Donald Trump

I've been thinking about the personification of evil, how it works and how it's constructed in everyday life.

What is it that you mean.

Donald Trump.

I don't really need to delve into some of the outrageous things that DT has said in recent months--it's been covered. I'm less hesitant to share Evan Osnos' excellent article about some of Trump's most ideologically committed supporters, white supremacists: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-fearful-and-the-frustrated

It makes sense, that in the midst of an economy with stagnating wages, income inequality, a student debt bubble, and the shifting nature of jobs available to young people (especially the increase in part-time vs. full-time work), that a candidate who can make the case that it's really the immigrants who are the problem can garner support from such a large proportion of a major political party.

Watch this:

Congressman Ted Lieu:

“I think it’s easy for people like you and me who wear suits and ties and work in offices to cast aspersions on those with a tenth-grade education . . . But let’s talk about some of these folks with a tenth-grade education . . . I have had the opportunity to meet over the years many farmworkers who have had families die under brutal conditions in the heat so that you or I can have less expensive orange juice, cheaper artichokes, or less expensive garlic . . . and I just want to suggest that these people have given far more to American society than you or I ever will.”

I think it's more than a problem of perspective. Immigrants contribute to this country, pay taxes, and do the jobs that many of us don't even imagine doing. 

But moreover, I think it's important to question the basis of opposition to immigration, legal or illegal. How much of European colonization of the Americas could be deemed "legal"? What about the fact that much of the western United States was inhabited by Spanish and Native American peoples before the white settlers came? Is it a coincidence that there's a state called "New Mexico"??

What really gets lost in this immigration debate, as well, is the relevance of national borders in a world where they've become increasingly meaningless. We have the Internet--we have multinational corporations--we have globalization of economies to the point where a recession in China affects policy in the U.S. And really, what's a world with impermeable walls and segregation of the privileged and not? It's a re-creation of post-war Germany--and we all lose out. The dynamism of talent from other countries--the diversity of perspectives and the hard work that immigrants bring to the U.S. is what makes this country so great. 

It's scary how much traction DT's gotten in recent months/weeks, and I think it's important to call him out. It's not okay to cast aspersions on some of the hardest working people in the world, immigrants. It's not okay to call out John McCain on his experience of torture--it's not okay to insult women and remain more or less silent as your supporters beat immigrants up claiming "Donald Trump was right" and spread lies about the President (like how he's not an American--don't get me started on the ridiculousness of calling him a Muslim, or how even if that were true, what relevance would it have?). That's evil--the personification of ignorance and hatred of peoples. Let's hope people wake up to that.