Jack is correct that the operative mechanism here is definitional, not numerical. Authoritarian governments have always understood that controlling categories is more durable than controlling people — the refugee question in the 1930s was not resolved by arguing about quotas but by redefining who qualified as a persecuted person in the first place. What the Trump administration has done with the Afrikaner programme is precisely this: it has installed a competing moral framework in which whiteness, in a post-apartheid democracy, becomes legible as victimhood. The Reuters reporting makes the evidentiary situation clear — the photos and videos Trump presented were misrepresented, South African police data shows farm murders kill more Black people than whites, and Pretoria has formally rejected the persecution narrative. None of that has disrupted the programme, because the programme was never dependent on the evidence being true. It was dependent on the narrative being useful.
Jack is correct, too, that the template is the point. Note which countries are never described as producing refugees worth prioritizing. Note which forms of displacement — from war zones the United States helped create, from economies destabilized by American foreign policy — are now categorically ineligible. The Reuters piece contains a detail that should not be overlooked: white South Africans are moving back to South Africa in growing numbers, citing American mass shootings and ICE violence as reasons they no longer feel safe in the United States. A man who left Johannesburg after being held at gunpoint says America now feels more dangerous. That is not a footnote. That is the entire story — a government weaponizing the language of refuge to reshape who deserves protection, while the country offering that protection posts snuff videos on the president’s social media account and shoots citizens in broad daylight. The definition is already changing. It changed quietly. That is how it always begins.
The Afrikaners were duped by trump, Miller and Vought. Who would have had that on their Bingo Card? 🙋
USAID gutted. Programs for Aids, vaccines, womens health, you name it. Not only stopping refugees from coming here that don't fall on the right side of the color spectrum, they are actively working to eliminate the populations.
And.. what they’re doing in USA its the same thing, they want brown, sick, poor, elderly to die, why stop vaccinating, like mumps, coming back. Insurance, women’s health, the fucker is trying to kill us, soon they’ll have robots who are cheap, don’t protest, don’t question what, lets call it “BOSS” is doing - they’re trying to make humans - they don’t like or want - obsolete! Makes sense when you think about what the government is doing now, like stripping everything the government used to offer.
Ira Glass had a podcast about this back in October [This American Life, episode # 872.]
It is all so ultimately foolish because you can allow all the white immigrants you want — but you cannot control who they hook up with and have babies with. Skin color is such a stupid metric to base a template on.
As I was reading Jack’s newsletter the first thing I thought of was the Lebensborn program of the Thrid Reich. It was a concerted effort to select children from countries that Germany invaded and occupied who had “Aryan” features. By the thousands, these blonde hair, blue eyed, physically healthy children were kidnapped, forcibly taken to be “Germanized” and then adopted by German families. This program aimed to energize and increase the ideological policy of the “Aryan Master Race.”
All this appears to be right in line & very reminiscent of a statement that I recall Trump making, “Can’t we get more people from Norway?“
USCIS makes those that are in most demand for employment in this country wait the longest for their green cards and naturalization. We have always been an extremely race based nation. I’m surprised Lady liberty is still standing. Early immigrants to the US faced very harsh, difficult conditions. Not everybody made it through Ellis Island and many were excluded based on race.
Jack is correct that the operative mechanism here is definitional, not numerical. Authoritarian governments have always understood that controlling categories is more durable than controlling people — the refugee question in the 1930s was not resolved by arguing about quotas but by redefining who qualified as a persecuted person in the first place. What the Trump administration has done with the Afrikaner programme is precisely this: it has installed a competing moral framework in which whiteness, in a post-apartheid democracy, becomes legible as victimhood. The Reuters reporting makes the evidentiary situation clear — the photos and videos Trump presented were misrepresented, South African police data shows farm murders kill more Black people than whites, and Pretoria has formally rejected the persecution narrative. None of that has disrupted the programme, because the programme was never dependent on the evidence being true. It was dependent on the narrative being useful.
Jack is correct, too, that the template is the point. Note which countries are never described as producing refugees worth prioritizing. Note which forms of displacement — from war zones the United States helped create, from economies destabilized by American foreign policy — are now categorically ineligible. The Reuters piece contains a detail that should not be overlooked: white South Africans are moving back to South Africa in growing numbers, citing American mass shootings and ICE violence as reasons they no longer feel safe in the United States. A man who left Johannesburg after being held at gunpoint says America now feels more dangerous. That is not a footnote. That is the entire story — a government weaponizing the language of refuge to reshape who deserves protection, while the country offering that protection posts snuff videos on the president’s social media account and shoots citizens in broad daylight. The definition is already changing. It changed quietly. That is how it always begins.
#HOLDFAST
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-white-south-africans-are-persecuted-some-are-returning-better-life-2026-03-11/
The Afrikaners were duped by trump, Miller and Vought. Who would have had that on their Bingo Card? 🙋
USAID gutted. Programs for Aids, vaccines, womens health, you name it. Not only stopping refugees from coming here that don't fall on the right side of the color spectrum, they are actively working to eliminate the populations.
Sue
And.. what they’re doing in USA its the same thing, they want brown, sick, poor, elderly to die, why stop vaccinating, like mumps, coming back. Insurance, women’s health, the fucker is trying to kill us, soon they’ll have robots who are cheap, don’t protest, don’t question what, lets call it “BOSS” is doing - they’re trying to make humans - they don’t like or want - obsolete! Makes sense when you think about what the government is doing now, like stripping everything the government used to offer.
Ira Glass had a podcast about this back in October [This American Life, episode # 872.]
It is all so ultimately foolish because you can allow all the white immigrants you want — but you cannot control who they hook up with and have babies with. Skin color is such a stupid metric to base a template on.
As I was reading Jack’s newsletter the first thing I thought of was the Lebensborn program of the Thrid Reich. It was a concerted effort to select children from countries that Germany invaded and occupied who had “Aryan” features. By the thousands, these blonde hair, blue eyed, physically healthy children were kidnapped, forcibly taken to be “Germanized” and then adopted by German families. This program aimed to energize and increase the ideological policy of the “Aryan Master Race.”
Same shit, different century.
They didn’t have to be “ refugees” . They could just as easily be immigrants, but that would spoil the narrative, wouldn’t it?
Frustrating as hell ‼️ 😡 You're spot on, Jack. Thank you and will reStack ASAP 🙏
Obscene is such a deeply descriptive word.
I’ve used it several times today.
You said it all in the last sentence.
All this appears to be right in line & very reminiscent of a statement that I recall Trump making, “Can’t we get more people from Norway?“
USCIS makes those that are in most demand for employment in this country wait the longest for their green cards and naturalization. We have always been an extremely race based nation. I’m surprised Lady liberty is still standing. Early immigrants to the US faced very harsh, difficult conditions. Not everybody made it through Ellis Island and many were excluded based on race.