Over on the Book of Face, my friend Deacon Steven Greydanus has been arguing against the Tyrant’s lies, scapegoating, and assault on the Constitution in his program of disappearing his victims into Salvadoran torture holes. As is his custom he has provided tons of documentation and, as is their custom, the MAGA cult have been providing lies and accusations. One exchange struck me, not for it exceptional argumentation by the MAGA Cult, but for its absolutely boilerplate formulaic nature. I reproduce it here, with my commentary afterward.
The MAGA Cultist wrote to Steve, “So why all the outrage now?” and forwarded this before running away to hide:
Did you know? Under Obama, over 3 million people were deported—but 75–83% never saw a judge or had a chance to plead their case.
Most were removed through expedited processes at the border—no court hearing, no trial.
And this isn’t unique to Obama. Under Clinton and Bush, millions were also deported without judicial oversight.
Due process? Apparently, only if a republican or Donald Trump is in charge! 
So I ask you—where was all the outrage then? Where were the protests against Obama, Clinton, or Bush? This has been standard practice under many presidents before Trump.
No president in U.S. history has ever been required to get permission from the courts—or from anyone else—to defend the sovereignty of their own borders.
Why is it only a problem now?
Steve then replied:
Why are you posting this on my wall?
Is the implication that you consider me personally guilty of a double standard? Are you suggesting that I object only to expedited deportations under Trump but not Obama? That to me personally it’s “only a problem if a Republican is in charge”? Are you sure of that?
If so, your implicit accusation is calumnious. I’ve been on the record defending the rights of immigrants and objecting to their mistreatment since at least the first Obama term. I object to your apparently assuming the opposite without taking the trouble to inquire about my actual views.
Secondly, watch your false equivalences. The cases you’re talking about under Obama, etc. are very largely, in your own words, “expedited processes at the border”—i.e., undocumented immigrants apprehended at or near the border, usually within days or even hours of entry. That’s a very, very different situation from the thousands of people Trump is targeting, including people who are legally here, who have lived here for years, even decades, having built lives, homes, families, businesses here, complying with our laws, checking in with authorities, paying taxes, etc.
Nobody on my wall is suggesting that the president needs permission from courts to “defend the sovereignty of [our nation’s] borders.” But breaking up longstanding families and deporting people who have lived here isn’t “defending” anything. Are you okay with that, Eva?
Third, we need to talk about the difference between deporting people to their home country, deporting people to a country they have no knowledge or memory of (e.g., people brought here as infants), and deporting people, including people who have committed no crime, to concentration camp terror prison from which no one returns. Are you okay with that?
And fourth, we need to talk about people apprehended by ICE just vanishing without a trace. Where is Neiyerver Adrian Leon Rengel, who came into the US via a scheduled appointment with immigration authorities, and was apprehended by ICE on March 13, despite no arrest warrant? Where is Ricardo Prada, also legally admitted at a port of entry and apprehended by ICE on March 15? Relatives, loved ones, and advocates can get no answers. Are you okay with that?
For more on immigration and Catholic teaching, please see this.
My comment is simply this:
Like Satan, whom the MAGA cultist serves, this evil cult where accusation is always confession is barren of ideas and virtue. So they cannot even say of yourselves, “I’m as good as you” and can only (again like Satan) lyingly accuse, “You’re as bad as me”. Steven D. Greydanus exposes the Cultist’s lie by the simple expedient of telling the truth.
Tell the truth. Then you don’t have to remember what you said. – Mark Twain
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One Response
Respectfully to both the Deacon and Mr. Shea, the failure of US white-liberal/liberal-sympathizing Catholics to truly identity the problem at hand is getting quite aggravating. There are many of us from marginalized communities who obviously aren’t MAGA-cultists at all. However, we have screamed to the rooftops for many decades about about what your country has done to immigrants, regardless of the party in power. Due to the infighting between white “liberals” and “conservatives”, our voices continue to be overlooked (if not straight-up ignored). The good Deacon is 100% right to tackle the moral sickness of the MAGA-cult, but unfortunately his rebuke still overlooks a simple fact: what you’re witnessing is a totally *bipartisan* effort that is now being framed by the liberal-arm of the press as either largely or solely a Trump/GOP project for the purpose of political cover and canvassing for Democrats. Some of us have studied this phenomenon for ages. We’re not fooled, sorry.
It’s not an accident that the Deacon’s interlocutor is complaining (for the wrong reasons, of course) about the crimes of the Dems. To give you a VERY small taste of what you’re dealing with, read this very brief HRW report from early 2016 (before Trump’s 1st election): https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/04/25/us-20-years-immigrant-abuses. (This report should be uncontroversial to folks here, since HRW is actually quite friendly to the US government, but that’s another story.)
For another VERY small taste, read this Reuters report from May of that same year: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-deportation-exclusive-idUSKCN0Y32J1/
If people cannot or do not want to address any of this, then you are all in some *really* deep [doo-doo]. The problem isn’t Donald Trump and the GOP/MAGA-cult, per se. The problem is with ALL of you. Your US system is rotten to the core. Both parties have constructed this repressive apparatus, both parties have their wretched hands soaked in blood, and you all continue to get hoodwinked into consuming their staged spectacles of “fighting” and “opposition” as the rich control BOTH parties and direct them to crush and control the rest of the planet as they see fit. But at least the MAGA-cult is “honest” about the cruelty. Quite frankly, we have become bored with smiling liberals telling us everything is okay with immigration reform efforts while they continue to employ *the exact same tactics* of their GOP counterparts, often out of public view of the equally corrupt US press. As far as we’re concerned, both the MAGA-cult AND the Dem-cult are not our friends, at all. There’s no “lesser evil” here, just one evil beating us over the heads with red and blue-colored arms.
Donald Trump isn’t some “aberration” from the norm. He’s a continuation of it, building upon a proud US tradition that’s now being taken to its perfectly “logical” conclusion. Your way of life is contrary to the Gospel and the Kingdom. It WILL be the downfall of people in the US if you all don’t wake up to this reality *NOW*, and change it.