On the Law and Migrant Children
Some recommended reading.
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, June 17, 2018
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27 comments
To go along with my post, I would highly recommend Ilya Somin’s piece: “Enforcing the Law” Doesn’t Justify Separating Migrant Children from their Parents.
It is detailed and link-filled and hits the law aspects of this situation far better than I can.
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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If the point of the child-separation policy is to induce Ds to acceded to funding the Wall, it fails. “I will be super evil until I get what I want” doesn’t produce good feelings and good faith. What is to prevent Trump from treading the same ground again if he is thwarted in the future?
For being known as a master deal-maker, he kinda sucks not just at it, but at the very understanding of it. Trump doesn’t make deals; he has an inordinate compunction to humiliate and debase those who he is in negotiations with. I’m not sure if it’s sociopathy or narcissism or whatever. It is def a thing and it is a problem. It would be an interesting side-note where he a private citizen except for the fact he is POTUS.
We have an adult Joffrey Baratheon as President.
@de stijl: Yes, his deal-making prowess is less than impressive, shall we say.
@de stijl:
Trump “wrote” in The Art of the Deal that any deal that didn’t result in the other side being annihilated was a “crap deal.” That works, I suppose, if you’re screwing a subcontractor, suing a freelance writer, or driving people out of their homes so you can build a limousine parking lot. but it’s a bit less successful on the national and international stage.
That echoes Newt Gingrich back when he was in Congress…this idea of annihilating the “enemy” is no way to run a government…
@de stijl:
Speaking of people using terror tactics and causing security nightmares….. This is a golden opportunity for gangs and terrorist groups to find disenchanted people willing to strike back at the nation that hurt them. This is how ISIS, Al Quaeda, Hamas, et al get their recruits and it’s not going to change any time soon.
Let’s not even bring up the generation of young children currently being traumatized and left alone with no real adult presence falling sway to gang and terrorist members in these camps. Let’s not think about how ISIS was born from the US detention system and how sticking a bunch of angry, scared children together in terrible conditions can’t possibly lead to anything good. Let’s not talk about how in 5-15 years we’ll have tens of thousands of kids who see America not as the Land of the Free but the Land of Kidnappers and Cruel Bastards and how that’s gonna end badly for us all. How many gangs are going to see their numbers swell from children banding together for protection in the camps and carrying that allegiance out into the world?
Let’s talk about the parents instead. How easy would it be to convince a mother who’s not seen her child in over a year that they’d help her if she’d only just leave a backpack somewhere public? How about this suitcase or satchel – careful, don’t open it! What about some covert surveillance – go take a few pictures of the place they’re holding the kids and make sure to get the guards in the shot? Leave a door open, grab some papers, sabotage a few things when you’re in there pleading on deaf ears for your children to be returned….. A parent’s love for the child can cause them to do stupid things. Do we *really* want to find out what that means when 60,000+ parents start feeling like they have nothing to lose?
If humanity can’t be used to appeal to Trump supporters, they’ve shown they react to fear. Point out he’s actively creating a situation that can backfire spectacularly. If you can’t be a decent human being, be a paranoid one and realize this will not end well.
Having watched this for the several days, I see the Dennison Administration is arguing that:
Separation is a determent.
Separation is justified by the bible.
Separation is the Democrats fault.
Separation doesn’t exist.
If you voted for, and support, a person with no morals…then you are immoral.
@KM: Excellent point, my first thought when this hit the news cycle was “Great, we’re creating the next generation of terrorists who hate America with every fiber of their beings.”
@Daryl and his brother Darryl: Yeah this was funny:
I read 30ish replies to her, and I was pleased by their content. In summmary:
“You’re a liar”
“That’s a lie”
“Can you read?”
“Are you dumb?”
“You==Liar.”
“Are you stupid?”
“You should resign.”
“Stop LYING.”
etc etc etc.
@Jax:
Seriously, even my F&F obsessed, rabidly pro-Trump aunt noted that with a disturbed look on her face. It’s really freaking obvious that putting innocent children in cages is *not* going to endear you to them and tossing them into prison-lite is asking for Lord of the Flies-like scenarios. Someone who risked everything to come here, begs for safety only to be turned away and have their kids stolen isn’t someone I want to meet in a dark alley – they’ve already shown a determination and strength of will most Americans lack and someone backed into a corner isn’t going to make the best choices.
Americans are surprisingly good at creating our own enemies, handing them the knife to stab us with and then wondering why we’re bleeding out.
