The Inhumanity Of Trump's 'Toughness'

For a would-be strongman, cruelty is the ultimate deterrent.

- Jonathan Chait

WHEN DONALD TRUMP first proposed to ban all Muslim immigrants from the United States two and a half years and a thousand Trump controversies ago, the Republican frontrunner was asked if he would have supported the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. “I would have had to be there at the time to tell you, to give you a proper answer,” he equivocated, before proceeding to express his general sympathy for the concept. “It’s a tough thing. It’s tough,” he said. “But you know, war is tough. And winning is tough. We don’t win anymore. We don’t win wars anymore. We don’t win wars anymore. We’re not a strong country anymore.”

One of the things this comment revealed was Trump’s odd belief that the internment of loyal Japanese-Americans had somehow helped win the war, rather than divert human and material resources from the war effort in service to a cruel, racialized panic, as historians generally believe. More was at work here than simple confusion. This historical digression proved to be a prophetic guide to an as-yet unimaginable future Trump presidency. It displayed one of Trump’s foundational values: his contempt for human and legal rights, especially those of racial minorities, and his atavistic fixation with toughness as both the source of the country’s (imagined) historical decline and the key to its restoration.

The Trump presidency is a surreal experience in part because it is so difficult to discern the reliability of the president’s rhetoric as a guide to action. The family separation crisis is an important moment in Trump’s presidency because it collapses the chasm between word and deed. The brutal vision of the American state Trump has been painting for three years has finally materialized before our eyes.