former White House aide Seb Gorka jumped in, saying that Rivera’s comments are “beneath” him.
Well, if there’s anything Seb Gorka is in a position to comment on, it’s what’s beneath nearly anyone else on the planet.
If you read social media you quickly discover that there are lots of Trumpers who do want to shoot people in the caravan. What we need is a rational Central America policy. We need to do something to make sure all that foreign aid we send there ends up in the hands of regular people and not elite politicians who are doing nothing to help or protect their own people. We used to have a real problem with Mexicans fleeing to America, but that went away when we did NAFTA. The Mexicans got jobs and didn’t have to leave home. The same thing could happen in Central America if we had a rational foreign policy, instead we have crazy talk, fear and loathing.
This situation is going to be a blood bath. How is the military going to stop thousands of people without violence?
Certainly if you treat a thing as necessarily a violence-generating crisis, it’s more likely to work out that way. Every beat cop knows that much. But theatening dire consequences is all Trump knows. Defusing a situation is not in his skill set and it’s not a thing he sees as a “win.” Most of all he needs this sense of looming threats to make his schtick work. But I doubt there’ll be violence anywhere but in the rhetoric.
Guess I’ll need to update this to “seconds”…
Sad!
I hope you are right.
Whack jobs on the right were saying two or three days ago to “shoot on sight” these"invaders". No matter that they were still in Guatemala at the time. It shows how tuned in the rabid followers of trump are. Even our own nickdanger freaked out about it.
When you have reached Geraldo’s humanity maybe we have reached a turning point? I can hope. We are starting to see cracks in Fox News. If this election goes badly for Trump and he shows that he cannot deliver the win for the Republicans, that might be the true turning point. That in itself is a sad commentary, bad at least it is an end.
Knowing trump and his need to be the alpha bully by urging violence in his speeches… it is entirely possible for some dim bulb to take the obvious step and commit real tragedy.
Oh yeah. All those camo-clad knuckleheads walking up and down the north shore of the Rio Grande with their AR-15s? Just begging for real trouble.
I pray you are right, but I see no reason for you to be. They will kill these people and many Republicans will cheer. There are elements that are looking for a final solution to the immigration problem. They see this as war and these people as invading enemies. Sending soldiers to meet them is red meat. Having soldiers kill them is just demonstrating American superiority and reclaiming our rights that have been surrendered to these hoards who have taken all the good jobs, married all the pretty girls, and stolen our mother’s love and are responsible for why I am here alone in this basement with no friends and still a virgin at 57 working at White Castle for $6/hr…wait what was I talking about?
Are you seriously suggesting the U.S. military will simply slaughter thousands of men, women, and children refugees in a way that would equal some of the worst massacres committed by the Einsatzgruppen in WWII? You can’t think of any reason that would be unlikely?
At least someone on Fox is making some sense here. But one wonders how much airtime is involved. Will Fox replay Heraldo’s statements or is it a one-off? One can only hope that Fox will be “fair and balanced” in this way, but their (and Hannity’s) schtick of confusing facts with opinion is usually how they operate.
I suspect they’ll be under orders from the top to bury this with all of the other ‘what, are you kidding?’ video they’ve been getting of late.
When it gets to be too strange for even Faux Noise, we’ve reached a tipping point.
I feel like we’re seeing the Overton Window in full operation. May not be long until we see op-eds debating the merits of shooting all immigrants, or whether we should only shoot the ones who look more Middle Eastern or gang-y.
As one who lost ancestors in that I don’t invoke it lightly. I believe our military might under orders open fire on unarmed refugees, yes. I believe they have done as much in Vietnam and other situations so it is not without precedent, though not many situations on American soil. I doubt the death toll would number in the thousands, but one is too many and dozens is far too great a stain on our nations heritage. These are exceptional times. I would like to think checks we have always held in place would prevent such a thing from happening, but I have watched as all the old barriers have casually fallen away before the insanity of Trump. I have lost faith in those barriers and will not feel comfortable again until he has lost power. I think we would be unwise to think those norms will protect us or enforce decency on our nation so long as this man is in power. We must face the reality of just what we have become capable of and how close we really are to such extreme acts. Many in Germany did not believe their own nation was really capable of such behavior either as it was happening. Some still have trouble coming to grips with the reality that it was. The line between moving from rhetoric to pulling the trigger is less and easier to cross than many would like to think.
Trumpers are acting like this caravan is a horde of Zombies trying to get into the country to eat us. I’m legit afraid that they will respond accordingly and/or demand that Trump does. :-/
OK I was mostly curious about whether you were half in jest or more serious. I won’t go down all the factors I think militate against a massacre. But I do think if we’re keeping track we should consider the family separation policy a genuine atrocity by any standard.
When the right loses Geraldo, it is losing the argument.