So the tough guy blinks….
President Trump still wants to build a wall.
Instead, he ran head first into a wall built on the collective outrage of people who had enough of him using children snatched from their parent’s arms, as a cheesy political maneuver.
Splat!
In the end, Trump, the tough guy, blinked; caved; capitulated; buckled; backed-down; gave-in; waved the white flag of surrender; threw in the towel; fell on his sword; he cried uncle.
But before he did, he lied to the nation about his nefarious scheme.
Back in April, his Attorney General Jeff Sessions, announced that anybody coming across the nation’s southern border would be treated like criminals.
“We will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law,” Sessions said in a speech in May.
Since then, the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy has torn 2,300 children from their parents and placed them in makeshift housing across the country.
That didn’t matter to Trump.
He was making a point.
First, it was hinted that any would-be immigrants thinking about crossing the southern border would think twice about it if they knew their families would be broken apart.
That didn’t happen.
The migrant rush to the southern border increased.
Next, Trump hatched the cynical ploy that Democrats were to blame for the mess he’d gotten himself into.
That was a lie.
His message was that if Democrats didn’t join him in voting for legislation that would secure money for his infernal wall, those Democrats would pay at the ballot box.
It was a gambit doomed to failure, when the media began showing pictures of small, terrified children with their parents being stopped near the border.
If Trump is good at one thing, it’s finding other people to blame when he makes a mistake.
For him, those children’s parents are the problem. Not him.
Last week, he denied that he could stop the family separations – even though it was his policies that had started them.
“Congress and the courts created this problem, Congress alone can fix it,” said Homeland Security Chief Kirstjen Nielsen during an especially intense press briefing.
And Trump, himself, refused to admit that he could end the policy with a swipe of his pen.
As the furor continued to mount last Tuesday, he gave a speech in which he said, “When you prosecute the parents for coming in illegally – which should happen – you have to take the children away.”
That statement was picked up by publications around the world – complete with pictures of children sleeping behind chain link fences.
The statement and pictures were enough for Pope Francis, clergy members across America, a growing number of Republicans as well as most Democrats, four previous First Ladies and even Melania Trump to respond in horror at a U.S. president with a seeming lack of humanity.
Many simply said, “This is not who we are.”
But, sadly, Trump now defines who we are.
He’s also the leader of the self-proclaimed “Party of Family Values,” that has been caught ripping families apart.
Sometime between last Tuesday and last Wednesday, Trump had a change of heart. (I’m being generous about him even having one)
He fashioned a hastily written executive order titled: “Affording Congress an Opportunity to Address Family Seperation.” (It was hastily written, because the word “Separation” was misspelled in the title)
Bad spelling is one thing.
Patting himself on the back for solving an immoral problem he’d caused is quite another.
Let’s face it, Trump didn’t somehow grow a conscience.
He was shamed into backing down, when the entire world began looking at the United States as if it’s no longer the beacon of hope and liberty.
That executive order doesn’t completely solve the problem.
It’s a stopgap measure in which families will remain intact in the future, but those families that have suffered under Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy are still left in limbo.
Trump likes to say, “A nation without borders is not a nation.”
What then, Mr. President, is a nation without a heart?
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter and anchor for Entertainment Tonight and 20-year TV news veteran. Email him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.