Mountain Views News, Pasadena Edition [Sierra Madre] Saturday, June 23, 2018

OPINION

B3

 Mountain Views News Saturday, June 23, 2018 


DICK POLMAN

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WILL TRUMP’S KID CRUELTY

SINK THE GOP IN NOVEMBER?

It may seem crass to discuss the potential political impact of 
Trump’s family separation policy - especially when we can hear 
the kids wailing for their parents - but we do need to ask:

 Is this finally the issue that will shock voters back to sanity? Is 
this finally the issue that will prompt Democratic-leaning Americans, who usually skip 
the midterms, to punish the Trump-abetting GOP, turn the House blue, and deal a major 
blow to Trump’s racist authoritarian dreams?

 Maybe there’s reason to hope. Even Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci, the short-lived 
Trump flack, says that the TV “optics” of little kids crying for their moms are bad for a 
president who understands the power of imagery. He tells CNN, “It’s not good for the 
Congress if we want to win the midterms.”

 Chris Warshaw, a political scientist at George Washington University, having crunched 
the poll numbers from Quinnipiac and Ipsos, says that public support for Trump’s caging 
of kids is the lowest for any policy proposal in the last 30 years. And one of the most 
highly motivated cohorts in the projected midterm electorate - women - are especially 
contemptuous.

 According to Quinnipiac, 66 percent of voters (including 68 percent of independents) 
gave a thumbs down to Trump administration’s no-tolerance policy. Women in 
particular were more fervent about it. A whopping 70 percent said they were opposed; 
only 22 percent supported. Those were the stats for all women, including minorities. But 
the numbers were virtually the same for white women (65 percent opposed, 25 percent 
support) - and that’s significant, because a majority of white women voted for Trump in 
2016.

 The obvious risk for Trump and the GOP (even as Trump continued to fake-blame 
“Democrats” for the policy he owns) is that women in particular won’t vote for a 
heartless party that treats children like animals. As one Republican strategist told NBC 
News, “The media will broadcast these images of brutality and chaos, and the public will 
associate them with the Republicans that run the House and Senate.” A second GOP 
strategist said, “The images are devastating.”

 The pollsters at Ipsos basically asked people whether they agreed with Jeff Sessions’ 
argument that the separation policy is designed to be a deterrent. But again, the public 
signaled strong opposition; 56 percent said the policy is inappropriate, only 27 percent 
signaled support. And that sentiment was stronger among women; 59 percent oppose it, 
only 23 percent support it.

 Granted, it’s only June. One dares not even imagine what else Trump will do between 
now and November, with only a smattering of Republicans bleating empty words. But 
Trump being Trump, he shows no signs of backing away from his border brutality. 
According to projections by the Department of Health and Human Services, the number 
of undocumented immigrant kids in federal custody could top 20,000 by August.

 That should keep the issue alive for the electorate. Stephen Miller, the white nationalist 
adviser who pushed for Trump’s policy, apparently thinks it’s a boffo way to gin up white-
grievance midterm turnout, but his strategy may well backfire. The Ipsos poll reports 
that only 46 percent of self-identified Republicans support family separation, and that’s a 
very low figure for a party that typically marches in lockstep. Meanwhile, the slice of the 
electorate that rightly detests Trump - the same slice that has triggered Democratic wins 
in scores of state and federal special elections - now has another issue to stoke its ire. And 
because it’s about children, it’s arguably the most visceral issue of all.

 Trump, of course, has the power to pull the plug and prevent his opponents from using 
it against him. As he said at the 2016 Republican convention, referring to America’s ills, 
“I alone can fix it.”

 So fix it already. Do it for the kids.

-

 Copyright 2018 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper 
syndicate.

 Dick Polman is the national political columnist at WHYY in Philadelphia and a 
“Writer in Residence” at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at dickpolman7@
gmail.com.


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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

BLAIR BESS

THIS IS US

MICHAEL REAGAN

 
CONGRESS IS BROKEN… AND 
SPINELESS

This is us, America. 
This is who we are at 
this precise moment 
in time. A nation that 
separates families. A 
nation that interns 
children and infants 
in detention camps 
far from their 
parents, farther still from those the 
Trump administration perceives to be 
his meddlesome enemies; those whose 
prying eyes, brimming with empathy, 
and voices of reason are a threat to his 
regime. This is us, America. This is who 
we are - or have become - in the eyes of 
the world.

 This is exactly what other autocrats - 
among them, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, 
Kim Jong Un, and Turkey’s Recep 
Erdogan - would like their own people 
to believe. For them, this is the perfect “I 
told you so” moment. A time when they 
can accurately point to America and say 
“They are no better than us. They are not 
who they claim to be.” 

 The president’s immigration policy is 
a disaster. To those true believers, those 
who continue to ride the Trumpian 
Trolley to hell, the president is a man of 
his word. In their eyes, he is fulfilling the 
promises he made while campaigning for 
office. He tells them what he wants them 
to hear and believe. 

 President Trump and his apostle, 
Jeff Sessions, are, in the minds of their 
followers, guiding Americans toward 
security and salvation. Yet, the path these 
two men and others in the administration 
are forging leads us further into the 
wilderness, isolating us from those who 
remain free to speak the truth and true to 
their values.

 As in previous authoritarian regimes 
throughout history, the president and 
his minions have sought and found a 
scapegoat. For the Romans, it was the 
Christians; for the Czars, it was the 
downtrodden who threatened their 
autocratic reign and personal fortunes; 
for the Third Reich, it was the Jews, Roma, 
homosexuals, and political opponents. 

The president claims those being detained 
are criminals, murderers, rapists, and 
members of roving gangs from whom 
only he, the great and powerful Trump, 
can save us. Save us from infants and 
children being removed from the loving 
arms of their parents?

