Dictators and demagogues invariably need a scapegoat through which to stoke fear amongst their followers and rally them around their “leadership.” With Hitler it was the Jews. With Joseph McCarthy it was the “communists in the State Department.”
With Donald Trump, it is the Mexicans and the Muslims. He stokes people’s fear of crime and the “other,” despite strong data that indicate that violent crime in this country has been on the decline, not on the rise.
Pope Francis gets it right: “Refugees aren’t pawns on the chessboard of humanity. They deserve our dignity and our respect.”
Our country is a country of immigrants, generation after generation, and they strengthened our country. If we have stopped believing in this, perhaps we should sell the Statue of Liberty or give it back to France.
Don’t give in to the fear mongering. Reject Trump’s ignorant blathering, and be guided by what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.”
