Orwell, in 1984, described “doublethink” as “holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” A reader points to the same phenomenon in response to the attrition approach to illegal immigration:
The pro-amnesty press is implementing two mutually exclusive strategies in their attempt to get people to dismiss the notion of attrition. On the one hand, they say that attrition can’t work, and therefore we need CIR [“comprehensive immigration reform,” i.e., amnesty]. On the other hand, they run stories saying “attrition is working, but we should be ashamed of ourselves” or “attrition is working and we will soon be facing a labor and/or food shortage as a result.”
In other words, attrition is a bad idea because it can’t work, and it is a bad idea because it does.