When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spent public money to fly about 50 Venezuelan asylum seekers from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, the ostensible point — besides trolling and publicity, of course — was to show that immigrants are a burden on red-state resources. But his stunt reveals a political and cultural corruption far deeper than the one the governor may have intended.
First, it shows that the U.S. has a red-state elite that can no longer articulate or justify its own privileges — for instance, living in an exclusive community such as Martha’s Vineyard. Second, it shows that the conservative establishment has no real plan for fixing a broken U.S. immigration system.
Consider Martha’s Vineyard, which has a limited population of about 16,000 residents, with a summer population swelling to more than 100,000. Real estate is very expensive. And the island is strictly zoned, making it hard to build a lot of dense, low-cost housing.
