Windows past / future
Top: This dairy farm rests on the backs of immigrant labor, both papered with legal and undocumented. As night falls, cows fresh from milking, line up to stare out the barn windows—for no reason apparent to me. More clear is why Trump and his minions have whipped up waves of anti-immigrant rage and hatred. Inevitably, though, this scapegoating will clash with the financial imperatives (aka greed) of his wealthy backers, who understand the economic certainty that without immigrants, a shortage of agricultural and factory workers will undermine the economy and Trump’s political support.
Watching this contradiction play out would be good schadenfreude-ish fun … were it not for the terrible human cost.
Below: Shot from a train traveling through New Jersey at sunset. Boarded-up manufacturing facilities like this one line an industrial wasteland.
Immigrant workers, indluding undocumented, also provide factory and construction labor. There is now an additional split with Trump and Musk on one side, and the MAGA fanatics on the other. The former want to keep the special visas for skilled workers and professionals, while the many of the MAGAs would kick them out, especially if they are from non-white countries. Big surprise?