April 8, 2018
Week after week, we slog through the ongoing traumatic assault that is life under the Trump administration, dispirited by the continuing evidence that, for Congressional Republicans, no amount of corruption, instability or racism is too much, as long as they get their policy goals of tax cuts and rampant de-regulation.
This week, apparently spurred on by an inflammatory segment on “Fox and Friends” on Puebla Sin Frontera, an annual caravan of migrants fleeing political persecution and gang violence, Trump lashed out with the demonstrably false claim that rapes were occurring at “levels that nobody has ever seen before,” (Source: “Trump claims female migrants are ‘raped at levels that nobody has ever seen before,’” by Veronica Shacqualursi and Elizabeth Landers, CNN.com, 4/5/18). Trump’s scapegoating followed his announcement on Wednesday that he was ordering deployment of National Guard to the U.S./Mexico border, despite the dubious legality of such a move and despite the fact that border crossings by undocumented people are at an all time low (Source: “The Stats on Border Apprehensions,” by Lori Robertson, Factcheck.org, 4/6/18).
As always, the actions of this administration must be viewed through the twin lenses of politics and profit motive. The politics of Trump’s paroxysm of xenophobia are obvious. From Scott Pruitt’s epic, dunderheaded corruption, to the Stormy Daniels drama, to the ongoing news coming out of the Mueller, probe, Trump has been relentlessly battered by weeks of bad headlines. The Republican tax cut message is not resonating with a base that has scarcely seen any economic benefits from it (Source: “Blue Collar Voters are Shrugging at Their Tax Cuts,” by Michael Tackett, The New York Times, 3/7/18). Faced with these headwinds, Trump defaults to his demagogic instincts and seeks to whip up his base with hatred and fear of the “other.” Despite the fact that this has been a losing message, from Ed Gillespie in Virginia to homophobic pederast, Roy Moore, in Alabama, Trump and the Republicans keep pivoting to it again and again because it’s all they have.
We also cannot ignore the perverse profit motive behind the administration’s efforts to ensnare as many people as possible in ICE’s dragnet and funnel them into the for-profit detention centers. Never forget that, thanks to 2010 federal legislation, for-profit prisons have a federal contract that guarantees them 34,000 beds per night at a cost to the federal government of $125 per detainee/day. These for-profit prisons ratchet up their profit margin by forcing detainees to do all of the work maintaining the facility, for as little as $1/day (Source: “When Migrants Are Treated Like Slaves,” by Jacqueline Stevens, The New York Times, 4/4/18). These for-profit prisons earned new lucrative contracts from the Trump administration after donating generously to Trump’s campaign and Inaugural Committee (Source: “Private Prison giant, resurgent in Trump era, gathers at president’s resort,” by Amy Brittain and Drew Harwell, The Washington Post, 10/25/17).
The good news is that, for now, the majority of the country rejects the noxious mix of naked racism and corruption that this administration represents, as evidenced by progressive candidate Rebecca Dallet’s 12-point victory in Tuesday’s election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Dallet’s win continued the Democrats’ streak of wins in unlikely special elections (Source: “Rebecca Dallet’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election latest victory for women,” by Scott Bauer (Associated Press), Wisconsin State Journal, 4/6/18). Although these wins are encouraging, we can’t afford to take anything for granted. Never forget that the people we seek to defeat are actively trying to establish slave labor and contempt for human rights as the official policy of the United States. If they succeed with undocumented immigrants, who do you think will be next?
#Immigrationreformnow
#Noprivateprisons
#Bluewave2018
