In search of the perfect enemy

"Elphaba – when I first got here, there was discord and discontent. And where I come from, everyone knows: the best way to bring folks together is to give them a really good enemy." The Wizard Of Oz in Wicked.

"In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us." Nhất Hạnh, Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk

They say that love conquers all, but that only appears to work in personal relationships. In business, money conquers all, and in politics both money and tribalism conquer all. And the central focus of tribalism is dividing the world into heroes and villains. Fear and hatred can motivate entire nations when wielded powerfully enough, and we've seen that throughout history. Bottom line- we seem to have an innate need for someone to hate and blame our problems on besides ourselves.

I thought about this when watching the trailer for the new Wicked movie. Wicked takes the fable of the Wizard of Oz and turns it upside down. The villain, the Wicked Witch of the West, turns out to have been one a misunderstood heroine. And the good guy, the wizard, (Spoiler alert!) turns out to be an authoritarian villain who keeps power by demonizing one group of different creatures in Oz. Demonizing, or "otherizing" as is portrayed in the musical, is a popular trope both in Hollywood and politics. Disney and Marvel movies owe much of their success not to the heroes, but to the villains, whose menace and wickedness get our attention and produce high drama. The same dynamic can be seen in almost any action movie you can think of.

For many years, the bad guys in America, and in much of the world, were Jewish and African Americans. Fear of them drove many an election. World War II changed that somewhat when Nazi's and then Communists became the new boogeymen. When the Soviet Union collapsed, we needed a new group to hate, and Muslims came to the fore after 9/11as the new villains on the block.

Now it's 2025, and who are the demons that are haunting many dreams? Some of the old standbys, Jews, Blacks, and Gays have emerged to the point where it's not socially acceptable to openly disparage them, so folks have turned to the "woke" buzzword, attacking them indirectly. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has become the new treacherous catchphrase that's blamed for so many of society's problems. We've gone too far in helping the disadvantaged, many think, and it's holding the "deserving" people back.

The Darth Vaders of the 2020's, the root of so many of our problems now? Illegal immigrants and transgender individuals. Trans people are easy to demonize because there are so few of them and they are clearly an oddity of nature. Their very existence seems to threaten the traditional male/female dichotomy. (Even if masculine and feminine traits are a spectrum, not a stark binary choice.)

But the worst of the hate is aimed at a more invisible threat- undocumented migrants. Instability in third world countries has led to an unprecedented migration to both the United States and Europe Some of it was planned and legalized, but much of it was not. Those who are undocumented have tried their best to remain invisible as they try to build a new life, but instead they've become the most visible villains in the world today and an easy target to hate on.

Undocumented immigrants are the perfect enemy in a way because they are indeed law breakers (though many are legitimately going through the legal asylum process.) They also can't vote and can't run for office. Haters claim that they bring disease, crime, drugs, illegal voting, and anything we can think to blame them for. Most of these claims are untrue, as crime, public health, and voting statistics have proven. But their very presence has worked to scare the shit out of many Americans and Europeans. Being for the most part a different race or culture than the white majorities hasn't helped.

But here's America's dirty little secret when it comes to undocumented immigrants- our economy needs them badly. They work physical, backbreaking jobs in the agricultural, construction, and service sectors that most Americans don't want. Since they aren't eligible for most public welfare programs, they have no choice but to work hard and quietly for the chance that at least their children can someday have opportunities. Illegal immigrants often pay into Social Security but can never collect it. And they have to accept whatever employers will give them because they have basically no rights. An easy fix to the problem would be to go after the employers who welcome these immigrants into those jobs, but that hasn't happened.

The true villains of the 2020's are the ones seeking power on the backs of these immigrants. They're grabbing headlines and making noise, but we'll see how much difference it all makes. Not much has changed in decades. Employers still need these workers, climate change will only increase the migration from the South to the North, and people will still need scapegoats to blame for their problems.

This problem has been building for decades. A rational immigration system hasn't come forward because it's too handy to have illegals to blame everything on. An immigration deal in the US almost got done in 2006, with a bipartisan bill passing in the Senate, but it was blocked by the House because they insisted on a punitive approach to those already in the country and no path to citizenship. Since then, the issue has gone nowhere because solving it would remove a favorite cherished talking point for politicians.

We should expect more from a nation that was built on the backs of continuous waves of immigration. Except for Native Americans, we are all descended from immigrants. If the system were fair and reasonable, it might be more logical to pursue those who ignore it. But our immigration is anything but simple or fair, and the world is awash in tragedy and unfairness that ripples out to every economy. The Irish, Mexicans, and Chinese were "othered" when they first arrived, but they and many more contributed to the diversity that is our unique strength. Will America ever evolve from the need for a convenient enemy? Our challenges in the 21st century require a lot more friends and allies.

International cooperation has brought us advances in science and technology, while nationalistic hatred has brought us wars and the Holocaust. We are better than this.