of course i care about the immigration fiasco, i don't post all over my facebook about it, but yes, i dealt with visitors, students, asylum-seekers, etc. for thirty years. on facebook, two different trump-supporters just called me "seriously bent" or something like that, because i said, basically, that the whole thing pushed everyone's nazi buttons. it occurred to me, because i'm seriously bent, that it's even worse than that. here's my theory.

a lot of us leftists, i figure, are reborn from the holocaust. this would explain why everything that trump does that has vaguely nazi overtones, like say that he thinks everyone should pay attention when he speaks, this sets those nazi buttons off. and because we are in numbers, the media begins to respond. so, a grisly picture of a dark wal-mart with bodies strewn about, that looks like a concentration camp, that gets wider press. it presses all those buttons. it associates trump with hitler.

now i realize there are a lot of outrageous claims in here, not the least of which is that there is a lot or reincarnation going on, and most people don't really believe in that. but even if there's not, the rest of it makes sense. we all grew up with pictures of concentration camps, and wondering how normal people could allow such a thing in their midst, and how religion played a role, and how it was all about race. for most of us, it's not hard to push those buttons. but a lot of things that trump/sessions did played right into it. sessions said they'd put the kids "wherever." trump called them "animals" and said they were an "infestation." people rushed around to make sure we couldn't see the inside of those wal-marts, and tried to figure out who was in there, and what exactly was going on. church folks stumbled and mumbled about whether it was ok to separate families. everybody pointed fingers at whoever it was that started it.

to me, it was all kind of like "sophie's choice," one of the most seriously disturbing movies i've ever watched. yes, families get separated all the time. yes, it happens every time there's a crime like robbing a bank, and if you call seeking asylum a crime, then yes. but trumpers seemed surprised that an entire nation would get worked up over his tearing children away from their parents. to him, remember, they're just animals anyway, so what's the big deal? but even his wife got in on the act, and there were political cartoons about his holding children hostage, which, basically, he was. and in return for their release he got to hold them indefinitely...

nazi language is increasingly common. many of my friends just called the "holding centers" concentration camps. it's when i began calling them that myself, that i said, wait a minute. generally i have avoided comparing the everyday to the nazi (for example, what's the difference between trump and hitler? hitler was democratically elected)...such things give people a chill in their spine and make people who are operating in the american arena seem monstrous in a way that perhaps isn't fair. but germany was very normal, normal in the way that we consider today's america normal, and killed six million jews as a product of normal wartime identification of who was "enemy" and who was "german." to say it can't happen here is simply blind.

i bring up that reincarnation stuff because, deep down, i feel like i was there. when i start using "concentration camps" to describe "holding camps," it's very real to me. sometimes i wonder if it's images from sophie's choice, or images deep in my soul, that i'm responding to, but on some level i think it's both. in this world i have always been deeply, strongly, opposed to racism. it kills people. it reduces normal people to people who don't recognize humanity in others. there's already way too much of that.