Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images
By: Maribel Hastings and David Torres Posted 05 Jul 2023, 20:33 pm EDT
We can safely conclude that hurricane force winds are blowing across the United States today for immigrants and minorities. In fact, months away from another election day for the presidency intensifying, the challenges we face as a society and as a democracy are enormous.
Nothing new in the country’s history, of course, but given the current barrage of attacks and denials, intensified anti-immigrant rhetoric and the increase in voices that claim supremacist postulates, the panorama becomes disturbing and sinister, to say the least, in a century in which supposedly there should be no more historical setbacks.
On this past holiday weekend when the 247th anniversary of the Independence of the United States was celebrated, laws are still applied in some corners of the country that seek to criminalize those who look different or do not have their documents in order, as is the case of Florida , where the anti-immigrant law SB 1718 was implemented on Saturday, July 1.
But it doesn’t stop there.
A conservative Supreme Court issued a series of troubling rulings in the days leading up to its recess, including eliminating Affirmative Action from the college acceptance process, as if discrimination did not exist in the real world and everyone had the same opportunities. , regardless of the color of their skin or their national origin. If precedents from states like California or Michigan are any indication, colleges are likely to become more white and Asian with fewer Hispanics and African-Americans.
That carries a double intention. On the one hand, making people believe that merit is more important than opportunities for those who have never had them because they have been systematically excluded in a country where segregation has prevailed; and on the other, to once again unleash the absurd competition between ethnic groups to determine who is “better”, in a kind of neo-Balkanization that is not convenient for anyone.
There was also a decision that undermines the rights of the LGBTTQ+ community by ruling in favor of an evangelical woman who designs wedding websites, determining that given her religious convictions, she can refuse to provide services to same-sex couples, although the details of the case are unknown. somewhat confusing, as reported by the Associated Press.
The top court also struck down President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive $430 billion in student loans, arguing that it is up to Congress to legislate such a far-reaching plan.
All this coupled with two rulings last year that expanded the rights of those who own guns and repealed the Roe v Wade law that guaranteed the right to abortion. And the failures that are expected in the fall.
The influence of former President Donald Trump and his three conservative justice appointments to the Supreme Court: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavannaugh and Amy Coney Barrett is seen in all these decisions.
It is evident that Trump bet on the immediate future and that he is now reaping his political fruits, in front of a base that has not abandoned him and that would be willing to do what the ex-president orders in a specific case, as he already proved with the attack on the Capitol. federal on January 6, 2021.
And it’s not that Trump has conservative convictions or anything like that. He is a business entity and narcissist, whose only conviction is the cult of his person and getting money from everything, including politics or the presidency. But as a candidate, president and now a presidential candidate, he has known how to handle the ultra-conservative base at his whim, presenting himself as the defender of his causes, even though deep down he doesn’t give a damn about them. The idea is to incite the most arrogantly white supremacist segment of the country to maintain a strictly personal agenda.
What happens at the macro level in the nation is repeated in the states in figures like the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, who sells himself as the champion in the fight against the undocumented.
Its SB 1718 law entered into force, it is already facing its first lawsuit and has generated chaos in various key industries for the state, without taking into account the humanitarian crisis and the fear generated among the undocumented and their permanent resident and citizen families.
In addition, we find ourselves on the threshold of another presidential election, where Republican figures such as Trump and DeSantis continue to be at the center of the debate with their anti-immigrant rhetoric, and where the Republican Party has normalized it to the point of appropriating the racist discourse previously reserved for marginal groups, promoters of white supremacist conspiracy theories. They are so evident in their political and social anachronism that they will only remain as an anecdote in bad taste in the national consciousness over time.
But in the meantime, there is undoubtedly another enormous challenge at the door today for immigrants, minorities and democracy in the face of characters of such magnitude.