All The Same

As part of making the case that Kilmar Ábrego García should not be brought back to the United States, the White House held a press briefing with one Patty Morin, who made the case that "We need to protect our families, our borders, our children." Mrs. Morin's daughter was murdered, and a Salvadoran immigrant named Victor Martinez-Hernandez was convicted of the crime.

But what do Messrs. Ábrego García and Martinez-Hernandez have do with one another, other than have come to the United States from El Salvador without authorization? Why should the crimes that Victor Martinez-Hernandez was convicted of have any bearing on whether Kilmar Ábrego García should receive due process prior to being deported?

While critics of President Trump are quick to point to things like this when they call him a racist, whether Donald Trump actually harbors racial animosities is beside the point. When Donald Trump, his father and their management company was sued for racial discrimination in 1973 for refusing to rent to Black people, one of the rationales given was the White tenants that lived in Trump buildings didn't want Black neighbors. And it's much the same today; President Trump doesn't need to be a racist; as long as he understands his primary constituency to be racists, he'll be willing to cater to that.

It's an important distinction, because the Trump Administration's current actions aren't being driven solely by the President; like most performers, he caters to his audience. And to the degree that he understands that people who hold, in this case, anti-Hispanic views are part of the voting electorate and more likely to be Republicans than Democrats, he's willing to take actions that show he's on their side. And it's unlikely that Donald Trump is the only person who is willing to behave in this way.

The United States has never been a genuinely unified nation, and clever politicians have always been able to find ways to capitalize on the fault lines. Blaming them for those fault lines simply obscures the underlying problem, which allows it to persist.