The cruelty of MAGA Republicans is a feature, not a bug. Whether their targets are migrants, women, or trans youth and supportive parents, politicians who put ambition over service have not exactly had to exhaust themselves to bring out the worst in their supporters.
Drown us in bots as they will, the resulting cacophony bears no more resemblance to American greatness than to Christianity.
The trashing of civic and faith-based values by the Trumpists can fill us with dark thoughts. But that’s what they want: to drag everyone else down to their level. We must not let them. Recognizing one another’s common humanity must be at the heart of any enduring republic.
The people of Martha’s Vineyard provided a glowing example of humanity on September 14 in response to a cynical stunt by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He used taxpayer money to trick fifty Venezuelan and Colombian migrants in Texas, including children, into boarding two charter planes that deposited them on Martha’s Vineyard without providing promised jobs and housing. Homeland Security officials falsified migrants’ addresses to far-flung cities to ensure their removal from the country.
Vineyard residents, instead of reacting to the sudden influx by posting “No Trespassing” signs as some Twitter trolls claimed, responded with an outpouring of welcome. St. Andrew’s Church, immigration lawyers, and translators quickly mobilized to help. Meals were prepared. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a moderate Republican, provided shelter and resources at Joint Base Cape Cod.
What a contrast with the former president and his aspiring political heirs, who exploit people’s lowest impulses in service of the Big Lie about a stolen 2020 election. Their scheme is to replace the give-and-take of representative government with coercion by a seething, nativist mob.
To defeat them, we must face the danger we are in, not give ourselves false assurances. One Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, provided a reminder of how far the MAGA subversion of the Constitution has advanced with her skepticism toward the government’s task of defending national secrets and her sympathy for the meritless claim that the former president retains executive privilege.
The cynical move by DeSantis, resembling human trafficking or kidnapping, was accompanied by mirthful self-congratulation over its brilliance, as if he was “owning the libs.” In fact, the cruel Republican ploy, driven by an assumption that Democrats are just as bigoted as they, revealed the Vineyard’s allegedly selfish elitists to be far more humane.
The blame for xenophobic ugliness rests not only with the pols trading in it, but with voters who confirm their low expectations. This midterm election is about our character as citizens. It will show whether we have the decency and courage to summon one another to do the right thing.
Immigration reform legislation would have been passed by Congress and signed into law twenty years ago if Republicans wanted a solution. Instead they perpetuated the problem as a source of grievance for campaign purposes.
Some people build, some dig ditches, and others drive wedges. Lincoln in his second inaugural address deplored the spectacle of those who “dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces.” Here we see a modern equivalent. As with neocolonialism, overt force is replaced by economic exploitation. It is not just that many states depend upon migrant labor to do work which our own citizens will not. It is that the migrants are stigmatized as fearsome brown invaders and treated as parasites despite working in our economy and paying taxes while being ineligible for public benefits.
Awfully brazen for descendants of Europeans to call others invaders, isn’t it?
I count among my friends people who began here as undocumented immigrants. Each of them loves this country despite not always being loved in return. In recent years I have helped LGBTQ refugees in Kenya who seek resettlement to countries where they can live in greater freedom and opportunity. Those who come to America honor us by embracing the values we have proclaimed around the world.
From their moment of arrival, these pilgrim souls are truer patriots than those who demonize and scapegoat them. America is not built on a particular race or sectarian doctrine, but on the most liberating idea in human history: that all of us are created equal. We serve our country best not by insisting on her greatness as an entitlement, but by applying ourselves to the task of proving her goodness through our own example.
Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist at [email protected].