There he goes again
Donald J. Trump unbound
FIRING FAST and furious in all directions, our feckless president continues to make more headlines than real progress as he opens new fronts almost daily in his war against simple, sensible policies. One is reminded of another and far better president’s response when his secretary of state suggested declaring war on Britain and France to hold a fast dissolving Union together: One war at a time, Mr. Seward. That was A. Lincoln’s reaction to William Henry Seward’s wild swings. If only it were Donald Trump’s. But that may be too much to expect of our chief executive and tweeter-in-chief. His own worst enemy, Mr. Trump is given to off-the-cuff misjudgments like this one:
“We have very bad laws for our border, and we are going to be doing some things . . . we’re going to be doing things militarily. Until we can have a wall and proper security, we’re going to be guarding our border with the military. That’s a big step. We really haven’t done that before, or certainly not very much before.”
Really? The president’s grasp of recent history is as slippery as his political judgment. For the Obama administration dispatched some 2,100 troops in 2010 to fight drug smugglers. Before that, the administration headed by George W. Bush used 6,000 troops to assist the Border Patrol while still more border-control agents were being hired and trained. On their own, governors of states along this country’s southwestern borders have called up as many as 1,000 troops to tighten up the nation’s security.
Not content to wage war against the children’s crusade marching toward this country, our president has opened a trade war on still Communist China in hopes of reducing this country’s imports from that vast nation. Never mind that the more Beijing exports to this country, the more American goods and services it will be able to buy. Our president turns out to be as good an economist as he is a statesman, which is a poor one indeed.
Here’s something else the president overlooks in his panicky rush to isolate this country: the real riches all these potential citizens heading for this country to shore up the American dream represent. For they bring the hopes and dreams, aspirations and inspirations that long have motivated people from all over the world to head for this promised land. And yet all our president can demand is that they be stopped in their tracks.
Think of all the promise these migrants are bringing with them as surely as they do their few meager belongings that are bound to increase the longer they stay here—much to America’s profit. For they have only begun to dream. They may begin as penniless migrants but they are already on their way to a better life that in the end all of us will share. God bless them and God bless America—for demagogues may come and go, but the American people will continue to grow from strength to strength. And dream of the good life as we do.