It has been an infuriating week in politics.
Donald Trump has declared an executive order revoking birthright citizenship to babies born from non-citizen parents. This is in direct violation of the Constitution, which states:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
That is the opening clause of the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment was added to the constitution specifically to prevent the evil of slavery from ever cropping up in the United States again. Before the civil war, a judge ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford (the now infamous 1857 Dred Scott Decision) that the descendants of slaves were not citizens of the USA. This was a deep injustice, because it was the slaves that built this country and made it rich by laboring for free beneath masters.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans fought and died to defeat slavery. By ordering the repeal of the 14th Amendment, Trump is setting the stage for the return of atrocities beyond our imagination. Can you imagine a mother traveling 5000 miles through the mountain jungles of Central America and across the desert to be told that her child will not receive the same rights and freedoms afforded to all other equal citizens in the USA?
What would slavery look like in the 21st century? Immigrants, or their non-citizen children born into the system, under the threat of immediate deportation by armed federal agents, will be forced to work hard days under the sun picking crops for wages well below the legal standard. Their work will not contribute to a pension, 401k, or retirement plan. They will form a “permanent underclass” that contributes to the country with their labor but otherwise is never afforded the security as true citizens. And since this population of non citizens will be mostly latinos from South America, obvious racial divisions will form.
The scholars will say that this isn’t slavery. They will point to the smart phones and cars and dollar bills in their hands and say that the Black slaves didn’t have stuff like that and were whipped and shackled in broad daylight. But these people will be living in the United States and working their asses off just like you and me, much harder actually, and they won’t be equal to you and me. That’s a heinous level of injustice, a hypocrisy, that makes you want to scream. It is un-American, and I’m not afraid to say that. Unpatriotic. Figures that Trump praises Robert E. Lee.
In other news, our president has immediately moved to limit healthcare access for poor people:
“The previous administration has embedded deeply unpopular, inflationary, illegal, and radical practices within every agency and office of the Federal Government.” – Donald Trump
According to the president, trying to ensure everybody in America has some capacity to visit a doctor and seek medical attention is an “inflationary” action. As if spending any money at all to help people were an act of terrorism against the economy itself.
Much excitement in the Discord as of late. The AI that reads all of our conversations makes us sound like we are debating high brow concepts, and I suppose we are! All discourse is good discourse, even in the brainrot era. There is a lot to consider in the current moment.
