I can understand people feeling that they are powerless within the political system (although I don’t agree with them), but I don’t get it when people say that “politics has nothing to do with me.” Politics affects every aspect of everyone’s life and our national culture.
Today White House Advisor Stephen Miller took to the podium at a press briefing to unveil, in chilling fashion, a new immigration bill that the White House is sponsoring along with GOP Senators Cotton and Purdue.
Trump was elected on a openly rascist, xeonophobic, and profoundly un-American platform that included a blatantly false narrative that illegal immigrants were streaming into this country and committing mayhem against us. As late as two months ago, Trump stated that he had no desire to limit legal immigration.
The bill rolled out today has NOTHING to do with illegal immigration. Its goal is to cut LEGAL immigration in half. And if anyone has any doubt as to what half of the immigrant population will be cut out, Miller’s rewriting of Emma Lazarus’ poem that is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty (which he publicly scorned) leaves no doubt as to the Trumpists’ goal when it comes to immigration:
“Give me your skilled, your schooled
Your English-speaking people yearning to be free
From the wretched refuse back at home
Send only these, the privileged and familiar, to me
And I wiil douse my lamp beside the closing door!”
Politics is personal, and Trump’s is a vicious insult to me, my family, and our country.
The two gentlemen shown above are my maternal great-grandparents, Francois Lemoine and Charles Johnson. They both came to this country in the 1800s—from France and Sweden, respectively. Neither spoke English. Neither came to this country with money. Both became model citizens who made great contributions to—and sacrifices for—their new country.
Trump, Bannon, and Miller are using politics and the media every day to transform the United States from the country that welcomed my forebears (and yours) into a haven for rich white people. Their America is the kind of country in which the Justice Department attacks not crime but affirmative action, the NAACP issues a travel warning against the state of Missouri, the nominee as chief scientist of the USDA brands progressives as “race traitors,” Congressional districts are designed to ensure that minorities are not represented, and non-whites are systematically denied the right to vote.
That’s not the America that convinced my great grandfathers to pull up stakes and leave all that was familiar with no money, no advantage, and no language. This could not be more personal to me. My great grandfathers would expect nothing less from me than total resistance to this monstrously evil vision for the country that welcomed them and made room for them.
My great grandfathers Francis Lemoine and Charles Johnson