I am concerned that the language being used by some Democrats to advocate for reform of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of Homeland Security is only going to undermine party unity and messaging in the 2018 election cycle.
We’ve done this before and it did not serve us well. We allowed the other side to brand themselves “Right to Life” while branding us as “Pro-Abortion.” The far more accurate descriptor, “Pro-choice,” fell by the wayside in the war of words and we continue to allow them to represent us as baby killers, while we defend our moral high ground with perfectly sound arguments about individual liberty and responsibility that get drowned out by the simple poisonous messaging that the Right does so much better than we, who place a high premium on truth and tolerance.
Now, in the understandable outrage felt by decent folks in the face of Donald Trump’s grotesque reign of incompetence and baby-snatching, we are once again in danger of losing the messaging war by reaching for a bigger and more empathetically distant target than we should be immediately addressing.
Yes, ICE is a badly flawed remnant of post 9/11 planning panic that was allowed to fester and grow its mission even under Obama. It has created self-justifying enforcement redundancies, and even un-American over-reach practices that should be dismantled in short order.
But we have to regain some control in Congress to have any hope of affecting beneficial change; and loudly calling for the “elimination of ICE” is unlikely to help us get there.
It’s a negative message that allows unprincipled Republicans to cynically charge that Democrats want to foster lawlessness.
Whenever we rest on a negative message without providing the positive policy alternative, the Republicans are only too happy to leap into the breach and define a sinister significance to the Democrats’ position.
T
his will never do.
Democrats must insist that their leaders get a better grip on messaging and use more constructive language. Don’t say “Abolish ICE” and let them finish the sentence. Talk about “reforming” the institution and remodeling the Homeland Security mission as a whole into something that more closely reflects our traditional American values concerning immigrants, who have been the lifeblood of our young and upwardly mobile nation.
By all means, keep elimination of ICE in mind as the ultimate goal, but don’t use that as your stand alone message.
We have much better immigration messages available, and we need look no further than the Statue of Liberty for the right language.
It’s problematic tagline but a goal of highlighting the astounding cruelty of Trump’s immigration policy (more horrors reported in the news everyday)should be a powerful issue for Democrats.
Nine Senators requested a list with the names of children detained because of Trump’s “Zero tolerance” policy.Probably no hope his administration will ever produce a list but more and more actions like that force Trump to defend his actions.
You’re right, of course! Democrats must come up with a label for Republican immigration “policy” that perfectly captures its inhumane relationship to that of 20th century despots that every American learned to despise even as children.
“Zero Tolerance” smacks of the “Final Solution” so we must draw those parallels.
I think there is no danger of overreach.
#walkaway. Surprising Sue…didn’t think there was a Marxist bandwagon ya didn’t jump on…however did manage to filter the import through carefully diluted lense…and viral video of gay stylist slamming all the haters who in fact called Tea Party haters…oh and can’t forget those ‘unhinged’ rightwingers…nice to see the facade finally fall off. Great job Sue!
Nice to hear from you, too, Stardust!
RE: your #walkaway
Russian bots hacker squads are linked to “WalkAway” hashtag.
From Salon.com: #WalkAway has obvious roots in the 2016 primaries, when Russian trolls attempted to turn liberal or left-wing voters against casting general election ballots for the eventual Democratic nominee (either Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton), thus diminishing Democratic turnout. The same goal applies here.
Leftwing blogs using leftwing blogs as source does not the truth make which was the tipoff re Agenda 21 ‘source’. I find your supposed findings preposterous and simply more delusion. Difficult to believe normal sane ppl can accept what is ridiculous on its face aka prima facie…when are good ppl going to awaken.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/no-the-walkaway-movement-isnt-run-by-russian-bots-but-it-is-a-major-threat-to-the-democrat-party/
The man who inspired this movement is not a Russian bot sir… nor are myriad live testimonials — apparently Mr Straka didn’t get that memo and errantly failed to check for Russian collusion conspiracies before naming his stance and coming out of closet as a nonhater, and in doing so discovered a world of ppl like himself just as those who believed the #nevertrump stance misguided such as myself.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/07/progressive-outlets-claim-walkaway-movement-being-driven-by-russia/
Thought your blog would be interested that there is a resistance to the resistance, actually a misnomer as Trump supporters are in fact the resistance to establishment status quo. There actually is life out there and good liberal ppl who reject abject hatred hurled at everything and everyone who refuse to fall-in and march to the drumbeat of authoritarianism gunning for totalitarian rule inspired by a belief which despises everyone and everything that does not accept a worldview which degrades our shared humanity, or humanity *at all*. The meanspirited actions and attacks hurled at all who are connected to Trump…interestingly all women btw, amount to terrorism and intended to inspire fear in Trump supporters. But must admit still rather surprised at the unexpected response.
‘Didn’t know that!! Thanks for the heads-up, BP.
It certainly is a “Brave New World” we live in.
Er…Stardust, is that you? Sounds like you’ve been swallowed by an alien bot yourself.
You use words like “authoritarianism” and “totalitarian rule” in defense of a man who speaks as if he has designs on being President-for-Life.
From what I’ve observed, Trump supporters may see themselves as “the resistance” but they bear a closer resemblance to the Brown Shirts who first terrorized German minorities with their words, then escalated to hate crimes and violence, finally elevating Adolph Hitler to totalitarian rule.