One of the great mysteries of the modern age is why the people in charge of Western countries are so determined to fill up their lands with foreigners. The greed explanation implies a level of coordination that seems implausible. The Machiavellian angle is similarly flawed. Left wing parties gain some benefit from mass immigration, but it comes at a price. That and right wing parties are just as enthusiastic.

There’s also the fact the current voters are wildly opposed to immigration. Polling for years now has made it clear that opposition to immigration is a winner. As long as you avoid sounding like Taki commenters, you can win a lot of votes by opposing mass immigration. This recent poll shows that Trump, with all his faults, is being carried to the top strictly on opposition to immigration.

Immigration: When Donald Trump proposed mandatory deportation of illegal aliens, pundits and politicians on both sides of the political aisle were appalled. But on this issue it looks like Trump has the public on his side.

The fire from the right was almost as fierce as that from the left. “It’s not conservative and it’s not realistic and it does not embrace American values,” said Jeb Bush.

Sen. Lindsey Graham called it “absolute gibberish.”

Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer called the idea “crackpot” and “morally obscene.”

But the prize for overheated rhetoric goes to Hillary Clinton, who said Trump wants to “literally pull people out of their homes and their workplaces, round them up, put them, I don’t know, in buses, boxcars, in order to take them across our border.”

So what do these folks say about the fact that the majority of Americans back Trump on this?

The latest IBD/TIPP Poll asked 913 adults coast to coast if they “support or oppose mandatory deportation of illegal immigrants in the U.S.” Not surprisingly, 87% of Trump supporters back the proposal.

What’s surprising is that 59% of the overall public does as well. Mandatory deportation gets majority support in all age groups except 18-24, every income group, among both women and men, at every level of educational achievement, and in rural, urban and suburban regions.

More interesting still is the fact that 64% of independents and 55% of moderates support deportation.

Even among Hispanics, the poll found 40% backed mandatory deportation — although the sample size is too small to make much of that number.

Trump’s other proposals don’t do as well. Just under half the public favors building a wall along the southern border (48%) or an end to automatic citizenship for children born of illegals (46%). But a majority of independents (55%) back building the wall.

What’s going on here?

The tone and the wording suggest the answer to the puzzle at the top of this post and the question in the article are the same. The people in charge have turned open borders and mass immigration into a sacrament. Instead of looking at it like any other public policy, they view it as the modern equivalent of opposing fascism or slavery. There’s simply no room in the mental space to consider any other option. You are for open borders or you are evil.

This article ostensibly about how immigration is the defining issue of the age illustrates the bizarre lunacy of the managerial class with regards to immigration.

This, incidentally, is why I am convinced that there was no way that the GOP could have precluded the Donald Trump moment in American politics by passing comprehensive immigration reform two years ago. The movement of people from country to the city, from poor nations to richer nations, from the Global South to the Global North, may be the great political problem of the next age in global development. Just as the building of trade routes and the maintenance of empires defined the mercantile age, then the construction of a political economy (capitalist or socialist) became the major problem of the industrial age, the mass movement of people may be the defining issue of whatever we’re calling the information age.

Let that sink in for a minute. The solution to the great revolt over immigration was to pass legislation effectively eliminating the nation’s borders. Put another way, if the people are upset over immigration the solution is more immigration. If it rains too much, the solution is more immigration. If it rains too little, more immigration!

What seems to be happening here is the beautiful people have made open borders the star on their belly. They don’t think about. They don’t even believe in it. It’s all about displaying their piety. The West is experiencing a version of the Lace Curtain Irish versus the Shanty Irish. One group of people, in this case the managerial class, defines itself purely in opposition to the other people, in this case the middle class.

Compounding this is the deeply held belief by the beautiful that they are pulling the wagon and the middle class is freeloading on them. Immigration is a form of spite, revenge upon people our betters see as their burden. It’s how allegedly conservative chattering skulls find it so easy to mock the supporters of Donald Trump. They have never cared for the hoi polloi anyway, so this is a convenient excuse to make that point.

The future is always battled out in the streets. Scenes like this one are becoming more common in Europe and much worse is on tap as the tide of migrants promises to flood European cities. The people in charge face a choice. They can roll the tanks over their citizens in favor of their new charges from abroad. Or, they can yield to the demands of the people. The only question left is just how much blood will be spilled over this suicidal lunacy that has gripped the ruling elites.