ICE at the airport reminds affluent white Americans of the consequences of politics

Some liberals and Democrats say that the president’s decision to dispatch ICE agents to major airports around the country is a dry-run for what he’s aiming to do with his secret police force in the upcoming midterms. While I think there’s some truth in it, I also think there’s an opportunity: to expose affluent white Americans to the consequences of politics.

Those on the receiving end of ICE operations are usually underpaid brown people who clean toilets, cut grass and make food. The crimes against them are typically invisible to the upper-middle class white Americans who frequently fly business class. So I think it would be good for the resistance if the bourgeoisie could see the faces of the victims of state violence. 

But the effect doesn’t have to be that dramatic. I think it would be constructive for affluent white Americans to see ICE agents standing around doing nothing, because it would be evidence that the tough-talking president is impotent. And the more white people in America come to a firm conclusion about "the strongman," the better for democracy. 

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Donald Trump dispatched ICE for reasons that have nothing to do with air-travel safety. Neither did it have anything to do with the enforcement of immigration law. (As a rule, immigrants who enter the country without the proper paperwork do not fly in.) Sending ICE is about creating what the president mistakenly believes is leverage against Democrats who have refused to fund ICE and have shut down the Department of Homeland Security.

TSA employees, who have been working without pay for a month, are calling out sick at such rates that airport security lines are stretching on for hours. (A plane crashed into a firetruck at LaGuardia, because an air traffic controller was doing double the normal workload.)

It’s a mess that’s getting messier fast. That's why Republicans approached Trump Sunday with legislation in which the Democrats agreed to fund the Department of Homeland Security, including TSA, but not ICE (which also functions under the DHS). ICE funding could be dealt with later, during budget reconciliation talks that do not require the Democrats.

But Trump refused the deal. He said he would agree to the deal if the Democrats supported the SAVE Act, which requires proof of citizenship to vote. The measure would hurt the GOP, but Trump has convinced himself it will save him from a November wipeout. The Democrats are going to filibuster it. Trump believes he can stop them by holding air travelers hostage.

As suggested, that's not leverage – anyway, not for him. By refusing to fund the TSA while airport lines grow longer, the president has given the Democrats the advantage. Indeed, he’s probably doubled it by acting like the sight of ICE at airline terminals will trigger the Democrats so emotionally that they’d do anything to make it stop. In reality, he has created highly visible conditions in which highly visible people understand they’re pawns in his game.

But I think the presence of ICE agents accomplishes something else. It reveals to well-heeled white Americans, who are normally shielded from the consequences of politics, that there’s a price to be paid when the president believes the solution to every problem is “be strong.” 

Instead of accepting bipartisan legislation that would restore order, Trump chose to go it alone. The message he hoped to convey was that he did not need the Democrats – they needed him. But the real message, received by tens of thousands of people waiting in lines at airports nationwide, was the opposite. The strongman needs the Democrats and not only that: trying to go it alone, when going it alone makes things worse, is a sign of weakness.

The president might correct himself, but that would mean going against his nature, as correction would require him to acknowledge the reality of, well, reality. A strongman doesn’t do that. He makes his own, and in the process, makes everyone else’s worse.

The strongman isn’t strong.

His impotence is destructive.

Affluent white Americans rarely feel the consequences of Trump’s choices, at least not in the sense that they sacrifice something they value. The absence of consequences leaves them free to believe that politics is a game played by people who fly business class. If there are consequences, they are felt by brown people who clean toilets – or who live far away. 

But here they are, the consequences of a president who believes the solution to every problem – whether it's “illegal aliens” or war against Iran – is “be strong": chaos and a secret police force that’s standing around doing nothing while the mess gets messier fast. If Trump had not dispatched ICE, affluent white Americans might have been spared the reminder of those consequences. The more they are reminded, the better off democracy will be.