erik lundegaard

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Wednesday June 20, 2018

Quote of the Day

“On the Texas side of the Mexican border today, thousands of children, by order of the Trump Administration, are learning what it is to be objects of deliberate state-sponsored cruelty. In a heartless act designed to arouse the furies of his electoral base, the President has ordered children to be separated from their parents and stowed in tent cities and cages and a hollowed-out former Walmart. The Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, justifies this act of ”zero tolerance“ by quoting from Scripture: 'I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order. Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.' This is the political leadership of the United States—at once cruel and sanctimonious. And it is on this platform of division, fear, and cruelty that the President has chosen to lead his party into the 2018 midterm elections.

”Some pundits have suggested that what is happening now in Texas will be ‘Trump’s Katrina.' But, without excusing the racism and the indifference shown by the authorities in that horrific episode, it ought to be pointed out that at least the federal government did not order the flooding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. What is happening now is purely gratuitous, a deliberate act of cruelty intended as leverage to build a ‘beautiful wall.’ And it is a wall intended not only to block Mexicans and Central Americans from making their way into the United States but to divide the United States itself, in order to retain power.“

— David Remnick, ”Trump's Cruelty and the Crying Children at the Border,“ The New Yorker. Today, Trump signed an executive order to finally rescind that ”zero tolerance" policy of breaking up families at the border as a way to warn others from ever arriving. But it did more than that. It tarnished for a long time the image of America as a shining city on a hill. I‘ve said it before: We’ll be apologizing to the rest of the world for Donald J. Trump for decades. 

Posted at 11:26 AM on Wednesday June 20, 2018 in category Quote of the Day