The cognitive dissonance of the Right

Sometimes I see clear examples of massive cognitive dissonance on the religious right and / or political right. The two following views are often simultaneously held by an individual with such notions:


1) Foreigners are less worthwhile, valuable or capable than the native population (showing a tendency to label them as "subhuman").

2) The same "less worthwhile" foreigners are "coming over here and taking our jobs".

But how can "less capable people" compete to such an anecdotally high standard in the job market to be "taking our jobs" to any significant extent? Sounds like a tough ask to me, that is if they really are inferior of course. And what sensible employer takes on "less worthwhile " employees? It all comes down to economics. Over time, living standards in immigrants' native countries will rise, and the effect of them commanding lower salaries will decrease. But if we don't allow free access to a competitive job market, such progress will be painfully slow.

In reality, we're all just people, (who I view as essentially equal from an egalitarian perspective) and immigrants have just as much right to be here, and work here as anyone else. Opening up the job market like this not only increases the opportunities for employers to get value for money, potentially increasing economic growth, but also allows people from less advantaged or poorer backgrounds to find work which pays better than they could hope for in their native country.

It's typical of the Right to take the negative approach to the problem (their solution is "stop the foreigners") rather than the positive one in a competitive world (increase local levels of education and key skills, and position ourselves to be more flexible in our employment - enabling the possibility to work for slightly less income).

I'm confused by the racism that abounds, I really am. In trying to get further insight into how the political right-thinking mind works in a recent conversation, I posed a hypothetical problem and asked what was the best solution. Imagine a village in England has spare empty social housing, enough living capacity for a family to move in from outside the local area. Two families want to move in, who both have 2 working adults and roughly the same levels of employment prospects. Other details aren't important for the purposes of this, but one family is British and the other one Eastern European, say Romanian. Which family should be given the house?

The answer was immediately forthcoming: the British family OF COURSE. Upon inquiring as to the reason for this, I was told that they had more of a vested interest in the country so should be given priority. Why this should be the case, I don't know. In a free, open EU, migration works both ways and we're able to move to other countries as well. Next time you go on holiday abroad, remember that. Oh, I was also told: Don't forget: Us British people pay our taxes don't you know!?

Yeah, and Romanians pay taxes in Romania. Somehow I imagine if the foreign family was Polish (the person I am referring to of whom I asked the question is half-Polish) then it would be a much tougher call! There's the in-crowd, and the out-group. If you're not part of the in-crowd, tough luck I guess. It's all just parochial thinking at the end of the day.