Many
of the GOP front-runner's worst proposals are playing out already.
Readers of The Boston Globe were recently
treated to an unusual spectacle — a parody front page and insert filled with mock stories of how a
Donald Trump presidency might play out.
“Deportations to Begin… Riots Continue,” read one headline,
riffing on the candidate’s call to staff up immigration officers and deport all
undocumented workers. “U.S. Soldiers Refuse Orders to Kill ISIS Families” read
another reference to a real proposal by the GOP front-runner.
It’s easy enough to credit the Globe‘s intention,
which editors said was to show that Trump’s “vision for the
future of our nation is as deeply disturbing as it is profoundly un-American.”
The trouble is, many of these hypothetical future nightmares are very much of
the present — if in a lesser or more polite form.
In other words, Trump’s vision isn’t so much “un-American” as it
is America on steroids.
For example, the Obama administration has deported more than 2.5 million immigrants, leading the National Council of La Raza to dub him “deporter-in-chief.”
Civil rights advocates have
repeatedly criticized U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, for
launching aggressive home raids and running prison-like detention centers.
And lamentably, the U.S. military has in fact attacked the innocent
families of its adversaries.
According to one estimate revealed by The
Intercept in 2015, over 90 percent of the people killed in drone strikes
during a one-month period in Afghanistan were not the “intended target.”
Some of those victims were almost certainly family members,
particularly when you consider the practice of “double tap” drone strikes. That’s where an attack on a
suspected militant is followed by a second strike targeting rescue workers —
or, in some cases, the first target’s funeral.
The Globe is far from alone in giving the
novelty of Trump’s dystopian ideas too much credit.
For instance, media blanched at Trump’s claim that there should
be “some form of punishment” for women who have abortions. A New
York Times writer called the remarks “incoherent” while other pundits identified them as a key
factor in Trump’s Wisconsin loss.
That show of outrage sat poorly with Jodi Jacobsen of the
website Rewire. She pointed out that women are already punished
for seeking abortions — from untenable waiting periods and distance
restrictions to limits on access to abortion medications.
Some even go to jail
for allegedly attempting to induce miscarriages when safe and legal abortions
are unavailable.
If punishing women for their reproductive choices is alarming
when Trump proposes it, isn’t the reality of it being part of the American
health care system more disturbing?
Likewise, Trump’s “plan” to make Mexico pay for his fantasy
border wall involves seizing the money Mexicans living in the United States
transfer to their relatives in Mexico. Pundits chuckled at the idea’s impracticality and unfairness.
If only that had been their attitude last year, when U.S. banks
stopped offering money transfers to Somalia, citing concern that terrorists
might somehow get hold of that cash.
This move cut off funds sent to family
members for food and medicine — money that contributed more to
Somalia’s economy than foreign aid.
In the heat of election season, reporters tend to focus on the
latest comment from the loudest voice. But a press corps focused on personality
rather than policy isn’t in voters’ best interest.
One sure sign? The failure to recognize bad ideas unless they
arrive on an obvious stream of hot air.
Janine Jackson
is the program director at the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in
Reporting, or FAIR. Distributed by OtherWords.org.