The moral consequence of ineffective policy
For all the bluster, it’s been a rough few weeks for the new administration. Donald Trump’s immigrant and refugee ban? Struck down by the courts and at odds with the Department of Homeland Security’s analysis. His opening move to weaken the Affordable Care Act? Swamped by protests and disarray among congressional Republicans. His threat to make deportations a “military operation?” Flatly unconstitutional.
But the president’s executive orders have moral consequences, even when they are ineffective as policy. That sway goes well beyond changes to the way the federal government applies a given law.
The president’s successes, of course, are a projection of his moral bearing — but so are his failures and his rhetorical maneuvering. At every turn, that bearing is defined by his impulse to lash out and threaten the most marginalized among us.
This fact was on full display this week on the issue of transgender people’s rights. The Obama administration said schools must allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice based on federal nondiscrimination laws. That guidance was quickly put on hold by a federal judge, and it and several other civil rights cases are now working through the court system. Trump formally withdrew Obama’s guidance, but the withdrawal changed nothing about the way current rules are enforced or how they will be decided in the courts.
Trump could have said nothing at all on the topic; the legal outcome and government’s activities would have been unchanged. The only impact of issuing the guidance was to harass the marginalized and embolden their harassers.
We should be able to operate from a place of hope and humanity, even on issues where we disagree. Trump instead demonizes any brand of “other” he can find.
Transgender people have the right to be themselves without apology and without the threat of violence — everywhere. That currently causes discomfort and confusion in society. Right or wrong, generous or unkind, those facts exist simultaneously. We can navigate them without pushing transgender folks out of public spaces and toward staggeringly high suicide rates. But not by way of the president taking an unnecessary and unhelpful swipe at their humanity.
People who came to this country illegally are subject to deportation, and some should no doubt be deported. We can decide how to handle that without pulling people suffering brain tumors out of their hospital rooms. We can welcome talented people from around the world without encouraging bigots to quiz them on their visa status before shooting them dead.
The orders Trump presents are sweeping, ill-conceived, and often legally dubious. He then leaves customs and border patrol agents, local police, civil servants, and public school districts to sort out the mess. As a result, the president is not quantifiably improving our safety or well being as citizens. He only seems interested in signaling to those who are white or straight or financially comfortable or otherwise secure that they are in charge and that they have a birthright to cultural and political dominance in America. It reeks of his nationalist, bigoted advisors, and he’s giving license and encouragement to everyone’s worst impulses.
That’s a bad way to enact policy and a despicable way to use the moral weight of the presidency.
We face complicated, frightening issues at home and abroad. The work of addressing them does not begin with a sledgehammer of fear and division. The work requires threading every needle with openness, determination, humility, and grace.
