COMMENTARY By likening Trump's immigrant-demonization crusade to Lincoln's abolition of slavery, Miami U.S. Rep. Mar铆a Elvira Salazar risks discrediting her own Lincolnesque immigration reform efforts.
On this eve of America鈥檚 birthday, I have a question for my congresswoman, Mar铆a Elvira Salazar.
What if I were to suggest, in a speech to some far left-wing political conference, that Cuban President Miguel D铆az-Canel 鈥渨ill be for democracy what Jos茅 Mart铆 was for independence鈥�?
I would of course never liken the insipid D铆az-Canel or his repressive communist regime to Cuba鈥檚 inspiring 19th-century freedom hero, Mart铆.
But if I did, Salazar 鈥� a Republican, Cuban-American U.S. Representative from Miami 鈥� would blast me as a subversive socialista more loudly than the Pillow Guy hawks conspiracy theories at CPAC.
Which, coincidentally, is where Salazar actually did insult Hoosiers like me last weekend.
READ MORE: Pro-immigrant protesters need to be smart 鈥� if most Americans are on Trump's side
At the first-ever Latino edition of the far right-wing CPAC, or Conservative Political Action Conference, on Saturday in Hollywood, that President Donald Trump 鈥渨ill be for immigration what Lincoln was for slavery and what Reagan was for communism.鈥�
It was the Lincoln part of that quote that made my jaw crash to the floor.
As I mentioned, I鈥檓 a Hoosier 鈥� a native of Indiana, where America鈥檚 greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, was raised. So I was jolted by Salazar's Trump-Lincoln equation 鈥� almost as hard as a Cuban exile would be to hear the likes of D铆az-Canel compared to Mart铆, who died trying to liberate Cuba from the Spanish Empire.
Trump's sophomoric Alligator Alcatraz remarks didn't exactly make America see his red MAGA cap metamorphosing into Lincoln's silk stovepipe hat.
Hoosiers take rich pride in our link to Lincoln 鈥� our country鈥檚 19th-century hero 鈥� and not just because he ended slavery in the U.S. and preserved the Union.
Through his lofty words and actions, Lincoln rescued and exalted the core idea that America stands for: e pluribus unum 鈥� out of many, one 鈥� the beacon-of-the-world experiment of self-government and equality.
But let鈥檚 look closely at what Salazar highlighted: slavery.
Lincoln鈥檚 1863 Emancipation Proclamation was a nation-ennobling achievement. It gave, as he put it in his iconic Gettysburg Address, 鈥渁 new birth鈥� to what the Founding Fathers had written in the Declaration of Independence a century earlier but had failed to uphold: the 鈥渟elf-evident鈥� truth 鈥渢hat all men are created equal.鈥�
Now America could be what it claimed to be.
Just as important, Lincoln saw it through in a healing spirit of national reconciliation and decency. 鈥淲ith malice toward none, with charity for all,鈥� he said in his Second Inaugural Address, 鈥溾�et us strive on 鈥� to bind up the nation鈥檚 wounds.鈥�
Crass zig-zagging
Now, here鈥檚 President Trump this week holding forth on immigration 鈥� the issue Salazar believes will raise him next to giants like Lincoln and Ronald Reagan in our national pantheon:
鈥淲e鈥檙e going to teach [migrant detainees] how to run away from an alligator if they escape prison. Don鈥檛 run in a straight line. Run like this [in a zig-zag motion]. And you know what? Your chances go up about 1%.鈥�
Wow. America could just see Trump鈥檚 red MAGA cap metamorphosing into Lincoln's silk stovepipe hat, couldn鈥檛 we?
Trump made those sophomoric remarks this week on his way to visit the new migrant detention center in the Florida Everglades, dubbed 鈥淎lligator Alcatraz.鈥� It鈥檚 part of his crusade 鈥� authoritarian and xenophobic, often community-traumatizing and sometimes less-than-legal 鈥� to round up and deport millions of undocumented migrants, with or without criminal histories.
His performance was crass, given the dehumanizing, immigrants-as-gator-prey concept behind Alligator Alcatraz.
It was doubly so amid the news about 75-year-old Cuban migrant Isidro Perez. He came to the U.S. in 1966 to escape communism 鈥� but died last week in Miami鈥檚 federal Krome detention center after immigration agents, desperate to meet the deportation quotas Trump has set, arrested him because of a marijuana crime he committed more than 40 years ago.
A 75-year-old.
That鈥檚 where Rep. Salazar鈥檚 Lincoln analogy, to use Trump鈥檚 new favorite word, gets obliterated.
Yes, I understand that she presumably meant Trump wants to eradicate illegal immigration the way Lincoln abolished slavery. But Lincoln likely would have taken the path of congressional immigration reform that unifies the nation, not immigrant-demonization cruelty that fractures it.
I鈥檓 also aware that Salazar, ironically, made her Trump-as-Lincoln comment at CPAC Latino even as she was urging Trump to stop the mass deportation insanity and put long-standing, law-abiding undocumented migrants on a path to legal status, per her Dignity Act bill.
Her legislation is Lincolnesque.
Trump is not.
