Immigration Crackdown, Looming War: Desperate Acts of a Desperate Man

But that’s just the economics. There’s also morality to think about it, and the moral question is, is it up to the United States of America to decide who should be running another country? Maybe, in certain highly specific situations, like an immediate and severe humanitarian crisis—the slaughter of an ethnic minority, say—the United States, acting in concert with other nations, is justified to step in to try to stop the killing.

But that’s about it. We have a long and squalid history of making such decisions for other countries. American public opinion mostly supported all that during the Cold War, but these days? George W. Bush and company convinced Americans to back the Iraq War by scaring people into believing that Saddam Hussein was six months away from having nuclear weapons and that he had something to do with the September 11attacks. But we’re not living in the shadow of any 9-11’s today. A recent CBS News poll put opposition to military action against Venezuela at 70 to 30. Only 24 percent—that’s not even all of MAGA world—thought Trump has clearly explained his position.

There are moral cases to be made against Trump’s post-shooting immigration crackdown and his potential war, and people should make them. But liberals, who tend to love making moral cases, shouldn’t forget that there are practical, common-sense cases to be made against them, too. We as a nation do not want to lock our doors to people seeking protection from political repression; that isn’t who we are. And as for regime change—we’ve tried that. It tends not to work out very well.