Liberals and even ostensibly objective journalists are experts at getting themselves outraged. But only if they think that an abuse is occurring under President Trump.
Over Memorial Day Weekend, former Obama White House speechwriter Jon Favreau attempted to pin the blame of the harsh and brutal conditions for children and families at immigrant detention centers on President Trump.
Favreau tweeted on Sunday, “Look at these pictures. This is happening right now, and the only debate that matters is how we force our government to get these kids back to their families as fast as humanly possible.”
He then linked to an article in AZcentral titled, “First glimpse of immigrant children at holding facility.” The picture accompanying the piece looks quite terrible, with kids in the sort of cages you might see in a dog kennel.
But here’s the problem: The article and photo are from 2014, when Favreau’s boss, Barack Obama, was president, and had been president for five to six years.
The Daily Caller called Favreau out on this, and he has since deleted the tweet. However, that didn’t stop others from making their move to gin up outrage to elevate their own platforms.
I saw this photo floating around and didn’t know if it was real.
It is.
Children of immigrants are being held in cages, like dogs, at ICE detention centers, sleeping on the floor. It’s an abomination.
FULL STORY: https://t.co/V4zRJ43Lvn pic.twitter.com/tbUWSb4B05
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) May 27, 2018
Take a look at these photos. #WhereAreOurChildren https://t.co/OZRG6YIXJB
— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) May 27, 2018
The US Govt is holding migrant children in small cages like they are animals–just as 45 describes them.
This is horrific. This is inhumane. This cannot stand. #ThisIsAmerica https://t.co/JEty91DHvq
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@MuslimIQ) May 27, 2018
This is monstrous. We are all complicit. https://t.co/eObKaKrAJq
— Yes, You’re Racist (@YesYoureRacist) May 27, 2018
This level of outrage followed a New York Times report that the Department of Health and Human Services lost nearly 1,500 immigrant children. They then had to walk that claim back saying that these children weren’t “lost,” but that many of their adult sponsors did not respond to the federal agency.
The lesson that can be learned from this is that Democrats are just as blindly apologetic and complicit in letting the Obama administration mete out the same exact treatment toward immigrant families that they criticize now that Trump is president. They pretend to care about the issue of immigration in the age of Trump, but they were completely silent when their allies were running the show.
And yes, Republicans have, by and large, excused reprehensible and borderline racist behavior coming from President Trump simply because they stand to benefit from his policies. But, at the same time, you’ve never seen this many Republicans stand up and call out a Republican president for his comments and policies when they believed he’s in the wrong. Any moral objections Democrats had to Obama while he was in office were quite vigorously suppressed.
So what’s the best strategy to avoid this faux outrage in the future? Start by caring more about your country than your party.
