linnposts.com

The word “complicit” means to help someone do wrong or commit a crime.

Donald Trump has said and done so many wrong things that it’s difficult to keep up with them, and it all keeps getting worse.

Over the weekend border patrol agents were ordered to fire tear gas into Mexican territory at women, men, and children trying to get to a port entry to apply for asylum, the first time that has ever happened (and in California, not in Texas, where these “criminals” were supposed to invade the country – remember the troops sent to “protect” us).

For me this has raised once again what I believe is the most morally repugnant action of everything Trump has done – his child separation policy that 60 Minutes exposed last Sunday night for the ruthless and thoughtless policy it was.

Right on cue, Trump tweeted criticism of the 60 Minutes report by repeating a lie he had already told, that he was following the same policy President Obama put in place. He was not as the facts prove.

No, he chose to prosecute every person who arrived at the border no matter what, and that is why babies and children were taken from their parents, just as 60 Minutes reported.

What is more, the policy was quickly implemented without concern for its impact, including a failure to ensure accurate record keeping so children and parents could be reunited.

What kind of human being does such a thing?

Well, in this instance we know who: Donald Trump and Stephen Miller.

Miller came up with the plan and still defends it. Trump implemented it without any review by the departments responsible for carrying it out. (Miller is so morally bankrupt that his own uncle has publicly criticized him).

But here’s the real point in all of this, the fact that every single person who supports Trump is complicit in these crimes Trump is committing against children and their parents. (I don’t even want to get started on the complicity of evangelical Christians.)

In the eyes of the law, it doesn’t matter why you help someone commit a crime. In the eyes of God I don’t believe it matters why you enable someone to do wrong.

In either case you are guilty. The fact that Trump supporters have remained firm in standing by him even after all of this came to light underscores their culpability.

It is mind boggling and morally reprehensible.

It doesn’t matter who Trump supporters are – mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, cousins, farmers, mill workers, business owners, ministers, Christians, Jews, Muslims, white, black, my uncle Harry or your aunt Mary.

They have their excuses, of course: “I don’t agree with everything Trump does,” they say, “but…”

Ah, the infamous “but” that people believe covers all manner of sin. It doesn’t, and it never will.

Nothing can hide or diminish the fact that Trump supporters are the reason he has the power to do what he is doing.

That is why the blame is not his alone. It belongs to every person – EVERY person – who supports him, whether they believe it or not.

If the moral arch of the universe bends towards justice, as Martin Luther King, Jr. believed, I can only hope that some day that justice will hold Trump and all his supporters accountable for what they have done to babies and children.

God forgive them. I don’t think I ever will.