Categories
Race Trump

Look, dummies. It’s about race.

My community is embroiled in a debate over whether to declare ourselves a “sanctuary city.” There’s widespread misunderstanding about this term. It means that local police will not arrest or investigate someone for no other reason than the suspicion that they’re breaking immigration laws. ICE can still operate in sanctuary cities. Persons arrested for other crimes can still be investigated for immigration violations and reported to ICE. The difference between sanctuary cities and other cities is that, in sanctuary cities, local police do not do the job of ICE. They serve the community and defend them against property and personal crimes irrespective of immigration status. Both citizens and non-citizens are safer in sanctuary cities because every minute police spend checking residents’ papers is a minute they don’t spend making the community safe. If deportations are important to the nation, they can pay for the enforcement, but the police in my community have enough to do.

The question of sanctuary cities also lays bare a truth about American politics. The “state’s rights” arguments made famous by Barry Goldwater and touted by Republicans since that time are nothing but a guise for racism. When the question is school integration or voting rights, it doesn’t take two sentences for Republicans to retreat to Constitutional assurances of the primacy of States. Local solutions, they tell us, are the thing that makes this country great. The citizens of South Carolina and Arkansas can and should (and must!) be entrusted with the protection of the rights of minorities in their own state. Federal interference is unconstitutional.

But on the question of sanctuary cities, Federal agencies like ICE are, apparently, within their rights to commandeer local and state police to conduct their business. In this case, States and municipalities, it seems, are incapable of making decisions about protecting minorities against unlawful search. Why the sudden about face by Republicans? Where are the cries for local solutions and the fears of federal tyranny?

The difference, of course, is the skin color of the persons being oppressed. It’s OK to use federal power to terrorize Hispanic communities. They’re not Republicans anyway.

Categories
Elections Trump

Trump supporters ARE the meteor

My Republican friends are all torn up inside over what terrible choices 2016 has left them. Next post will address the absolute insanity in pretending Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are somehow comparably dangerous. But first, some reflection for my Republican friends.

Dear Republicans,

See, here’s the thing. Trump supporters *are* the meteor, the Krakken, SkyNet. You, dear GOP, are living “Little Shop of Horrors“. In fact, I think Little Shop of Horrors is the perfect metaphor for the Trump wing of your Party. Here you are, wringing your hands over what to do with your monster, born from Nixon’s Southern Strategy and lovingly nurtured from birth on a diet of mild xenophobia; white, male entitlement and post-truth “news”. When they lost their jobs and their retirement, you told poor white people it was the fault of the black President and his brown supporters. You couldn’t tell them the truth–that capitalism has victims and that a healthy society has to make provisions to care for them–because, well, “I’m not paying for health care for no unemployed freeloader!” So, instead, you made stuff up.

You had lots of chances to step in and say, “Gee. I wonder if we’ll ever regret creating an entire TV channel and blogosphere where true/false is a minor, secondary concern compared with pro/anti-Obama.”

“You know he’s not a Muslim, right? Shall we correct that?”
“Are you kidding? Look at the ratings!?”

“Apologizer-in-chief? Doesn’t that seem a little overstated. I mean, we did just bomb, then invade a country for what turned out to be two completely fabricated reasons.”
“Whose side are you on? It’s like you want higher taxes. I’m telling Grover!”

“He just said Reagan never negotiated with terrorists. Are we going to correct that?”
“Well, but doesn’t it FEEL like Reagan never negotiated with terrorists though?”

And then came the Trump. You couldn’t shut up the Trump when he came with his birther nonsense. Your base’s ability to process a pro-Obama truth had atrophied way too far. By then, you no longer had control of the narrative. You had a microphone, but you sure weren’t going to be caught defending Obama with only truth as your defense!

So, here we are. The years you might have spent creating a platform, you squandered on a Benghazi investigation–then 6 more. You’ve brought up half your party unable to distinguish a misogynist, racist, dangerously unhinged narcissist who wants nuclear weapons for the world, state-controlled press, the intentional targeting of civilians and who won’t commit to being bound by the results of an election; from a woman who used the wrong email. Just like you taught them. For a while, pandering to the basest aspects of your Party won you two houses of Congress, state houses and governorships. But now, Audrey II needs you to chop up what’s left of your responsible economic platform, your family values and your respect for anyone different from yourself and feed it to the beast you’ve nurtured. Tough choices. What would Seymour do?

Sincerely missing the old GOP,

HeyStupid