SPECIAL: What Martha's Vineyard Shows About Liberal Hypocrisy

Liberals support mass immigration as long as the migrants do not end up around them.

This week 50 migrants were sent to Martha’s Vineyard by Republican Governors. It has triggered a massive controversy and was arguably the biggest news story of the last week. As a result we produced this special analysis article, free to all readers.

Liberal and Stinking Rich

Martha’s Vineyard is one of the wealthiest places in America and houses there can routinely sell for millions of dollars. The Obama’s purchased a 7,000 foot mansion in Martha’s Vineyard for $12 million and a Zillow listing from 2019 showed six houses nearby all with asking prices over $14 million. It is an island for the ultra-rich elite to hide from the world in massive mansions complete with tennis courts, helicopter pads and the other trimmings of a rock star lifestyle.

It is also one of the most ferociously liberal and woke places in America. In 2020 the average vote for Biden in the six districts that make up Martha’s Vineyard was a massive 83.4%. This makes Martha’s Vineyard more liberal than Los Angeles (71% Democrat) and Seattle (74.9% Democrat).

Interestingly many of the vast mansions on the island sport “No Human is Illegal“ lawn signs or variants of it such as the “In This House We Believe…“ lawn signs common in liberal woke neighborhoods. The many rich liberals who live in Martha’s Vineyard routinely make fawning public statements about immigration, but the statements usually fall under two headings;

1. All forms of immigration are good (including the illegal type).

2. It is a mark of bigotry to complain about any form of immigration (especially the illegal type).

Consequently it was extremely revealing to see how the ultra-wealthy liberals on Martha’s Vineyard reacted when confronted with 50 migrants. Did they show outpourings of joy? Were they extremely happy? Did they welcome them? No. They expressed iron-hearted disdain and made clear their desire to see the migrants gone as quickly as possible. At the time of writing the migrants are being loaded into buses and sent to a military base. No doubt the woke and compassionate leftists in Martha’s Vineyard are content now.

No human is illegal - until they show up in our super rich liberal neighborhood then they have to leave.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Believe_(yard_sign) CC BY SA 4.0

It is interesting how quickly and harshly the liberals in Martha’s Vineyard reacted. One interviewee bluntly stated that a lack of housing and resources. Interesting that an island full of multi-bedroom mansions and full of multi-millionaires cannot find either space or resources to help the illegal immigrants they virtue signal about. As one interviewee explained when asked about the migrants;

“At some point in time they have to move somewhere else“

Interesting. Liberals are happy to stand with migrants - as long as said migrants stand somewhere else, and not in the wealthy luxury neighborhoods rich liberals live in.

Border Communities

The rich liberals prefer migrants to be somewhere else. The border town of Nogales, Arizona is a reassuring 2,726 miles away from Martha’s Vineyard. It would take 43 hours of driving to reach if the rich liberals felt like taking one of their many sports cars to the border. Of course they have no intention of doing so. They virtue signal about the benefits of uncontrolled immigration (literally) from a safe distance.

By contrast border communities have a very different experience of illegal immigration. Most border communities tell tales of armed cartel members openly driving through their towns. They can tell of fentanyl flooding in and killing family members and friends. They can tell of finding illegal migrants breaking into their homes. But the people in border communities are disproportionately poor and therefore the rich liberals in Martha’s Vineyard do not care. To them, these bigots simply fail to see the benefits of open borders. So it was somewhere karmic to see these same liberals confronted personally with the consequences.

Ironically border communities are far more diverse than Martha’s Vineyard. Duke’s County, MA is the seat of Martha’s Vineyard and US Census data shows that it is nearly 90% white. This is nearly 30 percentage points higher than the US figure. Liberals constantly complain about things should “look like America“, but it appears this does not include their own wealthy communities. They are as white as a 1950s soap commercial. By contrast the border communities impacted most heavily by illegal immigration are extremely ethnically diverse. Who is walking the talk on diversity, rich white liberals, or working class border community Americans?

Christianity and Compassion

One constraint refrain has been attacks from the left about the alleged lack of Christian compassion on the part of Republicans. Both the Governors who sent the migrants and the conservatives online who praised the action have been attacked for not being Christian. This is interesting given that the more wealthy and liberal someone is, the more of a likely predictor it is that they are atheists. Atheists should not be telling a Christian what makes a person a good Christian, given they are not one themselves. Secondly it betrays a part of liberal psychology. Virtue signalling and the way that liberals understand compassion versus the Christian understanding.

In virtue signalling a person publicly proclaims their solidarity with the Current Thing, whether that be BLM, getting vaccinated, or standing with Ukraine. The great thing about virtue signalling is that it allows the person to get the emotional rush of being seen by others as a good person without needing to actually be one. As a result, virtue signallers do not understand how true compassion works. In liberal compassion you only need to voice your view and be seen as compassionate. No need to to actually do anything, much less sacrifice for it, and you always want public recognition and praise for it. In Christian compassion, the person not only helps others, they often do so at cost to themselves, and do so without wanting public recognition. Jesus himself said that a person should exercise compassion in such a way one hand did not know what the other was doing.

One should also bear in mind the sneering contempt with which many liberals hold Christian views. Christianity has been ghoulishly attacked by liberals as being backward, bigoted and responsible for every ‘ism‘ and intolerance known to man. Given that many liberal atheists have an undisguised hatred for Christianity and its values it is interesting to see how the brush with illegal immigration in Martha’s Vineyard has made liberals into online theologians.

What it Means

At the time of writing the migrants are being marched onto buses and sent to a military base. Their brief stay in Martha’s Vineyard brought to a close with lightning speed and efficiency. But as the migrants settle down on rubber mattresses in a military base, unsure what the future holds, one thing is certain. That is the rich liberals who speak so much about helping migrants angrily expelled them at the first opportunity. No doubt these rich liberals will sleep peacefully in their luxury mansions, just as convinced of their moral compassion as they were before.

As an immigrant myself (the legal variety you will be glad to hear) this has been quite revealing.

M J McManus is the Head of Arithmos Analytics. He tweets at @arithmosdata