We Take This Moment for a Pregnant Pause

Someone sent me what was a pretty funny article from what I think might have been the satirical site, “The Onion.”  Whoever wrote it nailed spot-on the anti-immigrant angst tearing at the Trump administration, and showing it in as absurd a way as possible

The piece was about how out-of-control lost that inner-circle is now that the Supreme Court has overturned Trump’s Executive Order banning birthright citizenship.  They took the mania to its most illogical (albeit hilarious) extreme – the setup is that a panicked Fox reporter follows up on a comment made by Trump’s anti-Immigration poster boy spokesperson Stephen Miller by clarifying with excitement, “Are we banning pregnant women from America?” he asks hopefully. “Are we banning foreign pregnant women?"

And what the story has Miller responding is, "Well, what I'm saying is that you have to now think very carefully on who you let into the country, even on a temporary basis, because of the possibility, as you said, for birth tourism, right? ... People that come here just to have babies on American soil, and that baby gets to be a citizen for life."

As I said, that might have been from “The Onion.”  But it wasn’t.  That’s a verbatim transcript of Stephen Miller interviewed yesterday by Fox host Jesse Watters.

So, yes, Stephen Miller is actually saying that the Trump administration has to “think very carefully” about banning pregnant women from vacationing in the U.S. 

In fairness, I’m not quite sure that amid his tortured hate twisting his judgement into unrecognizable forms Mr. Miller fully understands the meaning of the word, “think.”  Or “very carefully."  Or even, it seems, “babies.”

Still, though, he’s nonetheless absolutely serious.  After all, he’s Stephen Miller, the Trump administration’s resident Openly-Racist Xenophobe.  So, when he adds, "There’s a lot of things we have to take a hard look at,” one only hopes that for his personal safety, Stephen Miller doesn’t look so hard that he risks straining anything.  Like his brain, soul or common sense.  Although, being as shriveled as they all are at this point, there isn’t all that much left to strain.

What I love to imagine, though, is the meeting that Stephen Miller called of his crackerjack Rapid Response Anti-Immigrant Hate Team that worked hard to find a catchphrase that would win the argument and danced around giddily when they came up with “birth tourism.”

Fun Fact:  The U.S. Constitution does not mention “tourism” as a reason that disqualifies a baby born on U.S. soil from becoming a citizen. 

How full of all-consuming bile toward immigrants does a person have to be to think as Stephen Miller does when he says that having birthright citizenship is such a risk to America (which, by the way, we’ve had for 250 years) that “it means that if a person comes here nine months pregnant…” as if the U.S. is overrun by so many women nine months pregnant that those babies risks undermining the 342 million Americans living here.  Never mind that, a) it’s actually legal and in the Constitution, and b) if the parents are just tourists, then they will have to leave (presumably with their baby!) when their visa is up.

Never mind, too, that the Mayo Clinic says that one should “Also, be aware that some airlines may not allow pregnant people on international flights” late in their pregnancies at all.  And that long international flights increase the risk to the mother of deep vein thrombosis.  And...

Sorry, I got sidetracked with reality.  I apologize.

This is so much simpler:

Mainly, this is just deep mania by Trump’s top advisor on the subject, voicing Trump’s own long-held position.  And I can only imagine clips of this video being shown during the Mid-Term Election campaigns.  I’m sure it will go over really well with the womenfolk.  And that's even though it doesn’t directly concern them, being here in the U.S. already and citizens, because what it does show is a demeaning and dismissive perspective by the Trump hierarchy towards women – and in the most easy to grasp way.

“Are we banning pregnant women from America?”  Are we?!  Well, hey, watch this space!  “There’s a lot of things we have to take a hard look at.”

 Yeah, there’s a real winning issue -- during high consumer prices, a rise in inflation, cuts to health care, soaring gas prices, an unnecessary and hated war, all the while pushing your signature “SAVE Act” that would disenfranchise tens of millions of women from voting (!)...for a guy who has a 34% approval.

 Not to mention just about any level of approval. 

 Banning pregnant women.

Even just thinking about it -- let alone saying it out loud, and risking having to explain how this jimdandy plan will work.  And why??? -- is a political disaster in the waiting.  And when you do say out loud that you have to “seriously” consider no letting pregnant women in the country, and that you have to take “a hard look” at it, you risk infuriating not only rational women and men, but also (when nothing comes of your "hard look") your base then getting upset when you don’t get anywhere with it.

So, sure, go ahead, make banning pregnant women your issue. Make it even just a part of your backpack you want to run up the hill with in your platform.

 Today’s MAGOP – Keeping government out of your lives, one idiotic hypocrisy at a time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dYoHijfA00