Does America still have a heart?
The remaking of America from compassion to callousness has come swiftly. Will it ever return?
It was another dramatic week in Donald Trump’s dystopian America, one that saw the petulant President break publicly with his biggest donor on Thursday and declare war on California by Saturday.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Trump escalated tensions in Los Angeles, sending the National Guard and U.S. Marines to quell a few hundred protesters, mere days after the public meltdown with Elon Musk.
It falls under a classic Trump playbook: When things go south create a distraction with outrageous events. We know it’s all a show. If Trump really cared about law and order he would not have pardoned the Jan. 6 rioters. What a hypocrite. Him and all the rest.
Instead, he threatened to arrest Gavin Newsom, which is obviously projection by the true criminal, the one who led a violent insurrection on the nation’s Capital. He should talk.
The worst act perpetrated by a U.S. President in American history. Trump should have been tried for insurrection in my opinion. They used to hang people for that.
The war of words taking place between Trump and Newsom does have the dangerous possibilities of escalating into what could possibly play out in its most severe outcome into a civil war. Afterall, the civil war was technically fought over state’s rights.
Los Angeles declared a downtown curfew after 8 p.m., but I expect the demonstrations to continue to grow larger, especially on Saturday for the No Kings protest, nationwide day of action.
In the months to come the chaos and division will only get worse because this is what comes with Donald Trump. This is what millions of Americans knew would come and they voted for it anyway.
This week the consequences of a Trump Presidency were stark. For me, it’s been nothing short of heartbreaking.
To see so many immigrant families torn apart, living in fear, it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart for a country that has lost its way, for a people that can’t see their own immigrant histories in the faces of today’s migrants.
We should be grateful for the immigrants, legal and otherwise, who pick our fruits and vegetables, clean our homes, and mow our lawns, and perform so many other low paying jobs. I love our Latino neighbors and I am proud to have them in our country.
For the gang members and criminals, deport them, by all means, but that is not what is happening. We are seeing construction workers hauled away. We are seeing day laborers rounded up. We are seeing people getting deported who are working and following the legal process, who do not have a criminal record, who only want to work and feed their families.
I was raised with the stories of my immigrant Jewish family. They arrived at Ellis Island and went through the immigration process. But they did not arrive with papers. They did not arrange for their immigration ahead of time.
They simply showed up at New York Harbor, much like so many of today’s migrants who arrived at US border stations, requested amnesty and entered the legal process of obtaining a Green Card.
This is today’s version of Ellis Island. Today, migrants stay in touch through an app and it was through this process that our country has now heartlessly shut the door on so many people with hopes and dreams of becoming an American. For these people the American dream was still alive, until today.
What’s happening is far different from what President Trump sold the American people. He promised to target the gang members and criminals, not the law abiding migrants seeking Green Cards, guilty of no crime but trying to support their children. But that’s exactly what they’ve done.
Are these the American values we were taught as children? Are these the Christian values that are taught in church? What message does this send around the world other than we don’t want you, stay home? For many in today’s America, that’s exactly the message they want to send. How lovely.
When reporters ask officials why are they not only targeting criminals, they respond with a standard answer. They say that anyone living in the country illegally is committing a crime and could be subject to deportation. The law is the law.
While that might be the case, it strikes me as heartless in a nation that has quite frankly lost its heart. Amid the gun violence, social media distractions and political fighting, we have lost our compassion. We have lost our humanity. America has completely lost its way.
I’m convinced now more than ever, there is no coming back from this. America never returns to its image as a shining light on the hill. Those days are over. The future is one of more cutthroat capitalism, more income inequality, more gun violence and more ignorance. The writing is on the wall, has been for a long time.
We have likely already lost our reputation around the world as a welcoming and compassionate nation. Sadly, for so many of my friends and countrymen, they are perfectly fine with that, because they are heartless like all the rest.