Mirror mirror

On nearly every issue, Trump does the exact opposite of what I would do.

A State Department flight carrying 49 white South Africans lands at Washington Dulles International Airport on May 12. The group has been fast-tracked into the country as “refugees” by the Trump administration, which claims they’re victims of persecution. Regular refugee admissions have been halted since January, leaving thousands in limbo.

As a child, I found it amusing to “walk on the ceiling.” You hold a mirror facing up and walk around the house while staring down at the ceiling’s reflection. Lamp fixtures hanging from the ceiling now sprout from the floor, and the tops of door frames become walls to be climbed over. Everything up is down; everything down is up.

So, too, in Trump’s second term. On January 20, the day he took office, Trump shut down the refugee program for people fleeing war and political persecution, halting all new refugee admissions. At least 20,000 people, already vetted and approved for entry, have been stranded, including 12,000 who had flights already booked. The administration also froze payments to refugee resettlement organizations.

Yet on Monday, Trump officials welcomed a planeload of white South Africans as “refugees.” Trump is claiming, without evidence, that South African whites are victims of racial discrimination and genocide. So a first group of them has been whisked into this country, performing the MAGA credo of white victimhood. They’ll receive resettlement aid and, apparently, a path to citizenship even as other refugee assistance remains suspended.

Time and again, whatever is the wise and right thing to do, Trump does the precise opposite – the mirror image. I’m not among the people who stand to be most hurt by him. I don’t depend directly on the agencies and programs he’s destroying. Still, much of what’s going on feels personal to me. It’s also clarifying, helping me recognize how my life experiences have shaped my values. Let me cite a few examples (among many) and then say briefly why I think this matters.

My father, then age 97, in his study. Behind him at right is a photo of his Aunt Mildred, whose gift of $800 enabled him to attend college.

Education

My truth: Education is a good thing. Competence is a good thing. Expertise is a good thing. Mirror mirror: Education, competence, and expertise are disdained. Only personal loyalty to the leader matters.

At my dad’s memorial service, I told of his modest roots as the son of an immigrant father who was a traveling salesman. To afford college, he borrowed $800 for the first year’s tuition from a more prosperous aunt. Subsequent years were covered by the GI Bill, and later in life Dad helped others inside and outside our family pay for college.

The path to higher education isn’t entirely closed to people without money (and without a generous aunt), but it’s difficult. Even when tuition is free, families must forego needed income for the time spent studying rather than working. Higher education in this country thus perpetuates inequality even as it enables some people, like my father, to move up.

I think people on the losing end of that system have a right to be angry. We need to make higher education accessible to everyone, and we need to expand vocational training and create good jobs that don’t require college. But Trump’s war on expertise – firing thousands of federal workers, defunding scientific research, attacking law firms and universities, and stocking his cabinet with incompetent toadies – does nothing to accomplish those goals. Its purpose is to disempower and humiliate the bureaucrats, lawyers, scientists, academics, journalists, and others who make up the professional class and who, not coincidentally, tilt Democratic.

The media

My truth: Newspapers are important sources of information, though they sometimes get things wrong. Mirror mirror: The mainstream media is fake news, and journalists are enemies of the people.

As the daughter of a newspaperman, I believe most journalists are honest and strive for accuracy, though some bias is inevitable. That doesn’t mean I agree with my dad’s view that all information, to be considered reliable, must be filtered through gatekeepers – highly trained professional editors like, well, him. I think social media, which lacks gatekeepers, provides a valuable platform for voices that are excluded from the mainstream press. But the MAGA universe of lies and conspiracy theories is dangerous, especially now that many people get their news only from social media. And using Truth Social, a private platform whose profits enrich Trump, as the main outlet for official government information is just plain corrupt.

Foreign aid

My truth: As a rich country, the United States has a moral obligation – and it’s in our national interest – to provide food aid, medical assistance, and disaster relief to people in need. Mirror mirror: The United States should dominate other countries through raw power. Helping people is for the weak and the woke.

I spent 1975 to 1977 in Niger, West Africa, as a Peace Corps volunteer, working in maternal and child health. When DOGE goons burst into Peace Corps headquarters last month to begin slashing staff, I felt sad but not surprised. After all, Musk had already boasted of feeding USAID, the main foreign assistance agency, into the wood chipper. I’m not so naïve as to think that foreign aid is motivated mainly by altruism. It’s a form of soft power, the friendlier counterpart to the militaristic hard power this country exerts on the world stage. Still, millions of people around the world depend for their survival on US-funded programs, especially in health. Diseases cross borders, and pulling the plug on disease-fighting aid is not only wrong, it’s stupid.

Protesters gather at the Wisconsin State Capitol on March 7 to rally against research funding cuts. Photo: The Daily Cardinal/Jake Piper.

Public health

My truth: Public health programs, including vaccination, have saved untold numbers of lives. We need a robust public health infrastructure to meet future challenges like pandemics. Mirror mirror: We must convince people to distrust vaccines and scorn the advice of public health professionals.

In Niger, I saw what happens when a country does not have a solid public health infrastructure. More than one in 10 Nigerien children die before their fifth birthday, and life expectancy is around 60. People die regularly of vaccine-preventable diseases, as they did in this country less than a century ago. Do we want to go back to that? The United States has an advanced public health framework that the Trump administration is rapidly dismantling. They’re defunding medical research, gutting public health institutions, and driving down vaccination rates with nonsense and lies. The return of measles deaths is a harbinger of what’s to come.

With my English as a second language students in 2014.

Immigration

My truth: People have the right to seek security and a better life, and immigrants provide labor and skills for our economy. We should welcome them with a well-functioning immigration system that provides a path to citizenship. Mirror mirror: Immigrants are criminals who take jobs and steal resources from native-born Americans. They should be rounded up, imprisoned, and deported.

Teaching English to immigrants for over a decade, I got to know students from many countries. My DC neighborhood has a large immigrant population, and I’ve traveled and lived abroad. For all these reasons, I’m at ease with other languages and cultures. And as someone who enjoys economic security, I don’t need to worry that immigrants might be taking something from me. But I know that my experiences, while common among my friends, are not the norm.

I snapped this photo while walking in my daughter’s Toronto neighborhood. Trump’s bullying has sparked resistance among Canadians.

Canada

My truth: Canada is our friend, ally, and trading partner. We’re lucky to have a peaceful border on our long northern flank. Mirror mirror: Let’s pick a fight with Canada.

Here’s where it gets really personal. I have close family in Canada, namely my American daughter, her Canadian husband, and their newborn son, a dual citizen. Everyone in my binational extended family needs to be able to cross the border easily. The prospect of tense relations between the two countries gives me the shakes.

The take-away

If my experiences have shaped my values, then the same must be true of Trump voters. They have reasons for what they believe, and those reasons are rooted in the lives they’ve lived, as well as the information they consume. It’s something I try to keep in mind when I’m knocking on doors and come face to face with a voter whose views I find distasteful.

If I lived in a small town or isolated rural community, struggling to make ends meet, might I view immigrants as economic rivals and cultural threats? Foreign aid as a giveaway to distant others when my own family and community have dire unmet needs? It’s possible. If Democrats want to connect with voters beyond the educated professional class, they can begin by trying to understand the lived realities of others.

But the MAGA coalition isn’t monolithic. The tech CEOs and venture capitalists who’ve flocked to Trump aren’t motivated by economic insecurity or class resentment. They want less regulation and taxation of their industries, and they want to make money off AI and crypto. They have billions; they want billions more. It’s not about values. Some people just have none.