President Trump so far shows no sign of turning back. “As Trump accused Democrats of supporting immigration loopholes, he also stuck with his false claims that he can’t do anything about his child separation policies, and only new legislation can fix it. … It all went on from there, with Trump bashing NAFTA, attacking Hillary Clinton, and going on about the ‘deep state’ activities the Justice Department inspector general recently uncovered in his report.” Unhinged.
When activists are motivated, it is far easier to raise money — and then spend it. “Less than five months until Election Day, Democrats are outspending Republicans over the TV and radio airwaves in the most competitive Senate contests, according to ad-spending data from Advertising Analytics.” Florida is the exception.
This is far and away the worst thing Republicans have done. “Pelosi: GOP is ‘complicit’ in separating families.” Of course this is true.
This is far from the only time Trump has dehumanized Hispanic immigrants. “ ‘Infest’ is the essential, and new, word here. … It drives full-throttle toward the dehumanization of immigrants, setting aside legality in favor of a division between a human us and a less-human them. What are infestations? They are takeovers by vermin, rodents, insects. The word is almost exclusively used in this context. What does one do with an infestation? Why, one exterminates it, of course.” That’s the face of the GOP.
It’s far from clear Trump ever knows what he really wants. He just wants to be the tough guy and fire up his anti-immigrant base. “From Day One, Trump’s zero-tolerance gambit has clearly been about forcing Congress’s hand by creating a hugely undesirable situation at the border. The White House insists this isn’t a new policy and that it’s not about creating a bargaining chip. But it is a new policy, based upon a new supposed interpretation of the law, and Tuesday’s speech made clear that Trump is holding a knife to Congress’s throat. And while the policy would still be cruel, his tactic make sense if Trump knew what he wanted.”
A number of Republicans want to get as far away from this as possible. “The practice is a result of the ‘zero-tolerance’ policy the Trump administration chose to pursue in April that prosecutes adults who enter the United States illegally, which in turn systematically separates them from their children. Despite the administration’s lies about the cause, there is no law that requires them to do this. Nearly 2,000 kids were separated from their parents in the span of six weeks, according to the Department of Homeland Security. … While there is no consensus among Republicans around a solution, many are clear on one thing: It needs to stop.”
The administration was far from prepared for the backlash. “The initial responses ranged from nonsensical — Trump’s reflexive blame of ‘Democrat laws’ and the protestations of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen that ‘we do not have a policy of separating families at the border’ — to ghoulish, as when a smirking Jeff Sessions chided the migrant children whose lives he had upended for running afoul of Paul’s admonition that the law is a terror to evildoers in Romans 13.”
You are far from alone, Mr. Del Toro. “This is more than politics — this is human rights, and a human condition that children should never be taken away from their parents. I believe in the rule of law, and the laws of every country should be respected, but there’s no reason to separate children from their mom and dad. Why can’t they just hold them together? I am horrified.”
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