Stephen Pollard

Patrol processing stations – where the appalling scenes recorded by US journalists have been witnessed. And it has all been quite deliberate.

This week, the New York Times reported on how the policy was driven by the attorney general Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller, one of President Trump’s key advisers. The zero tolerance order came from Mr Sessions and it was Mr Miller who pushed for the policy in the White House.

Shockingly, the line that has been put forward by some of President Trump’s allies and defenders is that these child internment centres have been “essentially summer camps”.

That is not so much spin as the degeneration of language which itself represents the destructive impact that President Trump is having on US politics. Because underlying all of this is a bigger story of which the child internment camps are but one example – the refusal of mainstream Republicans to speak up for and act to protect the values which they once championed. (Laura Bush, the former First Lady, has been a notable exception, comparing what has been happening with wartime internment.)

The US political system has evolved to work with two mainstream parties. But when one of those parties is taken over by a figure with contempt for the mainstream, everything else shatters. President Trump has changed the terms of politics and created a legacy that, even were he to leave office tomorrow, would take at least a generation to unwind.

The violence of his language, for example, means the conduct of political debate has changed – probably for ever. On Tuesday he referred to how illegal immigrants “infest” the US.

Nazi comparisons are almost always overblown and it is ludicrous – as some have done – to argue that the US is becoming a fascist state. But language matters and the use of the word “infest” is disgracefully – and almost certainly deliberately – similar to the language used by Goebbels under the Third Reich to describe Jews and other undesirables. And when President Trump speaks of how he wants his “people” to respect him the way North Koreans respect Kim Jong-un, it is – to put it mildly – disconcerting: “He speaks, and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”

PRESIDENT Trump and his allies clearly bear the responsibility for the changed political climate. But it is the refusal of other Republicans to rock the boat that is enabling this change.

Cowardice is perhaps the least commented on but most prevalent behavioural trait in politics. Most politicians are prepared simply to go with the flow for an easy life. Trump is certainly willing to put his head above the political parapet.

But very few of those in his own party who are horrified by his actions are prepared to say anything. They are political cowards – and their cowardice enables grotesque policies such as the imprisonment of babies.

There is no more generous nation on earth than the US – its spirit is one of adventure and hope. In that spirit, it was not politicians which forced President Trump to change course last night. It was the reaction of wider American society. That is a sign of hope.

‘Political cowardice enables these policies’