So What?

And what are you going to do about it libtard?

Joy. The outrage overload just ramped up another notch. #Doughfacedonny, Jeff Sessions, and Stephen Miller got "caught" separating immigrant children from their parents when caught crossing the US border without documentation. Those questions are the likely answers after you strip away all of the rationalizations, qualifications, and obfuscations so enjoyed by republican authoritarians.

Ask if they support putting children in cages.

If they say, "Obama did it," ask them again if they support putting children in cages.

If they say, "it's their parents fault for bringing them here," ask them again if they support putting children in cages.

Just keep asking.

— Nick Jack Pappas (@Pappiness) June 18, 2018

Certainly these are good suggestions. But trying to have a moral argument with authoritarians is pointless. One of their defining characteristics is self-righteousness. Another is in-group/out-group Manichean thinking. "Illegal" immigrants are a great test group for the Donny's regime, it gives his bigoted followers the perfect excuse. "But they're breaking the law!" It doesn't matter what the actual situation is. This is what the red hats want. This is what Donny telegraphed from the day he announced his campaign. So how do decent people fight this?

There doesn't appear to be any way to fight it. You can't appeal to their humanity. Republicans do not see immigrants and brown people as equal to them. This has been a decades-long process by right wing media to dehumanize all sorts of groups. Undocumented immigrants have always been pretty high on the list, at least since the "superpredator" gambit largely failed. But each step has raised the bar of unnecessary cruelty. It is difficult for decent American citizens to understand this thought process. Republican authoritarians hate brown people the way you hate mosquitoes or wasps and basically for the same reasons. It isn't right, it isn't just, it isn't rational but it is. So think for a moment how you would react if someone said "don't swat that mosquito" when you have been primed by media or peers and personal experience to understand that mosquito bites itch, are unsightly, and sometimes carry disease. Of course it isn't the same thing, and of course there is no excuse for treating fellow human beings like lower lifeforms but that is how dehumanizing works.

It is heartening to see the vast outpouring of outrage. And how easily evidence of the conditions in these camps for children forcibly taken from their parents has entered the debate. Social media can help hone the liberal talking points since our side doesn't have access to billion dollar consulting firms. The temperature was raised pretty fast, as it has been with the Muslim ban, Obamacare repeal, #metoo, and others. Popular pressure to restrain Donny and the authoritarian regime from doing too much harm may buy time. But in the end it is up to you and me to get out and vote. Vote for Democrats and only Democrats, there will be time in the future to improve the Democratic Party once the authoritarians are out of power. I am gladly eating my words. I was afraid that day one of Donny's regime would be death squads and people being disappeared. It has been 17 months and they are having trouble abusing the most vulnerable people out there. That is thanks to you, and all of the hard work you and other activists have done on behalf of democracy and the rule of law. They will never stop of course, one thing decent Americans should understand by now is that about a third of the people in this country viscerally hate the other two thirds. We can't come to an understanding, meet half way, or reach a compromise with authoritarians they simply need to be removed from politics.

In a republic, we have no king, no parent figures, and no teachers. When bullies and brats say "so what?" when asked to care about others and "what are you going to do about it?" the time for politeness has passed. There is no higher authority to appeal to, we have to govern ourselves. Separating children from their parents and throwing them in cages is unacceptable, no matter who they are or what they have done. People are not mosquitoes. Authoritarians do not reason or think life is or even should be fair, they only respect the law of the jungle; might makes right. That has no place in a civilized society.