DeSantis brilliant move in sending migrants to Martha's Vineyard

 Hugo Gurdon:

What made the Left so furious when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard? It got under liberal skin more than Texas Gov. Greg Abbott dropping a couple of busloads on Vice President Kamala “The Border is Secure” Harris’s doorstep in Washington, D.C., although liberals excoriated that, too.

It can’t have been an objection in principle, for leftists defend President Joe Biden busing thousands of migrants to small Texas border towns and stranding them there. They’re cool also with him tricking illegally migrating Haitians on to planes bound for the Caribbean “s***hole" the victims haven’t lived in for years. And you hear no griping from bien pensants of the Left when Democratic mayors in Texas add to Abbott’s northward transports to New York City.

The lefties also accuse DeSantis of cruelty, but you have to fall into the common error of assuming one’s political opponents are stupid to think they believe this. Attorney Rachel Self, briefing the press with much casuistic tripe, said, “Ensuring that no help at all awaited the migrants was the entire point.” What a load of manure!

Of course, the point wasn’t to prevent the migrants from getting help. No one still awake believed that local authorities in Martha’s Vineyard would ignore the migrants once they got off the aircraft. It was obvious that when they set foot on the luxurious and desirable acres of the Massachusetts island officials and members of the public would rush to provide food and shelter for them. Isn’t that why Martha’s Vineyard has described itself as a “sanctuary” for migrants — because they intend to care for them? Sending migrants unannounced merely replicated in miniature the lack of cooperation federal officials show toward border towns (and the lack of cooperation sanctuary cities show toward federal immigration officials, for that matter) on a much bigger scale.

The airlift was only ever going to cause brief inconvenience and ruffle the balmy days of late summer for the vineyard’s rich inhabitants. There was no possibility of real hardship for anyone. There was no danger of migrants going hungry or being forced to endure harsh outdoor conditions. Did any of them die, as 750 have so far this year because Biden blithely ignores the disaster his abject nonpolicy has created at the southern border?

The Left also claims the migrants were lied to with promises of jobs and that the journey might aid their chances of legal status in America. If officials responsible tricked the migrants, as Biden did the Haitians, they should be punished. But it is not clear there were any lies. In fact, many of the migrants themselves told reporters they were grateful to have been given the opportunity to get on the flight. And if there was some sort of deception, it is far from clear that it was approved from on high rather than mere freelance untruths from individuals. Either way, does anyone really think migrants will be punished with legal jeopardy if they’ve been tricked? Hardly.

We can therefore dismiss notions that leftist rage over the Martha’s Vineyard gambit was based on principle, supposed cruelty, or legal chicanery. So, what was it?

It was, surely, that the political stunt — for it was a political stunt — worked so spectacularly well. Lefties can dish it — they love to — but they sure can’t take it when someone dishes it on them.

DeSantis’s political legerdemain is galling and utterly infuriating to the White House and other Democrats because it’s the kind of showy contrivance they like to reserve for themselves, such as when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) pretended to be arrested at an abortion rights rally on Capitol Hill in July.

Thus, when the migrant flights arrived in Martha’s Vineyard, “progressives” clutched their pearls, lifted their petticoats, and shrieked in horror. They said it was illegal, cruel, and dishonest. Hillary Clinton, always willing to go one worse than most others, denounced the flight to the exclusive vacation island as human trafficking. No epithet was too extreme.

But what they wouldn’t admit was that it was witty, clever, and effective. It deftly exposed the Democrats’ nimbyism about migrants. The airlift obliged a self-declared “sanctuary” jurisdiction to deal very briefly in practice with what it espouses in preening moral theory.
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Gov. Abbott's busing of migrants to Kamala Harris's house after she proclaimed the border is secure was also brilliant.  Abbott and DeSantis are exposing Democrats' migrant scam and their reaction to it proves how successful they have been.  Joe Biden's immigration policy has been a disgrace from the very beginning.  He has earned the right to be impeached for his dereliction of duty.

See, also:

Things Take an Unexpected Turn as Some Martha's Vineyard Residents Applaud DeSantis, Bash Biden