SALON: Musk's "illegal" past doesn't feel like hypocrisy to MAGA -- this is about race, not immigration [View all]

[Miles Archer]

REMEMBER "It's the ECONOMY, stupid?"

Well...the issue MAGAts have with "IMMIGRATION" isn't IMMIGRANTS. It's RACE.

Elon Musk's "illegal" past doesn't feel like hypocrisy to MAGA — Trump's hate rally in NYC shows why
Attacks on Puerto Ricans and other native-born citizens made it clear: this is about race, not immigration

https://www.salon.com/2024/10/29/elon-musks-illegal-past-doesnt-feel-like-hypocrisy-to-maga--hate-rally-in-nyc-shows-why/

Last week, the Washington Post reported that Tesla CEO and Donald Trump super-fan Elon Musk was once, to use the term favored by MAGA, an "illegal." Which is to say, he did what the vast majority of undocumented immigrants do in the U.S. After he traveled here legally, he overstayed a visa and then worked without the legal authorization to do so. Investors were so worried the South African native would be deported that they even stipulated that he obtain legal status in their contracts, creating a paper trail proving his "illegal" status. As for why readers should care, the Post reporters offered a "hypocrisy" frame, noting, "Musk in recent months has amplified the Republican presidential candidate’s claims that 'open borders' and undocumented immigrants are destroying America."

The MAGA world shrugged, but not because they are especially talented at managing cognitive dissonance. No, they don't see this story as evidence of hypocrisy. I generally loathe semantic debates, but this one matters. The Post reporters assume, incorrectly, that when Musk, Trump and their allies are ranting about "illegals," they mean immigrants who don't have proper documentation to live and work in the U.S. But if you pay attention to how the word is used in context, it's clear Musk and company use "illegals" as a catch-all category for all non-white immigrants, and, increasingly, any native-born American citizen whose skin color or ethnic heritage MAGA dislikes. To MAGA, an undocumented white immigrant is fine. But a legal immigrant with darker skin — or even a native-born citizen — is an "illegal."

A scan of Musk's relentless tweets on this front illustrates this. A recent middle-of-the-night tweet from Musk screeched about "the magnitude of the illegal voter importation program under Biden-Harris." President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are not "importing" anyone. Other tweets show Musk is alluding to immigrants, most of whom aren't white, who are entering under international asylum laws, which means they have a legal right to be here. This isn't "importing" immigrants, but a government program allowing those with a pre-existing desire to relocate to do so legally. By definition, it's legal.

Nor is Musk alone. Most of the time, when MAGA leaders say "illegals" or "illegal immigrants," they are demonizing legal immigrants. When Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, pushed a lie that Haitian immigrants steal and eat people's pets, they weren't just lying about their behavior. They characterized them as "illegal," even though these folks are part of a government program allowing them to live and work in the U.S. When Vance was corrected during the vice presidential debate by moderator Margaret Brennan, who told viewers the Haitians in question have legal status, Vance whined "You guys weren’t going to fact-check" so obnoxiously they cut his microphone.