Exposing The Tanton Network: The Bigoted Anti-Immigrant Movement

[Nevilledog]

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https://rantt.com/exposing-the-tanton-network-the-bigoted-anti-immigrant-movement


The contemporary anti-immigration movement in the United States is largely the product of decades of organizing, fundraising, and ideological work by one man — John Tanton, a Michigan ophthalmologist who founded, funded, or otherwise nurtured more than a dozen nativist groups. The network of groups Tanton built up still dominates the politics of immigration in America, with one of those groups testifying to Congress at least 90 times, another at least 130 times, and a third playing a critical role in killing bipartisan immigration reform in 2007 and 2014. The network was also a key supporter of former President Donald Trump’s harshest and cruelest immigration policies.

Tanton died in 2019, but the legacy of his work is very much alive. Immigration reform has proved incredibly difficult, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, thanks largely to the political influence, lobbying reach, and allegedly nonpartisan studies produced by Tanton’s network. Under Trump, who was arguably the U.S. president with the most extreme nativist views in at least a century, the administration regularly relied on studies and other support from parts of the network to back its most draconian policies, including the so-called “Muslim ban,” the slashing of refugee programs, and opposition to protection from deportation of “Dreamers,” who were brought to America by their parents while still young children.

Even after Trump’s 2020 reelection defeat, his ideas and those of the Tanton network were still being actively championed by Stephen Miller, who was for four years Trump’s senior advisor for policy. Miller, who remains intensely focused on immigration issues, followed up his service to Trump by continuing to attack Democrats, President Joe Biden in particular, for allegedly being “soft” on immigration.

Tanton began his ideological odyssey on what is normally considered the political left, focused on the alleged threats of overpopulation and, in particular, its potentially negative effects on the environment. Over the decades, however, he began to adopt more and more far-right positions, including contempt for Latinos, Africans and other non-white immigrants, along with “low-IQ” individuals. He developed close relationships with white nationalists, Holocaust deniers, anti-Semites, and other extremists.

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About the author

Mark Potok is an expert on the radical right who for 20 years was a senior official at the Southern Poverty Law Center. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.

[Budi]

1. K & R A story of US history that MUST be told & read.

I've never heard of this, so Thank You for bringing it to light.

It actually makes a lot of political patterns much clearer.

[dalton99a]

2. Tanton's father was a Canadian immigrant

In other correspondence, Tanton wrote, “I’ve come to the point of view that for European American society and culture to persist requires a European American majority, and a clear one at that.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which considers FAIR to be a hate group, published multiple exposes on Tanton over the years. He didn’t care.

He is survived by his wife and two daughters. Tanton lived most of his adult life in Petoskey, a resort town on the shores of Lake Michigan that he boasted in one of his last interviews had “virtually no immigrant population.”

https://www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2019-07-18/john-tanton-dead-anti-immigrant

[Budi]

3. Wow. He sounds like those miserable Koch bros.

To hate at this level for your entire lifetime, is quite chilling.

ick ~

[CousinIT]

4. I had no idea. BOOKMARKING.

This is important info and context. Thank you.

[alwaysinasnit]

5. k&r for visibility

[2naSalit]

6. K&R