Sorely lacking both cajones and intellectual stamina, Donald Trump had to cower behind a hurricane to embrace a bigot after his own heart.
Only when safely esconced in his Camp David retreat on a Friday night - when every professional scold worth his or her oversize paycheck was off the air - did Trump officially pardon former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio.
We knew this was coming. The president said as much at his Phoenix rally this week, complaining that he couldn't make his grandiose announcement just yet because "they" had put the kibosh on it. He presumably meant the military junta and the Wall Street executives who are undemocratically running the country in his permanent mental and moral absence.
So Trump not only dumped on Latinos during the traditional Friday night news dump beloved of all presidents before him, he actually increased the chances that the people running the show wouldn't much notice or even care. That's because the show this weekend is all about another vicious monster, named Harvey, making his landfall in Texas. Still, Trump couldn't leave well enough alone. He had to dig his dull knife in further and twist it by passive-aggressively allowing the immigrant checkpoints on evacuation routes to remain open. This decision both slowed down evacuations for everybody, and ensured that at least some "illegals" would stay behind in harm's way. The only choice offered to the undocumented was between drowning, and being arrested and deported.
The checkpoints will close only when actual highways close. Checkpoints will remain open on all roads not in the direct path of the storm, officials said.
Trump and Arpaio and all their loyal fans must be so proud of themselves. Hopefully, they won't drown in their own tears of joy or worse yet, choke on their spasms of maniacal wind.
Arpaio gained national notoriety by racially targeting people of Hispanic descent and building one of the most inhumane county jails in modern history. He housed inmates in tents in the broiling heat, served them rotten inedible food and humiliated men by forcing them to wear pink underwear. After years of getting away with it, he finally was convicted of criminal contempt last month for his refusal to obey a court order to stop his racial profiling. He had not yet been sentenced when Trump gleefully pardoned him.
But Trump still wasn't done dumping. He also chose the looming hurricane as the most optimal time to officially ban transgender people from joining the military.
He will, however, still allow undocumented immigrants to fight and die for the American imperium as the only fast track to citizenship yet available to them. Trump would never allow his xenophobic principles to stand in the way of endless profits for the perpetual war machine.
Of course, if these immigrant soldiers are unlucky enough to suffer a traumatic brain injury or PTSD during their tours of duty, and subsequently get into trouble with the law when they return home, they can still be deported in a New York minute.
Furthermore, the Pentagon announced plans last month to administer "enhanced screenings" and monitoring to more than 4,000 naturalized troops upon their returns home in order to ensure that they have not become "radicalized" during their military training and service.
The Trump administration has also tightened the screws on new immigrant recruits by delaying their final orders after sign-up and thus opening them up to deportation proceedings in the interim. According to the Washington Post, about a thousand of these recruits have already seen their visas expire as they await their deployment orders.
Trump is nothing if not a consummate bait-and-switch operator. And the military itself has long been in the business of holding out the carrots of citizenship, education, a steady paycheck and free medical care to its desperate recruits from all lower classes from all countries before wielding any number of their heavy sticks - not least of which is permanent physical disability or death.
It is a mistake to attack this on the grounds that Trump attempted to sneak it by us.
ReplyDeleteThe pardon of Arpaio did not pass under any radar, and nobody could have expected it would. The weather in Texas did not hide it from anyone, nor the late hour.
In fact, Trump did not want it to go unnoticed. He was making a point. We can be sure it wasn't just mercy for the man, since Trump does not even care about other people. He talked about it at his rally because he wanted it noticed.
Discussion ought to be on other things about it. It simply isn't a sneak attack.
ReplyDeleteOK, so Trump, the sociopathic egomaniac, wants whatever he does to get noticed, and for that matter, adored.
This pardon is another example of Trump's overwhelming and fundamental racism.
His mention of it in advance at a campaign rally is another example of Trump's turning everything into his personal reality show in which we're all just extras in his audience.
Resistance, rebuke, ridicule, and refusing, that is just saying no, are not enough, so may I suggest discussing: what then must we do, and how can we do it before it's too late?
Eric Roth and other progressives,etc.
ReplyDeleteWe must sign every petition for impeachment, removal of the president now offered by reliable organizations. If you are able, march, meet, speak out everywhere possible. Send letters, e-mails to people and organizations either pro or con.
There are now meetings going on everywhere in the country where one can be heard.
Become visible in your community. Also comments to articles and reports in the media are meaningful.
I can no longer march but I spend valuable time signing every meaningful article on my computer which encourages the writers and readers. Discuss facts with neighbors and friends and family members and be knowledgeable about the issues.
"Poetry makes nothing happen." I suppose that fate covers prose too, especially in the age of tech and diminished literacy. Who reads Auden? Who reads poetry? Who reads books?
ReplyDeleteEverything in print is now considered fiction or a how-to manual to set up a digital device. Thank you, Turing, deconstructionists, conspiracy theorists and propagandists. So why waste time on elevating poetry or well-crafted fiction if you want to get something accomplished beyond scrolling or turning pages?
I'm not so sure petitions are an answer. However, it is an excellent way to land on some organization's list. Let's hope they are really about what they claim to be about. At very least, you can depend on them to ask for a donation along with your treasured virtual signature. Someone please link me to a study that supports the idea that petitions make something happen.
Canadians recently overwhelmed the Trudeau government with a demand for some form of proportional representation (PR). Trudeau, breaking a big campaign promise, gave a lame excuse for ignoring 80% of the citizenry who favor PR. And he seems to have gotten away with that.
Faulty linkage is the problem in representative democracies. The linkage between you and the powerhouses of Washington or Ottawa is usually broken, unless you have the dollars to "gain access."
The best thing you might engineer is a little machine on the local level. Form one small force, or agency, or party of like-minded people on that level and then, maybe, you might with great effort link up with an allied force headed in the same direction. Keep that up for a decade––or decades––and eventually you might build a party that deserves attention at the national level. Ralph Nader has been doing that for decades through his PIRGs, agencies and lobbies––not his brilliant writing, which was only a start to building an organization that continues to make things happen.
Here's a test for would-be activists. Make something––anything––happen locally. I don't mean a parade or a demonstration. Organize your family for a cause, preferably without starting a food fight at every gathering. Get something done, or undone. See how tricky it is to make things happen?
Or try converting your bowling team or the Kiwanis Club to a cause. Let us know how that's going periodically.
Maybe you're a believer. Try to form an action committee at your mosque, temple or church. If you cannot find allies to help you there, how can you expect to do it on a grander level? By writing something penetrating and eloquent? By signing a petition? By subscribing to more blogs? Eh.
First, show me you can build a do-good machine in your immediate circle. That's where things happen. A generation or more ago alt-rights did just that. They organized locally and took over the school board. Next, they got nasty books taken off shelves at the public library. Now look; they run the Department of Education.
Rinse and repeat a thousand more times, lefties, and maybe in a generation or two, you'll have the coast-to-coast network you need to make something happen in the big city. Until then, the rich will rule as they always have. Because it's Money that makes things happen. And Money's rule can only be stopped––temporarily––by an enormous amount of talent, work, and anger bubbling up from the local level.
As for Joe Arpaio, his pardon is more of the same old, same old––merely the last in a long line of virtual pardons for policemen who were too quick on the draw or able to administer the perfect chokehold. Go as far as you want in a blue uniform, and there will likely be no consequences. Can the Brownshirts be far behind?