Let’s be clear, tearing children away from their parents is but a logical extension of this administration’s immigration policy – a policy already steeped in cruelty and fueled by racism and demagoguery. Donald Trump’s general debasement of our democratic ideals and disregard for even the most basic sense of fairness and justice was already on wide display for all to see without pretense or embarrassment. Now we have an exclamation point.
But with a ray of hope, it seems that the level of inhumanity from this latest escalation of punitive policy has gone too far for even some of his supporters and enablers. Hopefully, it will be halted, but we cannot forget the poisonous seed from which it sprouted.
Maybe just maybe a bit of the spell of Donald Trump is starting to wear thin on some of his more reality-based voters. Perhaps the basic decency that I believe inhabits the hearts of most Americans is beginning to re-exert its power.
Often those who rule by fear and the cynical breeding of division only find they have gone too far when it is too late for them to rectify the results of their overreach. We can hope, and do more. We can bear witness. We can organize. We can march. We can vote.
Let the bells of justice ring forth to bring attention to those who cannot ring them for themselves. Perhaps President Trump will wonder for whom these bells toll. And perhaps the answer will be, “they toll for thee.”
