I know, I know! As in any other even-numbered year, I, too, have been listening to Republicans scream about the Wide-Open Southern Border™. For years, they’ve been telling us that we should be so terrified of undocumented immigrants that we need to arm ourselves to the teeth, subsidize Wayne LaPierre’s luxurious lifestyle at the NRA, and shoot dark people on sight.
Really, I can see why Republicans are huddling in their beds — well, when they’re not braving the carnage to drive miles to unfamiliar cities to watch Donald Trump talk about windmills, toilets (maybe don’t flush stolen documents down them), showers, needing an ID to buy groceries, getting credit for what others did (see here, here, here, and here), and the on-and-off delusion that Barack Obama — not Joe Biden — is president.
But we can all rest easy now! Because Alabama’s junior senator, Katie Britt, has shown that the situation at the border isn’t that bad. The freshman U.S. senator’s rebuttal to President Biden’s State of the Union Address may have been such a disaster that even members of her own party ridiculed her, but at least we know that the border crisis is not a crisis at all. It’s not even a big deal!
But you say, “Ivonne, Senator Britt was virtually in tears over the much-touted border crisis.” Yes, I saw the over-the-top performance, too. But actions speak louder than words.
What Senator Britt didn’t say was that, all while harping on how catastrophic and uncontrolled the situation was at the Mexican border, she voted against a bipartisan border-control plan that she herself helped devise. The one that delivered nearly everything the GOP wants (no concentration camps or cages) and virtually nothing that Democrats want.
Wait? The border’s a catastrophe, but it’s OK to wait until next year to do anything? Which is it? Are things dire, or not? For all the bloviating, she doesn’t believe her own propaganda, or she’d act. (I mean literally act – although her performance on March 7 did not burnish her thespian credentials.)
In her State of the Union response, Britt stated that the “border policies are a disgrace. This crisis is despicable, and the truth is, it is almost entirely preventable.” And, if you want to know why, Senator Britt, just look into a mirror.
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