Midnight Meme Of The Day!

-by Noah

Given to us as a gift, the Statue Of Liberty was designed by French sculptor Frederic August Bartholdi and built by Gustave Eiffel. It arrived in New York in 1884, was assembled, and dedicated on October 28, 1886. Since then it has been exactly what it was meant to be; a beacon of liberty and a welcome to all immigrants. Liberty herself is Libertas, the Roman Goddess of Liberty. She holds a torch, not of the republican Tiki variety, but a symbol of "Liberty enlightening the world." The book Liberty holds is inscribed with the date of our Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. The most powerful, and, sadly, most ignored symbol lies at her feet. It is a broken chain.

Recently, Donald Trump's Senior Policy Advisor, Stephen Miller, made a sick, twisted effort to neuter the words "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" by saying the words were added to the statue after it was dedicated. In fact, the words were added 17 years later in 1903 but, what the bigoted to his core Miller conveniently neglected to mention was that the words are the most crucial part of a sonnet written by Emma Lazarus to help raise the funding for the statue itself in 1883. Miller's statement amounts to just one more example of the White House attitude toward immigrants.

In past sad eras of our American history, lots of countries have been considered shitholes by our most strident and disgusting bigots. In the mid-19th century, one of those countries was Ireland. Businesses looking for people to employ made a habit of putting signs in their windows that read "Irish Need Not Apply." As we entered the 20th century, the same conservative types regarded Italians as coming from a shithole country. Even as late as the 1930s, the great baseball player Joe DiMaggio was called a "The Dago Yankee" by Life magazine, right on its cover. Later, Nixon's tapes revealed his hate for Jews. In more recent times, not much has changed, only the ethnic targets. What is different is that we have an overtly fascist president who is not just cheerleading this hate and emboldening other bigots, but also trying to make his hate into law; counter to the meanings of our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and the words that we can find on the Statue of Liberty.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party backs Trump's language and actions. On Friday, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Senator David Perdue (R-GA) issued a joint statement saying that, although they were at the White House meeting where Trump issued his shithole statement, they just "couldn't recall" hearing it. Really? Wouldn't you? Thankfully, both Democratic Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and, surprisingly, Republican Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) made it clear that they could confirm that Trump said the words that have been attributed to him, although Graham did so more indirectly. And, really, given Trump's past statements, we should, in no way, be surprised he said what he said? Trump, of course, denied it all. Perhaps, he can't handle the truth.

Sadly, this whole incident shows us that the feelings or the Republican Party and it's leadership represent a perversion of what the Statue of Liberty is supposed to represent.