By Tommy Acosta —
Sedona, AZ — Talk about painting yourself into a corner. If anything, the recent special election victory of a Democrat in a deeply red state like Texas should open the eyes of those who can’t see the writing on the wall.
The brutality of the ICE agents and other immigration enforcement agencies is souring the country against Donald Trump’s scorched earth, break-the-doors-down, put-them-all-in-jail mass deportation policy.
The images are undeniable, and even hardened conservative voters are uncomfortable with the inhumanity of the agents when making arrests, the undocumented and American citizens as well.
For those who cherish keeping the government out of our homes and private lives, outside their neighborhoods the presence of armed-to-the-teeth military marching up and down the block and tear-gassing or detaining anyone in sight outside their home is not something they expected when they voted to support Trump’s mass deportation policy.
The images of these aggressive, sloppily uniformed, and masked personnel are starting to meld into memories of storm troopers violently arresting people deemed undesirable like in WWII.
To vote Republican now is almost shameful and a tell that the voter agrees with the heavy-handed enforcement that is galvanizing people across the country to protest and riot.
Sooner or later, the protesters and those who do not condone the brutality of the masked troops are going to realize that, to stop the assaults, they are going to have to focus on bringing out the vote for the mid-term elections.
That’s the trouble many in the Republican Party are beginning to realize but don’t want to talk about too much because that’s not what the president wants to hear. But sooner or later, they are going to have to.
Just think of all these tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, across the country protesting and demonstrating against ICE, bringing the fervor to the voting booth.
How many people do we see out there marching to support ICE and the other enforcement entities?
If one has humanity, it’s hard to support the way ICE is conducting itself. The administration can repeat for the millionth time, “We are going after the criminals, rapists, traffickers, and homegrown terrorists,” but the slogan is wearing thin as we see more-and-more hardworking undocumented people being dragged off along with the criminals, as the agents try to meet their quotas.
The authorities can claim crime is down across the board in the country, but that won’t motivate Republicans to come out and vote for red candidates, not while the images of armed quasi-soldiers beating and gassing anyone standing in the way of their detainments persist.
Republicans had better do something fast to change the minds of the population and the perception that they have no feeling for fellow human beings.
A good place to start is for ICE to focus only on the rapists, murderers, etc., and leave the workers, teachers, hospital staff, day workers, and good, hardworking people alone—and provide them a path to citizenship rather than a plane ticket back to the world they left behind to come here and live the American Dream.
