Mamdani and Chevalier vs Tisch and ICE

Giving the devil his due may require cancelation of the epithet "devil."

Mayor Zohran Mamdani was blasted by his socialist base some weeks ago, because not only didn't he cave to their demands that he fire Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who unapologetically wears a Star of David, but praised her overall performance. The activists' rage was spurred by the NYPD having been deployed to maintain safety during a highly volatile confrontation between defenders of the city's proclaimed sanctuary status, and Immigration Customs and Enforcement's (ICE) lawful attempt to apprehend an individual whom they described as "a criminal illegal alien from the Dominican Republic with a prior criminal conviction for grand larceny, and multiple prior arrests for assault, robbery, possession of drugs, and weapons possession."

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also confirmed that he was a member of a violent gang. 

The target of this enforcement action happened to have a five-year old child together with him in his car when ICE agents opened fire. The border bum-rusher, as nationalists dubbed him, was superficially wounded.

What appeared to be the officers' gross insensitivity sparked an uprising by protesters who very much believed, with some but qualified cause, that they had the moral high ground.

According to ICE, the shooting was a defensive measure and justified because the suspect had revved his engine and was deliberately heading his car towards their agents.

The innocent child's moral jeopardy was not ICE's concern.  They felt the suspect owned that potential misadventure.

Demands for Tisch's administrative beheading were made because she allegedly used the NYPD not just as a benign buffer for crowd control, but as de facto backup for what the demonstrators deemed the illegitimacy of ICE's presence. 

Democratic Socialist and future member of Congress Darializa Avila Chevalier insisted that Tisch be sacked for unleashing ICE, whose agents she holds to be inherently goons. While Avila Chevalier was attempting to "de-escalate" the flashpoint crisis, she was allegedly thrown to the ground by the police, she maintains.

Was Avila Chevalier looking for trouble? 

If so, was it one of those instances which history should have taught us can be a redemptive act?  Was she grandstanding to make a name for herself and to establish a cache within the burgeoning socialist community?   

Is she a loose cannon for social justice?  That's a slander many of us can live with.

No doubt there are cases of rogue ICE agents, but is the agency itself rogue?  Is punishing individuals in an isolated case in order to make an example of the so-called "rule of law" merely a distraction from the awareness of its standard practice of abuse?

Certainly, there have been instances of excessive force, which even if not officially sanctioned, amount to the same thing when committed with impunity.

But even without the vehemence with which ICE has raided communities and snatched folks from families or while they're at work, Chevalier and her allies are still fundamentally and fiercely opposed to the core mission of immigration enforcement, because it allows detention and deportation under any circumstances at all.

Even if ICE were reined in, with independent oversight, they would clamor for its abolition. They are, from their standpoint, ethically antagonistic to border protection, regarding it as cultural protectionism.

They have condemned all deportations, even after full due process, of even those foreign nationals guilty of multiple crimes of extreme violence. In some cases, even after a binding federal judicial order of detention has been issued for such a suspect who has been duly apprehended by the NYPD, that individual will be released to the street rather than held for transfer to their custody, thereby deliberatively frustrating legally dominant federal authority.

The social unrest and visibility sparked by ICE's coercive measures could be avoided by NYPD collaboration, but perhaps that is precisely why public confrontations are needed to meet the threat head on. There are times when conscientious objection and subversiveness shake hands on the field of righteous battle. 

But to call ICE officers Nazi storm troopers shows an abysmal and often willful and vicious ignorance of history, and a spectacular callousness to the grim fortunes of the unique victims of fascist genocide in World War II, whose posterity are again being targeted with tacit endorsement on the world stage today.

Neither the government, in all its statutory might, nor the revolutionaries, (or whatever else they call themselves or are being called by others, as they take to the streets) deserve a blank slate. Neither has a clean record.

A pox on them both!

In every generation, the same enemies, called by different names and movements, have called each other "existential threats" to justify radical (in the sense of drastic, not transformative activism) resistance, either from inside or outside the seats of power.  As Jean-Baptiste Karr, the 19th century novelist, teacher and editor noticed, "The more things change, the more they remain the same."

Will that still be the case in the aftermath of the midterm elections?

This "existential threat" business is becoming a tedious merry-go-round, with both MAGA and Democratic Socialists on their hobby horses.

Where are we actually going? Who is leading us? When will our national destiny eventually make itself known? What does it all mean? Why don't we just reconcile ourselves to the eternal recurrence of national confusion and "re-dedication?"

In light of the midterms, do The Chief's readers believe that the victors' promises will pan out or fizzle out?  Or the losers' threats?

The ability to traffic in prevarication is a job skill that is much sought in Washington, our state capitals, local precincts, and often within our own heart of hearts. Whether we fool ourselves accidentally or advertently, it's a mandate that apparently needs to be appeased in order to keep ideals and comradeships afloat.  

If we can't lie to ourselves, what faith can we have for the future of our harmonized nation?  How else could our 37th presidential press secretary have sold herself?

Deeming Katie Zacharia fit for duty was just another nuclear fib. She defied the adage and broke the mold of "nine days wonder" by lasting only five days as successor to Karoline Leavitt.

Her bad case of stage fright, aggravated by clueless unpreparedness, did not drive her to volunteer to be fired. It was the brazen misrepresentation on her resume that she was a lawyer, when she had never even passed the bar.

Whether it was outright fabrication or deceitful embellishment of her limited legal training, she was unsuited to the job, which carries high expectations of being able to give false reports. Zacharia whetted our appetites for a smorgasbord of falsehoods from the White House podium but left our hunger unconsummated. 

There will be more of more dissemblers for hire, and there is a market for them at every post and station on the ideological spectrum. They will use their draconian talents to defend inevitable abuses of governance and leadership, such as "lawfare" by whomever is in power, making a joke of the fable of domestic tranquility.

Like a plane that departs late but still arrives at its destination on time by taking advantage of favorable winds, maybe we will reach our destination of "exceptionalism" with our way of life intact. Is the ordeal worth the quest anymore? 

Perhaps our democracy cannot be said to be on its last legs, on account of it being a serpent. 

Do the midterms portend that we as a nation are at death's door, or are we trespassing upon its estate or still at the outskirts?  Is there a monopoly on hypocrisy among the professed champions, of liberty, or is it a joint venture to be acknowledged with selective memory, enforcement and discrimination and honored in the breach?

There is no time as we running out the clock.