 This distorted outlook on immigration 
is not about safeguarding jobs. It is not 
about protecting the vast number of 
Americans from criminals. The president 
continually points to the “animals” of 
the MS-13 gang as one rationale for his 
immigration initiatives. What he doesn’t 
tell his followers is that, according 
to FBI statistics, the grand total of 
MS-13 members currently residing - 
legally or not - in the U.S. accounts for 
approximately .00323 percent of the 
population; a number that has remained 
stable for the last dozen years. 

 The president’s immigration strategy 
- if there is one - is not about border 
security or making America great again 
through ludicrous trade tariffs. It’s about 
separating “us” from “them.” It is a page 
ripped from a scrapbook of atrocities 
perpetrated by others; torn by “advisers” 
and “experts” whose lack of decency 
and ignorance of history are causing 
this presidency to become increasingly 
dangerous. 

 The Trump immigration policy - and 
it is the president’s policy, not that of his 
Democrat or Republican predecessors, 
no matter what he proclaims - is an 
abject failure. Rather than protecting the 
American people, he is currently in the 
process of creating a new generation of 
terrorists whose separation from their 
parents at a tender age is causing them 
incalculable psychological and physical 
harm; harm that may come back to 
haunt us at some point in the future in a 
manner more violent than the president 
could ever imagine. 

 President Trump’s legacy may well 
lead to the radicalization of children and 
infants whose memories of America and 
its people may rival the perception of 
Palestinian children held hostage beyond 
the walls and fences of the Gaza Strip; 
those whose dire circumstances have led 
them to participate in violent assaults 
upon Israel.

 Today, the Department of Defense is 
readying military bases - inaccessible and 
off-limits to the press and public - capable 
of holding 20,000 people. Pentagon 
spokesman Lt. Col. Michael Andrews 
told reporters it is for the internment 
of “unaccompanied alien children.” 
Innocent children who truly are being 
treated as though they were “animals.” 
So much for President Trump’s recent 
executive order to keep undocumented 
families together. 

Americans must bear witness. We 
cannot turn our backs on reality. Right 
now, activists, the clergy, journalists, 
righteous citizens, and an increasing 
number of true public servants from 
both parties are attempting to expose 
and condemn the tragedy currently 
unfolding on our southern border. In 
so doing, they are struggling to reclaim 
the ever-diminishing reputations of us 
all and rekindle the beacon of hope for 
the marginalized and oppressed that was 
once the U.S. 

Blair Bess is a Los Angeles-based television 
writer, producer, and columnist. 


It’s no surprise that Democrats and 
everyone in the liberal media are blaming 
President Trump personally for the crying 
immigrant children at the border.

He gets blamed for everything their 
hysterical minds can think of. 

But it’s not up to him to fix what’s wrong 
with our messed-up immigration policies. 
It’s up to Congress.

The problem is, as Americans can see for 
themselves every day, Congress is broken 
– and crawling with spineless politicians.

Our senators and representatives can’t 
or won’t come up with an immigration 
reform bill and send it to the president’s 
desk any time soon - just like they couldn’t 
or wouldn’t do so when Bush II and 
Obama were presidents.

Both parties are at fault.

For more than thirty years, no matter 
which party controlled Congress or the 
White House, they did nothing significant 
to fix our illegal immigration problem 
- which now should be more accurately 
described as “an illegal invasion problem.”

House Republicans today can’t even get 
their act together to pass an immigration 
bill and send it to the Senate, where they’d 
never get it passed anyway.

Meanwhile, cynical Democrats prefer to 
continue using footage of crying children 
as propaganda weapons in their 24/7 war 
against Trump and anyone bearing his 
name.

When Melania Trump flew down to Texas 
this week to see firsthand how illegal 
immigrants and their children are being 
treated at the Mexican border, some creepy 
media people made fun of her.

But she deserved applause, not laughs. 
She did something I bet 95 percent of the 
members of Congress have never done.

She actually went to find out what madness 
our border security people have to deal 
with every day.

No one with a heart likes to see kids 
crying or suffering behind chain-link 
fences (except the anti-Trump media who 
weaponize the image). 

But children of illegal immigrants caught 
at the border have been separated from 
their parents for years.

It happened while Obama was president, 
though the liberal 
media didn’t 
notice or get 
hysterical about 
it or his other 
strict, Trumpian 
policies.

Now everyone in the media is appalled 
because it’s occurring under Trump?

I get it.

No one expects fairness or historical 
perspective from the liberal mainstream 
media when it comes to Trump. Like 
so many other issues, on this one the 
president was doomed no matter what he 
did.

When he told Congress that immigration 
was its job to fix, he was correct.

But Congress and the liberal media begged 
him: “Please, Mr. President. You can solve 
this tragic separation problem simply with 
your signature.”

So Trump did a 180.

He signed an executive order to cease his 
own administration’s practices and allow 
families (or alleged families) seeking 
asylum to be detained together until they 
were vetted or processed.

And what was his reward for his change of 
heart? People whined that it wasn’t enough 
or that it would make things worse.

Meanwhile, since spineless Congress isn’t 
going to touch immigration reform this 
year or in 2020 or maybe ever, what should 
we do?

There are no good or easy answers.

But if we really want to make sure kids and 
their parents from Honduras or Guatemala 
are kept together after we catch them 
trying to break into the United States, I’ve 
got a cheap and sensible idea we could try.

We should immediately put them on a 
nice bus and send them home. Actually, I 
stole the bus idea from Barack Obama.

In 2014 he told George Stephanopoulos 
on TV that he had a tough message for 
the families of Central America who were 
thinking of sneaking their kids into the 
USA: “Do not send your children to the 
borders. If they do make it, they’ll get sent 
back.”

Maybe President Trump should ask 
Obama if he has any other good advice.

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