Aren't You Angry?

I’m angry, I’m so angry it is hard to focus on any single issue to write about. In my free time, when not knocking on doors for a candidate I’ve been immersing myself in one of my favorite literary genres as an escape from the causes of my anger. I’m trying to do what I can to make our world a better place for my daughter and her generation but I feel frustrated by each day’s news that our government, supposedly the representative of our collective will continues to act against common decency.

The current White House occupant, the man who got nearly 3 million fewer votes than the woman who ran against him, continues to violate the order of a federal judge to return the children he instructed to be taken from the arms of their parents. It’s been over 40 days since the deadline passed and yet there are children still in the custody of federal authorities because of his mean-spiritedness.

My Republican neighbors make excuses for him and claim to agree which just means they too are mean spirited. How they reconcile their support for a policy that tears infants and young children from their parents in order to punish those parents for their temerity in walking up to border control station at Laredo or other border town requesting asylum with their claims to be devout Christians I’ll never understand.

The current White House occupant and his appointees to federal agencies along with his enablers in congress have assured that hundreds of children who have already suffered trauma most Americans will never know in countries overrun with violent gangs and corrupt governments are again traumatized by the country that they thought of as a place of safety. If I weren’t an American I would still be angry but I would feel no fault of my own. Being an American citizen, the son of a World War II veteran, I’m not just angry that it is happening, I’m angry that I’m in part responsible.

It’s not just the children of frightened refugees who our government is abusing, many young people who enlisted in our armed forces with the understanding that their service would earn them citizenship have been unceremoniously expelled. It disgusts me when I hear a Republican whether an elected official or simply a voter claims to support our troops but thinks it’s alright to deport veterans of our wars who thought their efforts had earned them a chance at citizenship.

The current White House occupant wants to end the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program commonly known as DACA, if he finally gets his way he will be punishing the children and grandchildren of the people who actually committed the “crime” of stepping over an imaginary line. Nearly all of those children have little or no memory of any other country, many only speak English.

All those actions are awful, yet the current occupant of the White House isn’t satisfied and has now begun attempts to revoke the citizenship of people born near the border between Texas and Mexico. If you have a Hispanic surname and were born in that region you could have your passport application denied and you citizenship called into question.

The fact that it is my government and your government, which operates by the consent of the people, makes all of us responsible. Are you sickened by the man in the White House acting in your name? If you are then you not only need to vote in November you need to bring your family and neighbors too.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - September 7, 2018