In June 2015, I had declared Donald Trump an idiot.
In October 2016, during the height of the election season, I declared that he was a lot of other things, none of them very good. And I meant every word I said.
More recently, I had come to the conclusion that he was an infant and a jackass.
Last Thursday, I declared that Donald Trump is an impostor.
Well, now Donald Trump himself has revealed that he is nothing but a mean old man.
Yesterday, on a Sunday in the middle of a three-day weekend, the White House announced that Trump had "decided" to end the immigration policy known as "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals," or DACA. This policy, instituted by Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, in June 2012, gave hope to the children of illegal immigrants — children who didn't choose to come here, in the legal sense, but came with their families. DACA was a way to give them hope that they could build a future in this new country — the only country they had ever known, and the place that they considered home.
Donald Trump is not doing any good by canceling this policy. Nor does he care that he is making innocent people suffer.
He did not take this step to secure our nation's borders. It has no impact at all on national security.
He took this step because he's trying to fulfill at least one of his campaign promises, and he hasn't had a lot of luck so far.
He took this step as part of his (unwritten) policy to undo everything that President Obama did, good or bad.
And he took this step to solidify his standing among his so-called base. (According to Time magazine, that's only 35% of Americans, and the number is falling. Can't Trump do math?) Donald Trump's base has shrunk to the point that it now includes only the baser elements of American society: the racists, the neo-Nazis, and the right-wing extremists. Oh, and closed-minded, two-faced hypocrites.
If you knew any of these so-called Dreamers personally, you would feel the same way I do.
Twelve years ago, I taught mathematics to some of these children, first in English, as state law required, and then a second time in Spanish, so they could understand and learn.
Six years ago, my sweet wife taught literacy, English, to some of these children. One of them, a young girl, had to skip school every Wednesday to help her parents work in the fields.
Some of these children have now graduated from college. The rest of them have found honest jobs. They have become contributing members of American society. They pay taxes, Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare. They are marrying and raising families of their own.
Where is the justice in sending them back to a country that they don't call home? Where's the fairness? There isn't any.
Let's hope that Congress has the courage and the will, to do something to ward off the damage this "decision" will cause, before it takes effect six months from now.
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UPDATE: Tuesday, September 5
So, Trump had his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, give the official announcement this morning. Sessions wrapped it all up in pretty little legalese justification, inventing the word "effectuated" to help him get his point across. But according to MSNBC, a metric trainload of legal and constitutional scholars have rebuffed every point Sessions tried to make, including the most important assertion, that Barack Obama's executive
Then Trump tweeted something to the effect of "Get to work, Congress! You have six months." First of all, he's still laboring under the impression that he's the boss of Congress, and second, he's using an ultimatum again, one of his favorite negotiating tools. Ultimatums are stupid. What do you expect?
Finally, tonight, the Daily Beast reported this:
President Donald Trump said Tuesday night that if Congress cannot pass a legislative fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that his administration scrapped, he will “revisit” it. “Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do). If they can't, I will revisit this issue!” Trump tweeted. He declined to offer specifics on what “revisiting” would entail.
Vague threats like this are another one of Trump's negotiating tactics. To bring this article full circle, he sounds like nothing as much as a mean old man, like a grouchy neighbor.
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