism that Republicans cherish and advocate,” Mr. Robinson argues, “but there is everything racist about the white ethnocentric theory of American identity that Trump champions with remarkable frankness.” Read more »
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Finally, From the Center
Buck Gee and Albert Shen in USA Today
“Amid 19th century American nativism, Asian-Americans — now recognized as high achievers — were then branded ‘a race of people whom nature has marked as inferior, and who are incapable of progress or intellectual development.’”
Mr. Gee, a self-identified Republican, and Mr. Shen, a former Obama appointee, draw sharp parallels between the language around the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the president’s comments about Haiti and African nations today. They point to recognition from Congress in 1988 and 2011 that “affirmed the truth that punitive policies targeting Asian immigrants were misguided.” They express hope that the United States does not have to apologize in the future for a similar mistake today. Read more »
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Chris Cillizza in CNN:
“Debating what exact word he used to further that longstanding practice is pointless. The real key here is that the sentiment expressed by Trump in that meeting — no matter what exact word(s) he chose — is one of intolerance. And that runs directly counter to America’s founding ideal.”
Mr. Cillizza constructs a thought exercise and asks what the reaction would be if the President used the phrase “undesirable countries” to describe Haiti and African nations. “Would the fact that he didn’t use a curse word change anything? Of course not,” he concludes. And so focusing on the vulgar language is only a distraction from the sentiment conveyed and the larger policy implications beyond it. Read more »
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