Lunacy is not a common word -- it links being crazy to the moon, which we in cities rarely see due to our love affair with pollution. But lunacy has a nice ring to it and trump may be described without hesitation as a first class lunatic.

Let me interrupt to suggest that President Obama helped establish our present Punitive approach to immigration. It is one of the three or four things he did wrong. ICE was and remains the enforcement arm. Obama used ICE to torment immigrants. Trump continues the practice and tries to get local police forces into the effort.

We are all involved of course. We pay taxes to support ICE. We are engaged in cruel and unusual acts here and around the world. The least we can do is admit it amounts to lunacy.

Blowback

I do not believe Trump's cruelty, as our representative to the world, will be a success. I can think of many ways it will backfire. Most of them will never be known to Trump. He will be golfing somewhere. Or counting the proceeds from the sale of Trump merchandise he has been advertising lately. Turning the White House into a Trump Store may be a lunacy in itself.

Itemizing blowback, we can include international reaction, which is not very positive. We can add the permanent damage to individuals we mistreat. Anyone who has been forced against their will or physically and verbally abused is left with scars.

Memories can be damaging in the extreme.

40 percent jump

Let me introduce Donald Trump. Imagine he has been told that our policy is to make sure any visitor with a criminal record is singled out. Would that satisfy the former reality TV functionary? Oh no. "Get 'em all out," he says. So today, in Atlanta, sanctuary loses to ICE raids.

ICE now indiscriminately rounds up anyone without the proper documentation. Your life, on a piece of paper.

Of course, breaking up families takes place regularly in certain church circles where no papers are needed, just an unwillingness to be properly saved and do the will of the minister or the other believers.

Physical cruelty is no problem for Trump, who favors Steve Bannon types who have proven assault records. Trump may be an extreme physical coward but he seems to have little problem with violence. He has followed worthies such as Dick Cheney in embracing torture as a legal means of, well wait. It isn't legal, or is it?

What to do?

Punitive approaches support the full machinery which accounts for the concentration of wealth at the very top of the financial pyramid. Trump happily presides over raids that go on all over. We sit here and if we move at all it is slowly. Find out what companies make the tint on the ICE SUV windows. Track down the suppliers of the punitive. Tweet them. Do whatever you are moved to do. That makes our lunacy a little more tolerable.
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