Success on the Naturalization Test

The Biden administration is dumping the ill-considered, hastily written, and politically biased naturalization test that was introduced in the waning days of Trump’s presidency. The US Citizenship and Immigration Service has announced that it will go back to the 2008 test (piloted and adopted under the Bush 43 administration) as soon March 1, allowing for some overlap to accommodate citizenship applicants who already studied for the Trump test.

As I wrote last year on Politico, Trump’s test was potentially twice as long as its predecessor, and definitely more complex and more politically skewed. For example,

Here are two questions on the new naturalization test, as well as the only approved answers from the USCIS study guide, now embodying the Trump administration’s revisionist approach to government:

1. 31. Who does a U.S. senator represent?

• • Citizens of their state

1. 33. Who does a member of the House of Representatives represent?

• • Citizens in their [congressional] district

The acceptable answers have been changed from the 2008 iteration of the test, which accurately (at least for now, unless the Supreme Court decides otherwise) stated that U.S. senators represent “all people of the state.”

Does that mean anyone who answers “all people” rather than “citizens” will be marked incorrect? The examinations are administered orally by individual USCIS officers, who have some discretion, so it is impossible to know how often “all the people of the state” would be considered wrong, perhaps leading to a flunked test.

Reverting to the 2008 test will make other needed corrections. The first section of the test will again be titled “Principles of American Democracy,” which the authoritarian Trump administration had ominously changed to “Principles of American Government.”

Comments

[anon]

It is so incredible to read the always present, relentless onslaught of the Left.

Authoritarian? Let's review.

One party advocates for less gov't control and against shut downs, mandates, regulations, excessive taxation, micromanagement of private activity (with the exception of criminal conduct), including speech and thought, etc.

One party advocates for more gov't control: in favor of ever harsher shut downs, mandates, regulation, higher taxes, silencing speech, boycotting thought and use of quasi public utilities by political enemies, uniting with corporations to push propaganda, etc.

One party is in favor of strictly shutting down rioting and looting, where ever it occurs and condemns such rioting, where ever it occurs.

One party supports looting and rioting when it suits its political posture, but will quickly set up a military occupation of the Capital, on the flimsiest of grounds, to favor its own political interests.

One party is rather shameless about its capitalist tendencies.

One party is truly the more piggish party, riddled with the most wealthy in this society, who tend to live in segregated neighborhoods, greedily pay as little as possible to their employees and in taxes, exploit immigrant labor etc. but posture and pretend to be "woke" to sell more widgets.

In the main, ask yourself this: Which party is more likely to hunt you down for your beliefs and make you miserable, or worse?

Now, sling abound the bs about "authoritarian" all you want. As we used to say, a long, long time ago, it is a free country.

But I don't think you know what the word "authoritarian" means, so, I will tell you:

"favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom."

Now, as you get ready to delete this comment, who are you calling "authoritarian"?

[A non]

To just buttress the above:

One party uses Orwell's 1984 as a template, not as a warning. As just one example, its preferred lexicon is "politically correct." Nonconformity is to be punished and excluded.
One party employs Foucault's understanding of the panopticon to engage in totalitarian forms of social control.
One party sets up trials based on nonsense charges (in one case, based on focus groups' responses to which terms most irks them) and non-legal categories by which to attack their enemies.
One party is trying to criminalize dissent.

I think it's mistaken to look at matters in terms of the relatively unhelpful labels of left/right, "liberal" and "progressive" vs "conservative". A more helpful question is whether the American Blue Team is actually evil.

An authoritarian/totalitarian distinction may nonetheless be warranted. We may be doing injustice to certain authoritarians (even though they are otherwise scum) by roping them in with full-blooded totalitarians like the American Blue Team.