MEASLES IS SPREADING AMONG UNASSIMILATED FOREIGN LANGUAGE SPEAKERS -- J.D. VANCE, YOUR THOUGHTS?

At The Bulwark, Will Saletan writes about the ethnic bigotry of J.D. Vance, which Vance portrays as a concern about assimilation:

ON TUESDAY, JD VANCE rebuked Americans of Ukrainian ancestry who oppose his betrayal of Ukraine. The rebuke is instructive. It shows us how Vance, Donald Trump, and many of their followers think about immigration and foreign policy. They’re hostile not just to illegal immigration but also to legal immigration from certain countries. And they’re willing to target ethnic minorities in the United States by raising insinuations of dual loyalty.

Saletan is responding to this Vance tweet:

Here’s what Vance tweeted on Tuesday:

Saletan goes on to write:

YOU MIGHT INFER from Vance’s tweet that he has a particular beef with uppity Ukrainian Americans. But his problem with immigrants is much broader. It’s part of a long-term pattern of denigrating ethnicities and ancestries.

Saletan cites not only Vance's racist lies about Haitians in American eating pets and complaints that other (presumably brown-skinned) immigrants don't speak English, but also the following:

● In 2021, Vance claimed that waves of “Italian, Irish, and German immigration” around the turn of the twentieth century led to “ethnic enclaves” and “higher crime rates” in America. To fix that, he boasted, “One of the cool things that we did in the 1920s is we just sort of slowed down immigration a little bit.”...

● In August 2024, Vance defended his 2021 remarks about Italian, Irish, and German immigrants. “When you have these massive ethnic enclaves forming in our country, it can sometimes lead to higher crime rates,” he repeated. “What we want is an American immigration policy that promotes assimilation.” ...

● Later in October, while discussing Muslims on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Vance warned about a “large influx of immigrants who don’t necessarily assimilate into Western values but try to create, I think, a religious tyranny at the local level.” He added: “If you think that won’t happen at a national level, you’re crazy.”

So you'd think Vance would be horrified by the measles outbreak in Texas.

The Mennonite population being affected by a measles outbreak in West Texas is part of a larger, loosely affiliated group of churches worldwide with varied beliefs and leadership structures — and with sometimes strained or distant relations with health officials and other public authorities....

Some Mennonites have largely assimilated into mainstream culture and dress.... Other Mennonites maintain traditions similar to the Amish, with tight-knit, separatist communities marked by such things as limited technology, nonviolence, male leadership and traditional dress, including women’s head coverings.

Women's head coverings usually make right-wingers see red, but apparently not in this case.

While it’s not immediately clear which Mennonite community has been affected, the Gaines County area includes a community with a distinctive history....

Old Colony Mennonites migrated first to the Russian Empire, then to Canada, then to Mexico, fleeing government pressures to assimilate.... As economic conditions deteriorated in Mexico, some moved to such areas as Gaines County and other communities in Texas and nearby states in the 1980s and 1990s. All along, they have preserved their Low German dialect and other cultural distinctions.

They still speak a foreign language! In America! Isn't "Speak English or die" the usual right-wing response to communities like this?

The Hill quotes a spokesperson for the state health department:

“Most of the cases are in a close-knit, under vaccinated Mennonite community in Gaines County. The important nuance here is that it is their lifestyle and not the church that is the reason for many people being unvaccinated,” the spokesperson told The Hill in a statement.

“The Mennonite church allows for free choice on vaccination and it is not widely against vaccination,” they added. “Mennonite families don’t seek traditional health care regularly so they are not prompted to vaccinate their children on a schedule and many attend small private schools in their community so they are not required to get vaccinated for school.”

Small private schools? You mean, like madrassas?

To most right-wing racists, the distinction between this group and the communities they despise is simple: this community is white and the others aren't. But Vance's ethnic bigotry seems to be more extreme than most. As Saletan notes, he complains even about “Italian, Irish, and German immigration” a century or so ago. He's a British Isles chauvinist, or maybe a Scots-Irish chauvinist. But he won't say a negative word about these unassimilated, German-speaking separatist Mennonites because they're Christian and culturally conservative in most ways, so he thinks their very existence owns the libs.

And that's all that matters. It's why he never said a word, as far as I know, when polio appeared in an undervaccinated ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in New York State in 2022: The ultra-Orthodox are politcally and culturally conservative, so their lack of assimilation (and lack of Anglo-Gaelic genes) isn't a problem for him. Vance is an ethnic bigot, but even his bigotry is in bad faith.