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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrumpism: 'performative cruelty'.
This is not just sloppiness or indiscipline. The essence of Trumpism is dominance and punishment of those outside the tribal fold. It is probably even wrong to call this a policy of deterrence. Its a policy of punishment. At the most basic level folks like Miller, Sessions, Trump want to show they are kicking ass at the border, against lawless non-white people. They want to do it and they want to show they are doing it. For them doing it doesnt matter unless you show it. Its what a TPM Reader identified as the essence of Trumpism: performative cruelty.The problem, one of the problems, is that if you say that is the point, which they have repeatedly, you get in trouble in the courts. This amounts almost to an internal contradiction of Trumpism. You can commit all manner of evil with the federal government simply by making a series of discretionary decisions which lead inevitably to unconscionable, evil results. (Theres a strong parallel here to the administrations Muslim ban.) But if you say the cruelty is awesome, that youre doing it on purpose, a different scaffolding of law kicks into action.
Theres also the matter of channel conflict. Channel separation is a bedrock principle of marketing. You sell the same product to different people at different prices price discrimination. You sell the same product to different people using different pitches. It all works so long as the channels remain largely separate. Since Trump is more than anything a marketing man the framework of channel conflict is an appropriate way to explain what is happening.
For base Trumpists: family separation for the bad people is simply awesome.
For other pro-Trump Republicans: evil against children may not be okay, but abusing Democrats works. So for them, no defense of family separation as such, but stick it on the Democrats. Blaming the opponents of your policy for policy is perverse, nasty and thus awesome.
For more Middle of the Road Voters: Its simply not happening. There is no family separation policy. Its literally not happening at all or if it is happening its being forced on us and families were separated under Obama too.
What weve seen this weekend is that evil practiced on children, by design, with quotes from senior administration officials floating around saying its great was just too much. This created a sort of 10 car pile of contradictory BS answers. Its awesome. The Democrats made us do it. Its not happening. And here we are. It is difficult to imagine this policy will survive the week in its current form, given this firestorm. But we should recognize how deeply embedded the need for these actions is in Trumpism. This isnt a byproduct. Child separation as punishment, on display, was always a feature not a bug.
MORE:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/family-separation-evil-via-policy-and-the-internal-contradictions-of-trumpism
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Trumpism: 'performative cruelty'. (Original Post)
kpete
Jun 2018
OP
Wounded Bear
(58,797 posts)2. The Muslim ban was practice...