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I haven't been blogging daily for more than a month. I've been feeling a little too overwhelmed. Operation Midway Blitz continues to weigh heavily on my community. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem likes to say they are focused on deporting "the worst of the worst," but it's not true. The people ensnared by DHS are our neighbors. ICE has staked out the parking lot of the children's museum and detained parents at the elementary school. Landscapers have been pulled off ladders and collected from front lawns, so local teens have volunteered to rake leaves and cut grass for free – that way we can cancel scheduled yard services but still pay the bill. (After all, these workers are not only scared, they're cash strapped.) Restaurants are struggling because back-of-the-house employees are afraid to go to work and service suffers. The card shop where I work has a protocol to follow if I feel "threatened" by federal officers, who are not allowed to enter the store but can stand directly in front of the front or back doors.
The above is just off the top of my head. I could write about pepper spray and zip ties. I could notate how detainees are denied due process. I could talk about how we're encouraged to keep our whistles and phones with us at all times, so we can first alert our neighbors to ICE and then document their excesses.
Between undocumented workers and unpaid federal employees, the demand at the food pantry has grown to nearly unmanageable.
This is no way to live. It's oppressive and it's with us all the time.
Yes, I know illegal immigration has grown to unacceptable proportions. But this response is illegal, excessive and cruel, just as it's intended to be.
Donald Trump has coarsened us. He's cost us our compassion, civility and dignity – the destruction of the East Wing is an apt metaphor.
Now he's costing me my sleep, too.
I used to think that posting about these things could become tiresome. I once worried that I was releasing malaise into the blogosphere.
But at 4:30 AM I realized that this is where I work things through. This brings me a certain level of relief during a stressful time. So I'm returning to blogging. Not only about politics and current affairs but my life.
After I post this, I'm rolling over and hopefully going back to sleep.
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