Trump's Immigration Meeting Was Pure Authoritarian

From Esquire

Approximately 264,000 things happened on Wednesday, and about half involved Michael Cohen. But President Trump was not content to let his certified genius brain of an ex-lawyer make all the headlines-or, for that matter, allow his current lawyer to hog the spotlight. No, on this, the one-year anniversary of Robert Mueller's appointment as special counsel in the Russia probe, we may be entering a new season of So You Think You Can President. And things are getting spectacularly ugly:

Attacking a marginalized group in dehumanizing terms? What could go wrong?

Already, a debate has raged over whether Trump was attacking all undocumented immigrants or just MS-13 gang members. If he was just calling gang members "animals," his defenders say, that is justified. The first answer is that the leader of the world's most powerful country should not dehumanize people in any context, particularly in a meeting at the White House. But here is the full context, as highlighted by CNN's Jake Tapper:

The discussion was primarily about laws concerning what ICE is permitted to do while pursuing suspects. But it was the sheriff's mention of MS-13-in a strictly hypothetical context that places ICE's targets in the worst possible light-that set off Trump. The immediate suggestion was that everyone in this sheriff's jail that ICE would target is a potential gang member. Trump never bothered to differentiate between violent criminals and people who are here peacefully but lack proper documentation. If he was only talking about MS-13 when he started calling people "animals," he made no attempt to clarify that many of the undocumented have committed no crimes on U.S. soil and are here to work honest jobs. He never makes that distinction. To him, there is no difference worth remarking on.

As Vox highlighted, this is reflected in the policies of Trump's administration. While there was a slight uptick in deportations of violent criminals from Obama's last year in office to Trump's first-though both years were well below earlier Obama levels-the real change came with respect to nonviolent offenders:

Then there are the raw numbers:

Are we supposed to believe Trump is primarily concerned with the "animals" in MS-13 when as much as 40 percent of the people his administration is deporting have no criminal record? What percentage of those here illegally are realistically members of MS-13? Or can we instead safely assume that he's more concerned with getting as many people out as possible, most of whom just happen to be of a particular complexion?

In reality, the constant drumbeat of Trumpian immigration rhetoric has been to highlight the worst cases, over and over again, until that's the only image of undocumented immigrants his supporters ever see. Exhibit B:

This is the same approach that led Trump, in the speech announcing his candidacy, to characterize undocumented immigrants as rapists and criminals. It's why he constantly highlights the relatively rare cases of American citizens like Kate Steinle-"Beautiful Kate," in Trumpian dialect-who are killed by people here illegally. The intent is to demonize the larger group by presenting its worst elements as representative. This is incredibly dangerous, particularly because the term "illegal immigrant" has clear racial undertones in America. When you call someone an animal, you encourage others to treat them as less than human. History tells us that does not end well.

But this whole demonstration would not have been complete without a few more odes to the authoritarian impulse. Trump blamed Democrats for his own policy of splitting up the families of undocumented immigrants at the border-a supposed deterrent to would-be border-crossers that seems to fall short of recognizing their full humanity. (This also runs contrary to the spirit of the Geneva Conventions, but then again, we're about to re-endorse torture as a nation.)

Trump characterized California as a lawless hellscape where undocumented gang members run wild. (Nevermind that it has rapidly grown to become the world's fifth largest economy, home to some 39.5 million people who seem to like it.) He blamed Democrats for the destruction and abracadabra'd up some stories about how Many People Are Saying they want The Wall. He also revived, yet again, his completely batshit claim that he only lost the state-by 3 million votes-because of illegal voting. It's the lie that just won't die.

That victim complex wasn't limited to the president. His acting ICE director, Thomas Homan, nearly broke down in tears while explaining the sad plight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents:

This is a national police force that is arresting people without warrants and targeting people while they drop their kids off at school or at their wedding. It should be thoroughly investigated by Congress.

Speaking of investigations, there was time for this president of a democratic republic to call on his chief law enforcement officer to investigate a political opponent:

As a hopeless reminder, it used to be a genuine scandal for a sitting president to comment on any ongoing or potential Justice Department investigation. This president regularly interferes in an investigation into himself and his associates, and calls on the Department of Justice to prosecute his political enemies.

It's not just that Trump has no regard for the concept of an independent Justice Department or the rule of law, or that he thinks law enforcement is a tool under his direction that he can sic on Democrats who oppose his agenda. It's that he feels empowered-emboldened-to demonstrate this in public, in a televised White House meeting. He believes this is what the presidency is.

"Congratulations America," indeed.

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