DACA

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A year in and it’s worse than I imagined

Posted by noonante on January 17, 2018
Posted in: Political/Social commentary, Politics. Tagged: , , , . 1 Comment

Shortly after Donald Trump was elected, I was speaking with a despondent friend who despaired for the future of our country.  I agreed that he was a repulsive and repugnant human being, but we should see what he does in office before making a judgment.  He is much worse than I thought imaginable.

It seems that every week is described as the worst one in his presidency, but it will be difficult to surpass this last one  –  although I have no doubt he will.  When the week ends with a report from the Wall Street Journal that your personal attorney paid $130,000 to a porn star to buy her silence a month before the election, and that is not even in the top three of negative stories, you have had a bad week.

It began, I guess predictably, with an effort to address the prior week’s top disaster, the Michael Wolff book describing our President as an unstable, lazy, ignoramus.  After Trump declared he was a “stable genius,” his staff convinced him to do a televised meeting with Congressional leaders to negotiate a fix to the DACA issue.  The need for this was occasioned by another of his disasters, his decision to repeal DACA, giving Congress six months to clean up the mess he created.

Immigration issues are, of course, his signature issue, and one that undoubtedly propelled him to the presidency.  While the purpose of televising the negotiations was to convey an image of the leader in full control, it displayed the opposite.  He clearly had no idea what he was talking about.  At one point he agreed on an approach with a Democratic senator until one of the Congressional Republicans corrected him.  The White House staff then displayed their Kremlinesque skills by deleting his agreement from the transcript they released.

Then we had the President tweeting his opposition to a bill in Congress that was his bill.  While he is the chief executive for 16 national security agencies, he apparently derives his “intelligence” from the morning broadcast of Fox and Friends, or, as Esquire’s Charlie Pierce calls them, “Three Dolts on a Divan.”

The bill was a reauthorization of a section of the FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which, according to reports, is the source for much of the President’s Daily Intelligence Briefing  –  that is, if he ever decided to attend that.  Panicked Republicans in Congress were finally able to get through to him to correct this mistake.

All of this paled  – if you will excuse the expression  –  to his follow-up meeting on DACA in which he described African countries as “shitholes,” and said legislation should not permit Africans or Haitians in the country.  He thought our immigration efforts should focus on countries like Norway.  How is one of these not like the others?  That’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?

Way too much of the ensuing media coverage focused on the President’s use of the word “shithole.”  Two senators, Dick Durbin and Lindsey Graham confirmed he said it.  Two Republicans at first could not recall whether he said it, but miraculously later remembered he said “shithouse.”  Your guess is as good as mine as to why they thought this distinction somehow aided the President, whose vulgarity has never been in doubt.

It doesn’t matter whether he said either word, or no offensive term at all.  What matters is that the President of the United States stated his objective for an immigration policy that supports those from predominantly white countries while opposing immigrants from predominantly black countries.

If this were a one-time blip, it could perhaps be excused. But it continues a decades-long career of making negative comments about blacks, Latinos, Muslims, women, the disabled and anyone who dares question his judgment or policies (to the extent he has any).

Trump has said on several occasions that he is the “least racist” person you could ever meet.  Setting aside the absurdity of such a claim  –  from anyone, not just this obvious bigot  –  it does not matter.  His policies are bigoted and racist.  It is not a coincidence that his neglect, and that of his Administration, “oversees” hundreds of thousands of American citizens on Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands who have been without power for months since Hurricane Maria.  He has spent more time fretting about football players protesting unequal treatment than doing anything about the suffering of our fellow citizens.

Yes, I was willing to give him a chance, but this presidency is the worst in my lifetime, if not in our nation’s history.

 

 

DACA “solution” is perfect Trump

Posted by noonante on September 7, 2017
Posted in: Political/Social commentary, Politics. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

The approach announced Tuesday by Attorney General Sessions today on the so-called “Dreamers” is archetypical behavior by Donald Trump.  It encapsulates so many of his characteristics:  lack of leadership, failure to have a clear policy, political ineptitude, failure to keep promises, complete disregard for the less-advantaged, failure to take responsibility, passing the buck, and, let’s not forget one of his favorites, trying to screw his ever-increasing list of perceived enemies.  All that is missing is a sense of the personal corruption that imbues so much of his behavior.

DACA, of course, is the acronym for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a policy announced by Barack Obama to deal with a problem arising from the inability of Congress to enact legislation on immigration.  It provided an avenue for children who were brought to this country by illegal immigrant parents to remain in the here.  For many of these 800,000 “Dreamers,” America is the only country they have known.

The policy announced by the current Administration is that the program will end in six months, ostensibly to give Congress time to craft a law.  In the 24 hours following the Session announcement, our President tweeted that the Dreamers should be wrapping up their affairs so they can leave within six months.  Then he tweeted that he may revisit his policy if Congress doesn’t act within six months.  You figure out what his position is.

That our President announces inherent and conflicting policies on Twitter is not new.  He is someone for whom the 140-character limit is not a restraint on his deepest thoughts.  But this roll-out is so typical of his presidency and its many failings.

First, there is no leadership.  Not only do we not know what the actual policy is, but he abdicates responsibility for it by kicking it to Congress.  It is reminiscent of his being the last person in America to realize health care is “so complicated,” and then deferring to Congress.  Of course, someone born with the proverbial spoon may not ever had to confront an actual health care bill that someone else did not pay.

Second, and again as with Obamacare, there is no regard for the hundreds of thousands of people who will be affected by the chaos created through either callousness or ineptitude.  Neither the millions losing health care nor the hundreds of thousands losing their home particularly care whether the President’s views are caused by hostility to them or just blatant incompetence.

Then we have the betrayal of campaign promises  —  again a similarity with his actions on health care.  Trumpcare was never going to be better and less expensive than Obamacare, although there is no evidence he even knew what the components of the Congressional plans would be.  (In fairness, when you have to fixate on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ratings, there is less time to stay informed on policy details.)  When he said the Dreamers “have nothing to worry about,” that apparently did not include his efforts to deport them.

Fourth, there is the dumping on Congress responsibility for solving a long-simmering problem in a short time-span.  I realize that for those Trump supporters not motivated by racist and bigoted policies, upending the established order in Washington was a major appeal.  It’s hard not to agree, and immigration policy is as good an example of congressional dysfunction as exists.  But the goal should be to reach solutions, not exacerbate the dysfunction.  Throwing this on Congress’ lap when they are dealing with funding relief for Harvey (and, presumably, Irma), when there are fights over the debt limit and the budget can hardly be described as a sage move.

One suspects, however, that Trump is less concerned with getting things accomplished than lining up who can be blamed when things do not work out.  We know he will not take responsibility for anything going wrong because he never has.

But now he can even the score with the Congressional leadership who he believes has not kowtowed to him, particularly on Russia.  And he made Jeff Sessions announce the unpopular policy, speaking of someone who did not kowtow on Russia.  Although, I suspect Sessions thrilled at announcing a policy that was in his wheelhouse, embracing the xenophobia and bigotry that are so close to his heart.

The bottom line is that we have a President who is afraid to announce a major policy that he supposedly embraces, and is leaving others to clean up the mess.  Hopefully, he will not act similarly on North Korea now that he must be aware that China is not willing to be his surrogate.