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It’s all about the absence of moral character, Trump’s presidency, that is.

There really are no words adequate to describing the disaster Trump’s second presidency after its first year. But underneath them all is the fact that he is a man who seems to be without any moral consciousness at all.

Journalist and former Republican ‪George Conway said as much when he recently described Trump this way: “Donald Trump is a man who represents all the things we teach our children not to be.  He’s a liar.  He’s a thief.  He’s a molester.  He has no remorse, no shame, no empathy.  He has no loyalty to the law, to the Constitution.  This man is the lowest character of all.”

The lowest character of all, a man not only without moral principles, but a man without a moral conscience. I didn’t know that was possible, but it explains why Trump is able to speak and act in ways that are so morally repugnant.

We are seeing Trump’s moral depravity up close and personal here in Minnesota. One story in particular comes to mind that has not received much attention from the national media.

A local mother who was swept up by ICE two weeks ago, leaving three school age children alone at home and their 19 year old brother to take care of them. No one knows where she is. As is its practice, ICE is providing no information, but it is likely that she has been flown to an ICE detention center in Texas, something they are doing to everyone kidnapped off the streets here, usually within hours. Her 19 year-old son doesn’t know if he and his three younger siblings will ever see their mother again.

Legally, this immigrant mother is entitled to due process. She was working legally and may even be a citizen, but neither her status nor legal rights matter to ICE because they don’t matter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem because they don’t matter to Donald Trump.

Her story is being repeated over and again across Minnesota. Our immigrant population has stopped living their lives, sheltering in place with neighbors bringing them groceries and medicine because they are afraid the leave their homes. One church in the heart of Minneapolis has received more than 25,000 requests for help and has made more than 14,000 deliveries. Joy and I belong to a group offering similar help in the area where we live.

In addition to sheltered families, literally hundreds of businesses have closed to protect their employees, including hotels and restaurants, elementary schools are being surrounded by retired teachers and parents so that ICE agents are forced to break through their lines to grab children as a way to get to their parents (yes, they are doing that!).

Such ICE tactics are cruel, mean, inhumane, and ICE agents themselves are arrogant and self-righteous in how they are dealing with people. But the word that best fits what is going on here is immoral.

This is America’s version of Jewish pogroms. The origin of the word “pogrom” is Russian and literally means “to destroy, wreak havoc, demolish violently.” It is most often used in reference to Hitler’s effort to destroy all the Jews of eastern Europe. While what happened to the Jews is utterly unique, I would argue that “pogrom” fits exactly what Trump is doing to all immigrants here and across the nation.

Sadly, there are Republicans who seem not at all bothered by what is happening here in Minnesota. Their typical response when asked about it is that it is a choice between supporting what Trump is doing and doing nothing.

We know it is a false (and immoral) choice since President Obama deported 2,749,706 undocumented immigrants over 8 years, an average of 942 per day, more than any President in history, and most of us knew nothing about it.

He didn’t implement any form of a “mass deportation” policy with ICE roaming our streets, sweeping up anybody (including mothers and children) they determined looked the part (meaning brown or black skin), smashing car windows, breaking down doors to homes, entering schools and businesses and arresting employees.

Trump’s mass deportation is not an immigration policy, it is a sick form of competition with Obama to deport more people than he did, making it all the more immoral. We who live here know that the outrageous number of ICE agents in our state has nothing to do with immigration security. Estimates are that there are some 130,000 undocumented immigrants here in Minnesota. Texas has 2.1 million. Florida has 1.1 million. Yet, there are 3000 ICE agents here, more than any concentrated anywhere else.

That a woman has been killed, hundreds of people arrested unjustly, hundreds more arrested without being given due process, all because Minnesota voters defeated him three times in spite of his bizarre claims to the contrary and our political leaders have refused to bow down to his abuse of power.

We are right to focus on Trump’s disregard for the rule of law and the demands of the Constitution, but it is the level of his immorality that is even more stunning. For the first time in our history we have a president who is without a moral conscience, and that is what makes him so dangerous.

Presidents don’t need to be paragons of virtue, and none has been. But they do need to be decent human beings. Trump is not, never has been, and never will be, but the fact that he is president and Republicans in Congress are choosing to give him a free hand means there is a chance such a presidency can become normal.

We cannot let that happen. Opinion polls registering a negative judgment on Trump’s presidency must grow larger and deeper. That won’t stop him from continuing to do damage here at home and abroad, but when he is gone it will be the foundation on which we will rebuild our national character so that a presidency like this will never happen again.