Opinion

You Know There’s A Problem When Captain America Assaults Immigration Opponents

Scott Greer Contributor
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Captain America is now declaring war on opponents of illegal immigration.

In the comic book legend’s latest issue, the Marvel Comics hero faces off against a villainous militia that wants to put a halt to illegal immigration — by any means necessary.

The armed, snake-masked militants — who call themselves the Sons of the Serpent — stop a group of English-speaking migrants sneaking into the country and threaten the aliens with violence before Captain America arrives to beat them up.

The leader of the serpents spouts off rhetoric remarkably similar to Donald Trump’s comments on illegal immigration — making the villains seem even more relevant to current political discourse. (RELATED: Captain America Beats Up On Illegal Immigration Opponents In Latest Issue)

There’s, of course, a lot of problems with the way Marvel portrays the issue of illegal immigration — besides its opponents getting depicted as a a bad knock-off of G.I. Joe’s COBRA. For one, Captain America comes across a mother who tells him about how her great son serves as a “coyote” for migrants illegally crossing into America. According to the mom, being a coyote means you give these poor souls food and water solely out of the goodness of your heart.

In real life, coyotes are the ones who smuggle the migrants across the border and are notorious for preying upon them. They often rape the girls they transport, put the illegals in deadly situations, work for sadistic drug cartels and charge exorbitant rates to get their customers into America. (RELATED: Here’s One Rape Culture The Media Wishes Were Fake)

But here, coyotes are noble heroes just looking to help out those in need.

Additionally, the rhetoric of the snake-themed villains is an exaggerated, dumbed-down version of the genuine concerns real Americans have with illegal immigration. The purpose of that is to instill into readers the impression that anyone who may worry about illegals is akin to serpent-masked thugs ready to murder poor Mexicans. All because the militants have to press one for English.

Message: those who are worried about illegal immigration are dangerous morons who go against everything America stands for, so says Captain America.

In many ways, this Captain America issue resembles a PG-version of the 2010 film, “Machete.” In that movie, a murderous militia goes after illegals with unpunished zeal — until the eponymous hero kills them all with (you guessed it) a machete.

However, the dastardly foes aren’t dressed in snake-gear in “Machete,” they’re just portrayed as violent, dim-witted rednecks who employ the dangerous rhetoric of immigration opponents.

It’d be easy to dismiss these creations as the politically-biased works of committed leftists — if they didn’t reach a far-wider audience than your typical Salon.com screed. Popular culture has done more than its fair share to demonize critics of mass immigration, skewering them as backwoods rubes who only deserve ridicule. And a lot of people, particularly younger generations, pay more attention to pop culture than they do to the works of political pundits.

The most pernicious — and effective — example doesn’t come from artists with a left-wing bent though.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of “South Park,” haven’t shied from taking on a wide-variety of political issues — with positions that can be found all over the ideological spectrum. Oftentimes, the views of Stone and Parker align with a libertarian perspective on things.

Their uncanny combination of views even bequeathed the term “South Park Republican” to denote their particular brand of politics.

In the 2004 episode “Goobacks,” Parker and Stone gave immigration advocates the greatest meme they could possibly ask for.

The episode centers around people from the future time travelling back to present-day South Park to find employment as there’s no jobs left in the future. These literal illegal aliens soon take all the blue collar work in the town at a wage no present-day worker would want. This outrages the local workers who band together to try to put a halt to the time-travelling migrants.

And they rally behind the cry of “They took our jobs!” Or, as it quickly degenerates into, “Dey took err jerbs!!”

The workers are shown as bumbling idiots who seem unable to cope with change and our mocked in a manner that only the irreverent creators of “South Park” can pull off.

But that rallying cry has seeped into our culture like no other immigration point. Millions of Americans have remembered, repeated and inculcated the notion that anyone who complains about job loss due to illegal aliens are dumb proles shouting “Dey took err jerbs!”

In spite of the abundant evidence that illegal labor does costs the jobs of many blue-collar Americans, the South Park meme has made that concern a point ripe for mockery.

Andrew Breitbart was renown for saying “politics is downstream from culture,” and there’s no one hoping that’s more true than the advocates for mass immigration. If most of America bought-in to the stereotypes of the ignorant and buffoonish immigration critics, it’d be much easier to pass amnesty.

Nobody wants to be that guy screaming: “They took our jobs!” So why not grant legalization to those people who are actually taking the jobs of ordinary citizens?

The remarkable thing is how many Americans refuse to let the propaganda sway their opinions on immigration. There’s still a majority of Americans who favor reducing immigration and the amnesty attempts in 2007 and 2013 were stopped by public outrage, not by elite dissatisfaction.

While these are hopeful signs that the pernicious memes of the mass media haven’t altered the views of all Americans, there’s still the troubling fact that these politically-biased works are capable of influencing those people who aren’t that informed on current issues.

The long-term effect on American politics has yet to be determined, but one thing is clear: our entertainment industry certainly has an interest in promoting amnesty to the masses.

They’ve even brainwashed Captain America into believing in it.

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