While America was talking about tearing down monuments that offend historically oppressed people, Donald Trump effectively erected yet another one.
His pardon of Joe Arpaio elevated the disgraced former Maricopa County sheriff to monument status among the immigration hardliners and nationalists in Trump’s base.
This erases any doubt about whether Trump meant to empower them after the violence in Charlottesville.
Arpaio is their darling. Arpaio is now back on his pedestal thanks to their president.
Expecting the pardon doesn’t make it better
This insult wasn’t a surprise. Trump told us it was coming during his rally-the-base speech in Phoenix Tuesday.
But that doesn’t lessen the sting or diminish the significance of Trump’s decision to put Arpaio back on the national stage.
Maricopa County had a bellyful of this showboat sheriff and voted him out of office last year.
A federal court found Arpaio in criminal contempt for ignoring a judge’s order in a long-running case over racial profiling of Latino motorists.
It was a dose of hard-won justice for a too-flamboyant sheriff who showed little respect for the Constitution as he made national news as an immigration hardliner – and let real crimes go uninvestigated.
Donald Trump’s pardon elevates Arpaio once again to the pantheon of those who see institutional racism as something that made America great.
It’s a slap for Latinos – and everyone else
Many will characterize it as a slap to the Latino community – and it is.
The vast majority of Latinos in Arizona are not undocumented, yet they all fell under heightened scrutiny as Arpaio honed his image.
The pardon was a slap to those who worked through the judicial system to make Arpaio accountable, too. It robbed the people hurt by his policies of justice – even before a judge could mete out a sentence.
The pardon was a sign of pure contempt for every American who believes in justice, human dignity and the rule of law.
This isn’t about one group of people. It’s about all Americans.
Arpaio was a lawman who scorned his duty to treat all people equally. He made it law enforcement policy to profile people based on their heritage.
It played well in Arizona, then it turned hollow.
Arpaio was riding high in 2010 when then-Gov. Jan Brewer signed Senate Bill 1070, a draconian law written to intimidate people. Then Arizona came to its senses. It recognized the dangers of scapegoating – or at least the economic risks of alienating a growing demographic group.
Institutional racism is clearly Trump’s goal
Then came Trump. He resurrected Arpaio’s rhetoric and made a hit on the national stage. He used Arpaio as a warm-up act during campaign rallies and modeled his own speeches on Arpaio’s rambling populist routine.
Many hoped the country would tire of this toxic folly – just as Arizona had.
After Trump was elected, many hoped he would abandon his habit of appealing to the worst instincts of disaffected white Americans who have been left behind by economic changes that had little to do with undocumented immigration.
Many hoped Trump would decide to become the president of all the people.
But Trump spent last week demonstrating that he wants to be president of the few.
By pardoning Arpaio, Trump made it clear that institutional racism is not just OK with him. It is a goal.
That should trouble every American who believes that our duty as a nation is to continue working on behalf of equal justice.