ndrosen

There is a case to be made for deporting foreigners who are illegally present in the United States; it may be said that the law is the law, that we cannot admit everyone in the world who wants to live here, and that people of different cultures bring problems with them, and impose costs on state and local governments (even if they may also bring energy, initiative, and the willingness to work). However, the Trump administration is not content to deport illegal aliens, but also foreigners given permission to be in the United States, including those fleeing from Cuba and Venezuela, however anti-Communist Trump proclaims himself to be. Our current president is a fascist, rather than a Communist, but his behavior illustrates the horseshoe model of politics: authoritarians of the left and right have more in common with each other than with liberals (in more or less the classic sense of that word).

Trump’s xenophobia, whether personally felt or chosen to appeal to his base, outweighs concern for people whose plight would command the sympathy of a real anti-totalitarian, or simply of a decent human being. A better man would not, absent good reason, turn on refugees already given asylum, and seek to expel them to misgoverned pestholes where they are liable to be murdered. An unsentimental statesman would at least consider the consequences to his country of becoming known for such inhospitable behavior. However, the current successor to Washington, Lincoln, and Gerald Ford (I remember the Indochinese refugees) is neither a decent person nor a prudent statesman.

And since today is Veterans’ Day, let us take a minute to recall the veterans wantonly assaulted by ICE.