"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
Donald Trump, June 16, 2015
Extremism and autocracy do not rise without blame. Generally, when autocrats are seeking power through an election process, even as their intention is to disable legal/constitutional protections and either manipulate or do away with future elections, they rise because of deep dissatisfaction from a clearly identifiable constituency. In pre-WWII Germany, the reparations imposed by the WWI Treaty of Versailles crushed the local economy, gave rise to staggering inflation, issues seized upon by Adolph Hitler as he sought elective office. The victorious WWI allies, he claimed, were manipulated and controlled by Jewish-led cabal who needed to be purged from Germany. The Holocaust was the despicable result. It’s why Putin attempted to justify his murderous invasion of Ukraine, vilifying Ukrainians under the totally fabricated pretense of “de-Nazification.”
As Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightwing coalition in Israel rejected any semblance of a two-state solution (which has been the policy, accepted by the US since 1992), maintaining local Arab Israelis (mostly Palestinians) as clear second class citizens and allowing new Jewish settlers to take land on the West Bank (once envisioned as where the second state would be established), Iran-backed Hamas (the political leadership of Gaza) began their plans to wage war against Israel itself.
Hamas adopted that standard vilification and dehumanization mantra against Israeli Jews. Referencing their quest for a separate state, Hamas attempted to justify their barbarous slaughter and hostage-taking of civilian Jews in Israel, an unequivocal act of terrorism, in significant part by dehumanizing their victims - once again, Jews. War crimes and despicable cruelty defined Hamas’ recent breaking out of Gaza to invade Israel, wantonly killing civilians, many at a music festival and taking “you will be our shield” hostages (including children). Atrocities abounded.
The reaction, at least in the Western world and especially in the United States, was sheer horror. The video footage of the carnage and murder (including beheadings) was devastating to most Americans. President Biden even moved a carrier fleet off Israel’s shore to deter any regional powers (mostly likely Iran, its puppet government in Iraq and Syria… all with close ties to Russia) from joining Hamas in its assault against Israel.
But once again, the vilification and dehumanization of the perceived enemy moved barbarous assaults against civilians as if the enemy populations were less than full “human beings.” Lest we find such dehumanization as despicable as it truly is, the United States is hardly an innocent player. Having supplied the narco-cartels with state-of-the-art firearms (including a vast supply of semiautomatic assault rifles), easily and legally purchased in many US states and smuggled south of our border, we have empowered these criminal enterprises to assert political and economic control of large sections of Mexico, Central and South America. Purchases mostly funded by money generated from American drug users.
The last serious immigration reform in the United States occurred during the Reagan administration in the 1980s, and all efforts for desperately needed modernization of our immigration laws have been blocked by the Republican Party ever since. As the MAGA movement expanded, asylum seekers trying to escape the horrors in their home countries and even the US DACA children, are now vilified and dehumanized consistent with Trump’s definition above. The MAGA constituency has so succeeded in dehumanizing these masses of immigrants waiting at the border that their campaign to purge these migrants, perhaps even mounting a US military campaign within Mexico itself, that immigration is now Biden’s biggest Achilles Heel. Biden even announced that a section of Trump’s notorious border wall would now be built.
But these victims of poverty and violence, knocking at the door of the nation most responsible for their plight, are now the building blocks for MAGA candidates at every level… led by Donald Trump (still), Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Indeed, these governors delight in sending busloads of these migrants to blue cities as an example. As conditions in these Latin American nations continue to deteriorate, as pressures of migrants on our border increases, it is clear, as Patrick J. McDonnell and Hamed Aleaziz, writing for the October 11th Los Angeles Times, tell us that “Soldiers, razor wire can’t halt migrants… Many are willing to risk their lives at the Mexico border as numbers of those fleeing for the U.S. soar…
“[As immigrants] waded across the Rio Grande holding hands to form a human chain as frustrated Texas National Guard members shouted warnings in Spanish from behind stacked-up coils of razor wire… ‘Go back! You’re breaking the law!’… ‘The current is too strong! Don’t risk your lives!’… A voice came from the river: ‘We have children! Help us!’… The official admonitions were to no avail. Worried that the migrants ascending the muddy riverbank into Texas could tumble back into the swift current, U.S. Border Patrol agents used pliers to cut open a passage through the thickets of barbed wire…
“Some 93,000 migrants traveling as families were taken into custody in August — the most ever recorded in a month — as overall Border Patrol apprehensions were up 82% compared with June… September totals have not been released, but sources familiar with Border Patrol data said that apprehensions — including detentions of many men crossing solo — have been climbing rapidly, topping 8,000 on several recent days.
“The number of Venezuelans in particular has been spiking. U.S. border officials apprehended more than 11,000 people from Venezuela in July and 22,000 in August — and the September total is expected to be even higher. With detention space limited — especially for families — many are being released while they wait for judges to consider their asylum claims… The chaotic border scenario has become a crisis for President Biden, who is facing criticism not only from his usual Republican enemies but also from some Democrats who say their communities cannot afford the costs of absorbing the newcomers.”
In the end, the only way most Americans are able to deal with this onslaught of desperate people is to vilify and dehumanize them, believing that they are taking jobs away from US citizens (even though Americans won’t perform the same work at any wage level) and are committing the very crimes assigned to them by Mr Trump in 2015. Although we have antiquated immigration laws and procedures that are making a bad situation intolerable, Republicans in Congress remain powerful roadblocks to necessary immigration reform. They even blocked reasonable reform proposals advanced by their own Republican President, George W Bush. In fact, the most rightwing faction of the MAGA House of Representatives have dug their heels in deeper.
I’m Peter Dekom, and any time you have political factions unwilling to deal realistically with problems in need of legislative solutions - choosing instead a path the vilify, dehumanize and blame - autocracy advances, and the underlying issues only fester and get worse.
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