I disagree with
@babe. Lol.
These are refugees from the northern tier of Central American nations. Trump has demonized and dehumanized them. In the separation policy, we simply see the degree that he will go in this dehumanizing campaign. It was painfully easy, and alarming, to understand all this when he ran for the office he now holds. The dynamic was right out there for all to see, particularly if one was informed by a knowledge of history, and a knowledge of how demagogues can come to power within mass democracies undergoing cultural and social changes that often cause fear and anger among elements within that society.
I am not suggesting or predicting that he, or we, are capable of initiating the most extreme measures enacted by that most evil of 20th century leaders. I am simply pointing out the same dynamic is playing out in our country at this time in our history. And ultimately, we need to reject this dynamic. It simply champions and promotes our lesser instincts. It really is a battle for the soul of our nation. If what we see playing out on our southern border is who we really want to be, history will not judge us well. He's doing exactly what he promised he would do, and his meanness and willingness to dehumanize "the other" is an historical dynamic that never ends well.
I would not want to be Jeff Sessions. I would not want to be Steve Miller. Or General Kelly. Or Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. History will not be kind to these enablers. The judgement will be harsh. They have cast their lot, and they, with their President, are on the wrong side of history.
Return of the Blood Libel(Paul Krugman, NY Times):
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/op...eturn-of-the-blood-libel-Opinion-13018995.php
"The speed of America’s moral descent under Donald Trump is breathtaking. In a matter of months we’ve gone from a nation that stood for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to a nation that tears children from their parents and puts them in cages.
What’s almost equally remarkable about this plunge into barbarism is that it’s not a response to any actual problem. The mass influx of murderers and rapists that Trump talks about, the wave of crime committed by immigrants here are things that simply aren’t happening. They’re just sick fantasies being used to justify real atrocities....
......No, the real crisis is an upsurge in hatred — unreasoning hatred that bears no relationship to anything the victims have done. And anyone making excuses for that hatred — who tries, for example, to turn it into a “both sides” story — is, in effect, an apologist for crimes against humanity."
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I think the historical dynamic that is happening in our country now, and the dynamic in that earlier time and place, that I'm apparently so reluctant to spell out, is very similar, because both are very much rooted in hatred of an "other". But, who am I kidding, I must be beating around the bush, for fear of Godwin's Law. But wait, Godwin himself does protest:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-godwin-godwins-law-20180624-story.html
"By all means cite GL if you think some Nazi comparison is baseless, needlessly inflammatory or hyperbolic. But Godwin’s Law was never meant to block us from challenging the institutionalization of cruelty or the callousness of officials who claim to be just following the law. It definitely wasn’t meant to shield our leaders from being slammed for the current fashion of pitching falsehoods as fact. These behaviors, distressing as they are, may not yet add up to a new Reich, but please forgive me for worrying that they’re the “embryonic form” of a horror we hoped we had put behind us."
