Falling under the spell of evil
Two articles in the May 11 Santa Fe New Mexican caught my eye. The first, from the New York Times, detailed the ordeal of a woman who stopped to help three undocumented immigrants in dire need and how she was detained by the authorities for doing so (“New border policy: Good Samaritan crackdown,” May 11). The second, from the Washington Post, described a plan by the Trump administration to displace as many as 55,000 children, all of whom are legal residents or U.S. citizens, from government-subsidized housing by changing the rules regarding undocumented immigrants’ access to the same (“HUD: 55K children could be evicted,” May 11).
What struck me about both articles, apart from the total wrongheadedness of those policies, was the degree of human cruelty they demonstrate. And these are not isolated incidents. Other examples include the separation of families (with no plan to reunite them), the use of cages to incarcerate human beings and denying the right of those legally seeking asylum to remain in the U.S. while their cases are adjudicated. The list goes on.
The cruelty doesn’t just manifest itself in immigration policy. It extends to virtually every aspect of the Trump administration. It shows up in the refusal of adequate aid to
hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. It rears its ugly head in the denial of human rights to the LBGT community. It appears in the repudiation of women’s control over their own reproductive rights. It is in regarding these as policy issues and not understanding (nor perhaps caring) that such cruelty affects the lives and fortunes of real human beings.
This level of cruelty did not just appear out of thin air. To the contrary, Americans have always been known for empathy and charity, especially for those in need. And we have always looked toward our president to demonstrate these traits for all of us. To comfort us in times of sorrow, to support us in times of disaster, to lend a hand to those of us who are less fortunate. We do not currently have such a president.
Instead, President Donald Trump has consistently appealed to the darker side of our emotions. To encourage hatred of everything he deems in opposition to his own sociopathic personality. To trash-talk his opposition, whether they be political adversaries, war heroes, Gold Star families or ordinary citizens. To demonize entire groups, whether they be FBI officials, journalists, Muslims, undocumented immigrants or those who believe we should do something about climate change. And in doing so, reducing humans to evil caricatures, the easier to perpetrate further cruelty.
In the two or three years that Trump has been on the political stage, it seems that actions once considered outrages to the national sense of decency and fair play are routinely accepted. Have we had that much of a change of national heart? Are the forces of evil intimidating the forces of good into silence? Are we failing to remember the lessons of 1930s Germany, the Chinese under Mao or the former USSR under Stalin? In school, I asked myself how whole populations could fall under the spell of such evil. I am now beginning to understand.
Kindness is in our national blood. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right” and “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” are not simply words that we learned in school.
They are reflections of our true national character. We are now at a time in history to put up or shut up, to meekly accept this change or to reject hatred and cruelty. Which shall it be?