The last thing I want to do is come across as defending Trump, because I didn't vote for him either time and am happy to see him go. But your reply is a perfect example of the problem I'm talking about, and it is present on both sides of the equation (i.e. I'm going to point some things out, but please don't read that as meaning that I think this is a problem that only some people on one side participate in - both are incredibly guilt of it, generally speaking).
So here goes:
> One candidate supports separating children from their families
This is objectively false. Nobody "supports" that position at all as a matter of policy - rather you have oversimplified a complex problem to the point of absurdity. A police officer pulls over a drunk driver and finds kids in the car. The driver is arrested. Do the kids go too? No, of course not. Is it correct to say that "the police support separating children from their families"? Only in the most technical and intentionally misleading sense. Is it their policy to find ways to separate kids from parents? Of course not. Are there sometimes situations in which the only practical solution is to separate some kids from their parents? Yep!
> keeping them in cages
Again, nobody "supports" keeping children in cages. (and do keep in mind that these so-called "cages" were used by earlier administrations too) But consider this situation: your country has a standing policy that when a refugee comes to your border, instead of turning them away, you let them in, you keep them in a temporary facility while you try to go through the legal process of evaluating their asylum claims or whatever because your country also has a standing policy that people just can't wander into the country unaccounted for. Most of the time, these two policies can be in harmony, but one day 20k people show up on your doorstep. Policy A says you don't turn them away, policy B says you don't let them loose into the country. What do you do? And I'm not talking about what would be the long term ideal, if we have unlimited time and money. I mean what do you do about this problem /today/? You're probably going to scramble and set up some temporary shelter while you get the policymakers to start figuring out a real solution, but you can't just call into existence beds, food, and furnishings.
> and has lost track of 500 of them.
The president obviously doesn't track them to begin with, so Trump obviously didn't lose track of them (any more than the 800,000 who are reported missing each year were personally lost by Trump - see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-missing-children/miss...).
I'm not really interested in debating these specific policies, because the larger issue is that you can look at things one of two ways:
1) There are 70 million people who voted for an idiot. By extension, they must be terrible to some degree or another too.
2) The solution to any "interesting" problem - especially social problems - involves tradeoffs, conflicting objectives, pros and cons. If the solution really were trivial and simple, we wouldn't argue about it. The debate is because it's so complex, and with any really complex problem, you can have very reasonable and intelligent people draw different conclusions on how best to proceed.
If you choose to see the U.S through the lens of #1, you may as well give up now, because it's hopeless - those people are barely people and are separated from you by an insurmountable gulf. OTOH lens #2 is hopeful - you see that ultimately everyone wants pretty much the same high level objectives, the debate is the path to get there and how to spend limited resources. With #1, nothing will get done. With #2, potentially everything is possible.
> This is objectively false. Nobody "supports" that position at all as a matter of policy
As a matter of policy the Trump administration's position was that making getting caught trying to enter the United States illegally as painful as possible, including family separations and the risk of losing your children.
> Nobody "supports" that position at all as a matter of policy
Well except that the Trump admin explicitly changed from a policy of not separating families.
> I mean what do you do about this problem /today/?
Stop policy B. The executive has the power to do so. There is no law requiring that asylum seekers be kept in detention centers. Trump directly ended catch-and-release policies by executive order in 2017.
These two things are things that Donald Trump explicitly and personally changed. The orders quite literally have his signature on them.
> Stop policy B. The executive has the power to do so. There is no law requiring that asylum seekers be kept in detention centers
Right, except that there are good reasons against just letting in whoever claims asylum without properly vetting them; there are some very large downsides to what you're suggesting. Your position is that the risks are worth it, and that's fine, but others will argue that different approaches can solve the problem with less risk and less total harm. No single position is without tradeoffs, hence the debate.
But again, the larger point here is that the oversimplification of a complex issue is nothing more than a way to take cheap shots by making opposing views into something sinister. It's a borderline ad hominem attack - my opponent is evil, therefore I can dismiss his concerns without ever really addressing them.
> there are some very large downsides to what you're suggesting
Do you have any data to back this up? I don't remember the issue under the Obama admin.
> No single position is without tradeoffs, hence the debate.
There's a difference between a debate and an Executive Order. Donald Trump isn't "debating" putting people in cages. He is putting people in cages. He, personally, changed policy to put people who otherwise would not have been in cages.
In fact, this policy was both so unpopular and legally tenuous that Trump was forced to roll much of it back due to intense pressure from, well, pretty much everyone else. Even the CBP said that the zero tolerance policy trump adopted was bad.
> It's a borderline ad hominem attack - my opponent is evil, therefore I can dismiss his concerns without ever really addressing them.
Yes well, if you don't want that, you shouldn't have Stephen Miller write your border policy.
That is almost always how these things happen. There is a policy. It collides with the real world. Someone "solves" it. People find out and there is outrage.
Usually that means it changes through political decision. I don't know what happened in this particular case since I don't keep enough track of US politics.
FWIW, somehow I find that sort of accidental evil even worse than a mustache-twirling villain, you know?
Like, somebody had to put that first kid in a cage and lock it. That can't have felt good. What was it that prevented that person from saying on that day, "You know what, fuck this, we're not doing this."?
So here goes:
> One candidate supports separating children from their families
This is objectively false. Nobody "supports" that position at all as a matter of policy - rather you have oversimplified a complex problem to the point of absurdity. A police officer pulls over a drunk driver and finds kids in the car. The driver is arrested. Do the kids go too? No, of course not. Is it correct to say that "the police support separating children from their families"? Only in the most technical and intentionally misleading sense. Is it their policy to find ways to separate kids from parents? Of course not. Are there sometimes situations in which the only practical solution is to separate some kids from their parents? Yep!
> keeping them in cages
Again, nobody "supports" keeping children in cages. (and do keep in mind that these so-called "cages" were used by earlier administrations too) But consider this situation: your country has a standing policy that when a refugee comes to your border, instead of turning them away, you let them in, you keep them in a temporary facility while you try to go through the legal process of evaluating their asylum claims or whatever because your country also has a standing policy that people just can't wander into the country unaccounted for. Most of the time, these two policies can be in harmony, but one day 20k people show up on your doorstep. Policy A says you don't turn them away, policy B says you don't let them loose into the country. What do you do? And I'm not talking about what would be the long term ideal, if we have unlimited time and money. I mean what do you do about this problem /today/? You're probably going to scramble and set up some temporary shelter while you get the policymakers to start figuring out a real solution, but you can't just call into existence beds, food, and furnishings.
> and has lost track of 500 of them.
The president obviously doesn't track them to begin with, so Trump obviously didn't lose track of them (any more than the 800,000 who are reported missing each year were personally lost by Trump - see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-missing-children/miss...).
I'm not really interested in debating these specific policies, because the larger issue is that you can look at things one of two ways: 1) There are 70 million people who voted for an idiot. By extension, they must be terrible to some degree or another too. 2) The solution to any "interesting" problem - especially social problems - involves tradeoffs, conflicting objectives, pros and cons. If the solution really were trivial and simple, we wouldn't argue about it. The debate is because it's so complex, and with any really complex problem, you can have very reasonable and intelligent people draw different conclusions on how best to proceed.
If you choose to see the U.S through the lens of #1, you may as well give up now, because it's hopeless - those people are barely people and are separated from you by an insurmountable gulf. OTOH lens #2 is hopeful - you see that ultimately everyone wants pretty much the same high level objectives, the debate is the path to get there and how to spend limited resources. With #1, nothing will get done. With #2, potentially everything is possible.