The USA put an end to most immigration in 1924 under Calvin Coolidge and kept the door mostly closed for 40 years. It did this because the country was coming apart at the seams - losing any sense of itself. This break allowed it to gain coherence again - allowing it to win WW2. It also continued to develop internally, build infrastructure and innovate. Under Eisenhower in the 1950s we even had balanced budgets while building up the interstate highway system - and undertaking mass deportations in Operation Wetback. Hyperventilating over ‘skilled immigration’ feels a little desperate. Like people really want to stack that business bottom line and keep wages down. But the country is at least as bad as in 1924. It lacks coherence, which these debates - their overtly ethnic tone - reveals. So let’s take a long break. And the businessmen will do fine - they just might make slightly less.

Please read this. It's literally been 8 years in the writing. The first wave of tech disruption of democracy 2016-2024 is over. What starts now is something much, much worse: the age of information chaos. 1/ theguardian.com/commentisfre…