The Privatization of Compassion

[Content Note: Nativism; child abuse.]

The Republican Party long ago abandoned any pretense of "compassionate conservatism," which was all the rhetoric rage during the Bush II era. Every last shred of decency had already been replaced by unmitigated greed by the time Donald Trump was elected, and he has cast aside conservative dogwhistles and thin veneers of virtue, unapologetically governing from a center of aggressive malice.

With not a trace of empathy left in the Republican platform or governance, the Trump Regime has now argued the time has come to privatize compassion.

I wish that were hyperbole, but it is not. How else to read this?

John Sepulvado at KQED News: In 'Remarkable' Court Filing, Government 'Washing Their Hands' of Reuniting Deported Parents with Their Children.

The Trump administration suggested in a federal court filing Thursday that the American Civil Liberties Union and other private organizations should take responsibility for reuniting more than 400 migrant children separated from parents deported under the government's "zero-tolerance" immigration policy.

The latest status report in the San Diego-based federal case that compelled the government to reunite separated families says the parents of 410 children are outside the United States — meaning they had been deported without their children, according to statements from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official last week. That number was revised down from 431 children on July 26 — the court's deadline for all reunifications to be completed.

"[ACLU Lawyers] should use their considerable resources and their network of law firms, NGO's, volunteers, and others, together with the information that [the U.S. government] ... provided (or will soon provide), to establish contact with possible class members in foreign countries," the Thursday government's filing says.

U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw ordered the government last week to work with the ACLU and come up with a plan to reunify those deported parents with their children. But Department of Justice attorneys had hinted for several days that they would not present a plan, according to the ACLU's lead attorney on the case.

"The court filing is remarkable," ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said. "The government is washing their hands of it, and saying we'll try and do a little. They're saying, 'You all [the ACLU], find the parents.'"

That is the privatization of compassion by a government of sociopaths and sadists.

The nation is being governed by a collection of people who are indifferent to the harm they cause in pursuit of their vile agenda, and people who get off on that harm. Among them, not a person who objects to this relentless cruelty is to be found.

And it shows.

Further to that, it feels like it. It feels good to their slavering supporters, and it feels like a living hell to the rest of us.

Chiefly to the families who have been torn apart by this administration.