the ship that can’t sink

I read It Can’t Happen Here during the first Trump admin. It was over-the-top (at the time), almost ridiculous. It’s certainly more apropos in the second term.

Is America on the brink now? Have we caught up with The Handmaid’s Tale? These are essentially alarmist questions, but here’s something we can at least admit to ourselves: we are certainly closer now to both than we were before MAGA infected our nation.

Here is a short video from historians that I respect, one of which I’ve written about before.

This image captured at an immigration stop sort of sums it up for me. Is this what America is about? Sure, we don’t have the context of the scene. We don’t know the details.

But look at the girl’s face. Status (legality, illegality, criminality, innocence) doesn’t matter so much when someone is terrified. That girl is terrified. She’s absorbing the trauma of the scene. And it will live in her bones the rest of her life.

This is America now. This is what Trump means when he says, “Make America Great.” This is our America.

MCALLEN, TX – JUNE 12: A two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the U.S.-Mexico border on June 12, 2018 in McAllen, Texas. The asylum seekers had rafted across the Rio Grande from Mexico and were detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents before being sent to a processing center for possible separation. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is executing the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy towards undocumented immigrants. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also said that domestic and gang violence in immigrants’ country of origin would no longer qualify them for political asylum status. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

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2 responses to “the ship that can’t sink”

  1. Rick Avatar
    Rick

    I see what you are saying in this copied video. The small little girl was very afraid. What we have is an administration that is trying to get out millions of people that have come into our country some just to have a better life. Not much different that through Ellis Island years ago. But and this is a big but we have not way of knowing what their allegiance is to America. I guess the first question is, is that a problem. If not then the second question is why did the past administration open the boarders and still say the boarders are closed. I that what we want for the future a government that is like the book 1984. Move along, nothing to see here. What you see is not real. The little girl could be any little girl when a parent breaks the law and the parent is caught. Do we put the little girl in jail with the parent today. I feel that image is scary but we need to see all images in context or it is just a fear tactic.

    I feel we can take any image any speech and make it look like the world is ending if we couch it in the right way. Please let us not just see our “side” but what is really happening.

    Reply
    1. Rob Avatar
      Rob

      I’m going to zero in on this line:
      “we have no way of knowing what their allegiance is to America… is that a problem?”

      I think it’s uncanny that you then reference Orwell’s 1984, which does its part in describing living in a fascist state (in good company with the two books I mentioned in my piece). All authoritarian states start with an appeal to safety. “We are at war.” “Enemy of the state.” “Rapist immigrants.” We surrender our liberty in exchange for security, says Ben Franklin.

      I find the question, “what is their allegiance” fundamentally distrustful. Turning neighbor against neighbor turns our eyes away from the leaders in power.

      Reply

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