Blaming the situation on “Democrats” is a bad move. It makes you look like you have no agency and you’re just a useless mook.
Trump America wants a President that is not just an asshole, but an active, in-your-face asshole. Don’t just blame the libs, but make ’em own it. It is a widely shared pathology.
We’re totally fucked, but we still have to try to correct it anyway.
This is going to be a Marin Marais livre II day.
@Steven L. Taylor:
You dragged me up and down the block when I predicted in August 2015 that Trump would win the nomination. I was naive and over-reacting. Not just couldn’t happen, but wouldn’t happen, and here are thirteen tire-worn rationales why it cannot happen. You dismissed me at that time. Utterly.
Because you do not want something to happen doesn’t mean that it won’t.
Modern Republican voters have gone hard-core for dickishness since 2010. Dickishness is the main character trait that elevates one candidate over another. R’s love dickishness. It is a shibboleth which when passed means you are worthy of our votes. Extreme dickishness is preferred over passive – aggressive dickishness. Basically, you need to be as extremely dickish as to be electable, but no more. Roy Moore, too dickish. Trump, not just acceptably dickish, but perfectly dickish. Trump was the perfect candidate for the base.
You underestimated the extent that pure braggadocious dickishness animates R voters. And that it would drive their voting behavior.
@de stijl: Yes, I was quite wrong about both Trump’s nomination and his victory.
I have noted my error on numerous occasions.
There used to be a precept that the best R candidate was the most conservative candidate that could be elected. Now, flip conservative for dickish.
It’s not about tax cuts or policy ephemera, it’s about sticking your thumb in a SJW’s eye and twisting it until they scream for mercy which you shall not grant.
That is the animating fantasy for modern R voters. It drives all of their behaviors.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I cannot apologize to you. I was in the right. You were both wrong and you wronged me with your conduct at that time. I appreciate your really unheartfelt apology, kinda. I appreciate the attempt. You behaved poorly towards me because I asserted something you thought was impossible and only a fool would cotton it.
I wasn’t blaming you so much as I was using that as a example of what happened that got us here. You are perhaps the most reasonable person I interact with.
Collectively, we did not understand how bad and fraught things were. How Americans could behave so uncivilly if they felt pressured. *That* was the naive response. It’s not new – look at institutional reactions to the civil rights movement in the South. That is within our collective memory.
Incivility should be expected, not as a surprising emergent behavior. It’s not emergent, it is native and always there. Push one inch and it pops right out.
People who are dickish, or wish they had the the stones to be dickish IRL, vote for the most dickish electable R candiaite. Full stop.
@de stijl:
I am certainly not asking you for an apology. I do recall some argument we had, although I honestly do not recall any of the details, save I recall both of us getting irritated with the other.
Thanks. Kind of you to say.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I hope you don’t think I’m being ungracious. I really do appreciate your attempt at an apology.
What is your feedback on my “most electably dickish” theory on R primary voters?
You are both the most reasonable person I interact with, and the person I have the most difficulty not offending.
There may be some lesson buried there.
I’m really not trying to be difficult.
At that time, did you believe that Jeb! would be the eventual nominee?
Even when positive outreach is ignored, I’m still gonna go down that path. It is how I would like to be contacted and engaged with.
It’s totally okay to be wrong. It’s not okay to be a jackass. Pretty easy distinction. Wrong is not a moral failure.
@KM:
I hate that you may have hit upon the only message that has even a rat’s fluck of a chance of resonating with “the
RightWrong.”@teve tory: I’m soooooooooo relieved that he was available to clear that point up. It REEEEEEEEEEALLLLY makes all the difference in the world.
@de stijl:
No worries and thanks. I really wasn’t apologizing above, but rather simply agreeing that I was wrong. I would attempt to further elaborate on the past conversation, but I honestly only remember there being back-and-forth and that something set me off to which I was a bit of a jerk. As hard as I do try not to be a jerk on here, it is often hard not to succumb.
I think I thought it would be Rubio–but it depends on when in the process the conversation took place.
I will readily admit I had some blinders driven by some denial. One thing I honestly did not see, and that I still only partially understand, is how the evangelicals and socons were behind Trump in the primaries. That is stunning (that they supported him the general is less surprising).
That he won PA, WI, and MI also still amazes me to an extent.
True. In my (semi) defense, it is hard to spend as much time as I do writing about politics on the internet and not occasionally veer off into jackass territory.