November 5, 2018

What Has Trump Done To Us, America?

https://forward.com/opinion/412816/what-has-trump-done-to-us-america/?attribution=home-hero-item-text-2&fbclid=IwAR0JhE6oxRNjN4grOWlNFzKSKVxTh3L7hs0iUem3BqFmT4_MbE53TQJzeEQ
"We have become the nation of immigrants that is turning its back on immigrants, throwing them away from the border, separating families, locking up their children, and portraying them as satanic creatures ready to invade rather than ordinary people fleeing untenable circumstances. So is it any wonder that Robert Bowers, the man arrested for shooting eight people dead this morning at Etz Chaim synagogue in the heavily Jewish Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, was obsessed with HIAS, the legendary immigrant aid society that has helped Jews and non-Jews for more than a century? “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people,” he wrote on a social media post that has since been deleted. “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.” We have become a nation where even the sacred space of worship no longer offers protection against raging white men with guns. (And they are almost always white men with guns.) Etz Chaim in Pittsburgh will now join the ignoble list of religious sanctuaries splattered with blood. Southerland Springs, Texas in 2017 (26 people dead.) Antioch, Tennessee in 2017 (one dead, many wounded.) Charleston, South Carolina in 2015 (nine dead.) The list really can go on. But very worst of all, we are a nation with a president who stokes this anger — against immigrants, against minorities, against anyone who disagrees with him at any moment — and then, when violence and death stain the landscape, blames the victims for not protecting themselves enough, as if that were the reason for the bloodshed. It’s time for the Jewish community in all its many facets to confront the complicity of the man in the White House, and all who support him — with money, votes, political expertise and moral cover. Because if you excuse the radical divisiveness spawned by this man, you are part of the problem. If you ignore his hateful tweets because you like his policies on Israel, you are part of the problem."