President Trump claims to be an economic nationalist. But the only real jobs program he has created has been ICE and the associated gulags he is constructing for undocumented migrants to be brutalized and deported. How does he square “America First” with outsourcing the jobs of concentration camp guards to foreign countries?
Keep American Concentration Camp Guard Jobs in America!
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The TMI Show" talk show. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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I’ll just type this right now so that I can be amazed at my psychic abilities in three years:
When Trump is gone, and the democrats are back in “power,” they will not go after all the various ICE agents who have been going around macing people at point-blank range, shooting restrained protesters, shoving random citizens, firing “non-lethal” bullets into crowds at face level, etc. Despite all the video footage of shovings, beatings, etc., the democrats will say it’s time to “move forward” and “unite” and so forth rather than put these men and women on trial. And there will be plenty of “leftists” who will repeat that talking point and genuinely believe it to be in the best interest of the country.
Sure, there are plenty of people who believe that “justice” means only punitive justice and never restorative justice. However, rather than continuing the tit-for-tat punishments, there are those among us who want to move forward and unite. You don’t explain why that bothers you. Is it that you are like you imagine your enemies to be; do you believe that the only message that the other side understands is punishment?
I see the various pieces of footage and one thing comes through on every single one: these are bullies. Swaggering little bullies. I’m all for unity, but for there to be unity, first, these bullies have to be stopped. I’m not saying they should be hanged like the SS thugs were once WWII ended. But this isn’t a case of six months in a prison then some counseling followed by anger management courses. They’ve killed people, they’ve blinded people, they’ve maimed people. These aren’t shy children who don’t understand the big complicated world. They must be locked up for the remainder of their lives. And the unity that follows must be predicated on a universal condemnation of this sort of bullying. Not just in the public discourse, not just on the streets, but it should stretch back to the high schools, junior high schools, and middle schools were incompetent teachers just let the bullying happen with a smirk and shrug.
Yes, elimination of bullying at all levels! But as with Israelis vs. Palestinians, the tack of punishing the other side for the latest atrocities is not particularly efficient at breaking the cycle of evil. We’ve got better odds at stopping the atrocities with some reconciliation, as in South Africa, Northern Ireland, East Germany, ….
I’m an equal-opportunity fanatic. I see lots of bullying on both sides. I don’t know how we’d set up the structures, but I would be putting a lot of democrats in the same prisons that the ICE goons would be occupying. Perhaps the push-pull of electing humane leaders with intelligence and kindness while “correcting” the more brutish members of the species, would make it easier for the vast silent middle to see that there was actually something worth fighting for.
Your piece did not post in Go Comics. Your interview of Rob Rogers was interesting.
Governmental goon squads have brutally enforced the law throughout history. All it takes is a government that refuses to debate whether a law is just or whether the punishment fits the crime, along with some underemployed men who are trying to break out of poverty. Our president has threatened many people with prosecution or worse, so if there is going to be a next set of ‘illegals,’ there are lots of choices. Perhaps the president will choose to outlaw the Democrats, Greens, United Nations, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, University of Pennsylvania, Greenpeace, and/or others, and will imprison or shoot anyone who dares to continue to associate with those outlawed organizations.