These Children Are in Cages as the American Dream Becomes a Nightmare

[DonViejo]

Under Trump, the shining city on a hill—always as much aspiration as reality—has become the dank Gomorrah in the sewer.

Michael Tomasky
Special Correspondent
Updated 07.03.19 3:09AM ET Published 07.02.19 10:36PM ET

One of the sad realities of this country has always been the chasm between our image of who we were and the reality of what we condoned. It goes all the way back.

The image, which we will celebrate Thursday, is that of the beacon of freedom, the shining city on the hill. The reality was: yes, that; but slavery too, and then Jim Crow. Yes, freedom for new arrivals; but wholesale discrimination against them once they touched down on our soil. Yes, the point of light in the great ideological duel of the 20th century; but also, in a tragic paradox, the supporter and funder of dictators and death squads to enforce that freedom.

We’ve always lived with that contradiction, some of us more easily than others. But here’s the thing: Just having that contradiction was important. Having the higher goals, even when we abjectly failed to live up to them, gave us something to aspire to. Which, in fact, we occasionally did! We freed the slaves eventually. We passed non-discrimination laws with respect to immigrants, in time. In the Cold War, however lamentable the human rights record, we still won the basic question for Third World people—would you rather go to the Soviet Union or the United States?—by a comfortable margin.

And since the end of the Cold War, we have remained the place where millions of people want to go. Despite all of our errors, all of our crimes even, people around the world have believed in the image, in this American Dream. Because there remained enough truth to it for people to keep believing.

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[Stuart G]

1. k and r..Thank You for posting.