Trump Satire Shows the Globe's Hypocrisy

Honestly, I was glad that the satire made Trump supporters and other conservatives squirm. They're entitled to support whomever they like for president, but they should be forced to confront the likely consequences of their choice. If those who support Trump are uncomfortable with seeing his proposals down on paper in black and white, this should tell them something. Maybe they need to take another look at whom they're supporting.

But that doesn't mean the parody was a good idea. It wasn't.

What made me most uncomfortable was the banner headline: "DEPORTATIONS TO BEGIN."

This was journalistic laziness at its worst. The editorial board wanted to suggest that, if Trump were president, homes would be raided and scores of undocumented immigrants would be rounded up and deported. As if that isn't already happening, under the president we have now -- a president whom, by the way, this same editorial board endorsed in both 2008 and 2012. Talk about a lack of self-awareness.

What happened to challenging readers by digging deeper into a story? When you do that in the immigration debate, you will, before long, run across something the left doesn't talk about -- blue-collar union members who oppose immigration because they fear it costs jobs and lowers wages, and the Democratic politicians who cater to that fear by discreetly undermining reform efforts when everyone is distracted by the outrageous things that Republicans are saying.

Rather than worry about what could happen under a President Trump, the Globe should be concerned about what has actually happened to immigrants under President Obama.

It's not like it's a secret. In a recent interview in the Globe, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Junot Diaz was asked what has most disappointed him about the Obama presidency. His response: "The fact that he deported everyone and their grandmother."

I monitor the immigration debate, and I take note of who is writing what. While I often see editorials in The Washington Post and The New York Times condemning the administration for its heavy-handed approach to immigration enforcement -- which includes nearly 3 million deportations in the last seven and a half years, and hundreds of thousands of families that have been divided -- I have only seen a few such editorials in the Globe.

Now, all of a sudden, the Globe's editorial board is concerned about immigrants? Why? Because it gives its members the chance to poke at Trump. Thanks for nothing, folks.

========

Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com.