Some People Will Believe Anything

I received an e-mail from four different people this morning about deporting immigrants. While normally I just shrug off this kind of crap, something about the whole thing caught my attention. Mostly, it was the numbers. According to the e-mail;

“Back during The Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover ordered the deportation of ALL illegal aliens in order to make jobs available to American citizens that desperately needed work…”

“Harry Truman deported over two million Illegal’s after WWII to create jobs for returning veterans.”

“And then again in 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower deported 13 million Mexican Nationals! The program was called ‘Operation Wetback’. It was done so WWII and Korean Veterans would have a better chance at jobs. It took 2 Years, but they deported them!”

“Now… if they could deport the illegal’s back then – they could sure do it today…”

My first question was… what idiot could possibly believe this? This message claims that in a 25 year period, from the Great Depression to 1954, the U.S. deported 15-20 MILLION illegal aliens. Yet there’s not one mention of this great purge in the history books. There’s not one photograph of the millions of illegal aliens lined up at deportation camps waiting to be processed. In 25 years the United States deported 1/8 of its entire population, and yet the whole thing was swept under the rug? All evidence of it has been suppressed? There are people who honestly believe that this is possible?
Holy crap. People will believe anything.
Look, I’m not a champion for immigrant rights. I think if you’re going to come to this country and benefit from its wealth, you should become an American citizen. Or at least come in on a green card or something. For me, this e-mail isn’t about immigration at all. It’s about some delusional idiot peddling a pack of outrageous lies to uninformed and under-educated Americans who have to know in their hearts that something like this isn’t remotely possible… and yet they choose to believe it, and forward on the lie, because they want to believe it.
It’s no wonder the Republicans can keep peddling their delisional political fantasies to the American public. If this distributed message about illegal aliens is any indication, Americans can, and will, literally, believe anything.