Distinguish strength from cruelty

A couple days ago Melissa McEwan of Shakesville warned against using the protest phrase “Keep Families Together.” She gives three reasons:

* Some of the people approaching the border are fleeing abuse from husbands/fathers.

* Adults without children are being abused in detention too.

* Though keeping children with parents is a step above what is happening now what we’re likely to get is detention camps for families. They’re still in indefinite detention.

A day later the nasty guy signed an executive order reversing a policy he put in place. Everyone not in his base saw it as a show put on for the base and for media.

Col. Morris Davis is a former prosecutor at Guantanamo who resigned when ordered to use evidence obtained through torture. He is currently a commentator for various media outlets. He explains that executive order this way:

Trump lauds Trump for a Trump-brokered solution with Trump to resolve the child hostage crisis Trump created to extort the vanity wall Trump wants to protect America from the grave threat Trump manufactured to manipulate gullible people who believe Trump. USA!!

Mark Sumner of the Daily Kos staff discusses how empty the executive order is. Yes, it is a defeat for the nasty guy. But it is not a win for immigrants. He maintains his zero-tolerance policy. He keeps the idea that families can be separated over “concerns.” The order doesn’t suggest there is any limit to his power. Sumner has a good observation:

The biggest problem—the central problem—with Donald Trump, is that he cannot distinguish strength from cruelty. He believes that causing harm is the “strong” thing to do, even when it’s easy. He believes that showing compassion or working for justice is “weak,” even if it’s hard.

And of course, Donald Trump deeply, deeply believes in both racism and in judging people by the content of their wallets.
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Donald Trump signed a piece of paper because the pressure grew great enough that those around him felt he had to make a gesture. So he gestured. And gave a middle finger to America.

McEwan notes that the nasty guy comes out as the hero of the evil situation he created. She then quotes a statement from Montanans for Immigrant Justice and Missoula Rises.

While this is a movement in the right direction, DO NOT BE FOOLED by what the Order does. Here are the facts thus far:

1. Families will not be immediately separated, but they will be held in detention together.
2. Crossing the border “illegally” will no longer be deemed a civil violation, it will be deemed a criminal violation.
3. Because it is a criminal violation the parents will be charged criminally. At that point, their children will be forcibly taken.
4. The Executive Oder will provide a provision that families will be expedited through the criminal process. This means that the removal of their children will be expedited.

There is still a need for the Tent Cities. There will still be Tender Age Facilities. This serves as optics for Trump to claim he is not ripping families apart. He is. The GOP are. They’re just hiding the fine print.

Understand this is the result of the pressure we and others have exerted. WE made this change. But this is not the solution. He anticipates this will temper our moral outrage. Do not let it. This is not close enough. This is not a victory for those families crossing the border.

In a Twitter thread Anil Kalhan goes through the executive order, detailing the many ways it doesn’t do what the nasty guy is crowing about. One of those contradictions: The EO says any entry other than at a designated Port of Entry is illegal. But when people go to a Port of Entry the border patrol turns migrants away to prevent them from applying for asylum. Another: Even if the entry is illegal the US has an obligation not to deport them back to where they face persecution – they still have a right to apply for asylum. See the Refugee Convention the US ratified. The nasty guy’s order says “The policy of this Administration is to rigorously enforce our immigration laws.” The Refugee Convention is a part of those immigration laws and he is violating it. One thing the order leaves out is how they plan to reunite the more than 2,300 kids already abducted. It is left out because they have no plan – and they’re asking Congress for money for “residential centers.”

Kalhan includes a tweet from People Migrate:

A crazy thing about this EO is the brazen challenge to the other 2 branches of government, almost taunting them to defy the administration.

Sarah Kendzior adds in a tweet:

Do not cheer that instead of threatening war with North Korea, Trump boosts its brutal dictator.

Do not applaud Trump's claim that they'll stop snatching children and will instead jail whole families.

Do not surrender your values to a despot. His "solutions" are atrocities too.

I saw a tweet earlier today, which I can’t find now. It said something like this: Those seeking asylum have spent a grueling month (or was it three?) to escape persecution. They show fortitude. I’d be delighted to have them as a neighbor.

Jen Heyden of the Daily Kos staff adds another horrific dimension to the story. There is now a lawsuit over the children detained in the Shiloh Treatment Center just south of Houston. The lawsuit says the children are regularly being injected with powerful drugs that were disguised as vitamins. The drugs are to control behavior – something the Soviets used to do.

The New York Times talks about the contagion of incivility that has come in response to the nasty guy saying immigrants want to “infest” America. Mikel Jollett responds in a tweet:

On the one hand, the most powerful man in the world using the language of genocide.

On the other, some people on the internet calling him a dick because of it.

That is not being uncivil.

That got me thinking. A few weeks ago, before this immigration mess hit the news, Nancy Kaffer, an opinion columnist for the Detroit Free Press, discussed the current demand for civility.

I want Americans to be able to discuss hard subjects and find common ground without calling each other mean names. Civility is required for that.

But I'm skeptical: too often, a claim of incivility is a means of control, a new kind of respectability politics that allows the listener to disregard some arguments, not on the merits, but because of how the argument is made.
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Civility, says Anika Goss-Foster of Detroit Future City, often seems to mean "I'm expected to be tolerant of things I am not able to be tolerant of."

And sometimes, she said, "Me being civil is me being quiet when I'm being talked over.”
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The plea for a return to civility, for a lot of folks, is tied to President Donald Trump, for whom incivility is a personal calling card and who swept into office on a wave of white anger.

But anger isn't inherently destructive. A person who is angry is telling you something important about her life. And some things — the poisoning of a city's water, for instance, or decades of disinvestment in the state's largest school district — are still worth getting angry about.

It is also worth getting angry about what the nasty guy is doing to immigrants.