Trump takes an honor of a lifetime and turns it into a black hole

[Demovictory9]

The ouster of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen — the implementer of some of the most unjust immigration policies since the internment of citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent during World War II — is further proof of President Trump’s ratchet-wrench theory of loyalty. It goes only in his direction.

In the end, the burnt offering of a staffer’s character is not enough. After trying to enforce and anticipate Trump’s cruel or irrational whims, he or she is generally packed off without ceremony, with diminished professional respect and, presumably, with diminished self-respect. Trump has taken what should be the honor of a lifetime — serving the country at the highest levels of the executive branch — and turned it into a reputational black hole.

A few — think former defense secretary Jim Mattis and former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley — have managed to serve without self-immolation. But this is only because they skillfully established some distance between their views and those of the president. Did anyone doubt that Mattis respected NATO, or that Haley was concerned about human rights?

Nielsen, however, took another route. After a career generally characterized by competence, Nielsen chose to reflect Trump’s priorities. Maybe she reasoned to herself that she was implementing the president’s agenda more humanely than others would have done. Aristotle once defined human beings as rational animals. They are, at least, rationalizing animals.

But the separation of crying migrant children from their parents as a deterrent, and the housing of children in prisonlike conditions, will be some of the most enduring political images of the Trump era. It says something about Nielsen that she took part in such practices. It says something about Trump that such actions were apparently too moderate and restrained for his taste.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-appeals-to-inner-demons-it-makes-his-damage-even-harder-to-repair/2019/04/08/aeb7145a-5a31-11e9-842d-7d3ed7eb3957_story.html?utm_term=.da7a51ec19fb

[NBachers]

1. I hope she's having a rotten day today; I hope every day from now on gets progressively more rotten.