Without do-gooders, there are no populists

Which statement is correct:

Well-meant is the opposite of good and well-meant is not the same as done well.

The term ”do-gooder” is a sarcastic, spiteful or contemptuous denigration of individuals or groups.

Do-gooders can be described as an emotionally loaded term. But there is no replacement for do-gooder or goodie two shoes.

All people occasionally take on the role of a do-gooder.

People in Europe have to admit to themselves that, had they been born as Nigerians, they would probably also make their way to Europe and people in the USA understand that as Hondurans they would also try to cross the border.

Nevertheless, does this empathy have to mean that all people in developing countries are granted the right to emigrate to the USA or Europe, even if a few million would make their way there?

Do-gooders would say: Yes, we have to. Surely not too many people will come and we will manage.

However, such an immigration triggers a sense of unease in a lot of people to varying degrees. (More on this in the Refugees post).

Governments that do not pay attention to this unease (“fears”) and insist on human rights and the Geneva Convention on Refugees lose many votes to populists.

Trump won the US elections in 2016 because he promised to build a wall on the Mexican border.

The biggest argument of Brexit supporters was the cancellation of the EU’s freedom of movement.

Most Germans who vote for the AFD don’t want a Nazi regime. They want a party that promises to stop immigration. The immigration topic drives the AFD. If Germany would implement a regulated and restrictive immigration act like in the USA, Australia or Japan, the AFD would quickly decline to become an insignificant party.

The do-gooders, however, prevent this from happening and strengthen the populists.

A realistic, pragmatic policy without ideological blinders would calm the political situation in the USA and Germany. There would then be time and energy to contemplate on ways to improve the situation of crisis states.

Most parties to the left of the center want to keep the borders open for ideological reasons.

The parties to the right are not in agreement on how far they want to open the borders. The pressure of migration from the south has increased in the past decades in the course of globalization and will continue to do so. Even if the situation slowly improves in developing countries, the wealth in the industrialized states will grow more quickly due to IT and automation and the gap is likely to continue to widen.

Migration will continue to be a pressing and loaded issue for the next 50 years!