Divided America exemplified in two views of Trump's pardon of Sheriff Arpaio

Donald Trump did not create the division in America, but he has exploited it and amplified it, as he would say, bigly.   Nowhere is this division more sharply defined than in our attitudes toward racial minorities and undocumented immigrants.

In Trump's recent presidential pardon of former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, this divide screams loud and clear, not only in attitudes about the pardon, but in the sharp difference in what we read and believe are the facts.

Here are two contrasting editorials about the pardon:  one by the liberal New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman;  one published by FoxNews, written by James Fotis, former law enforcement officer and former executive director of the Law Enforcement Alliance of America.

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Paul Krugman, from "Fascism, American Style"

New York Times, August 28, 2017

As sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., Joe Arpaio engaged in blatant racial discrimination. His officers systematically targeted Latinos, often arresting them on spurious charges and at least sometimes beating them up when they questioned those charges. Read the report from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, and prepare to be horrified.

Once Latinos were arrested, bad things happened to them. Many were sent to Tent City, which Arpaio himself proudly called a “concentration camp,” where they lived under brutal conditions, with temperatures inside the tents sometimes rising to 145 degrees.

And when he received court orders to stop these practices, he simply ignored them, which led to his eventual conviction — after decades in office — for contempt of court. But he had friends in high places, indeed in the highest of places. We now know that Donald Trump tried to get the Justice Department to drop the case against Arpaio, a clear case of attempted obstruction of justice. And when that ploy failed, Trump, who had already suggested that Arpaio was “convicted for doing his job,” pardoned him.

By the way, about “doing his job,” it turns out that Arpaio’s officers were too busy rounding up brown-skinned people and investigating President Barack Obama’s birth certificate to do other things, like investigate cases of sexually abused children. Priorities!

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Let’s call things by their proper names here. Arpaio is, of course, a white supremacist. But he’s more than that. There’s a word for political regimes that round up members of minority groups and send them to concentration camps, while rejecting the rule of law: What Arpaio brought to Maricopa, and what the president of the United States has just endorsed, was fascism, American style.

So how did we get to this point?

Trump’s motives are easy to understand. For one thing, Arpaio, with his racism and authoritarianism, really is his kind of guy. For another, the pardon is a signal to those who might be tempted to make deals with the special investigator as the Russia probe closes in on the White House: Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.

Finally, standing up for white people who keep brown people down pleases Trump’s base, whom he’s going to need more than ever as the scandals creep closer and the big policy wins he promised keep not happening.

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[Let me (RR) add from what I just heard discussed on MSNBC's "The Beat With Ari Melber."   The Supreme Court has ruled on a prior case that it is a violation of constitutional rights for people to be stopped and detained by police merely on the grounds of suspicion that they might be here in the US illegally.   There has to be some other reason for a police officer to ask them for identification.  What Arpaio had his men doing is exactly what SCOTUS has ruled unconstitutional.

[A letter writer to the New York Times, Greg Joseph, a long-time resident of Sun City, Arizona, wrote:
"The damage that Mr. Arpaio did to the state and to this community is incalculable, and he did it by flouting not only the law as set down in the Constitution but the law of human decency as well.

"It became a common sight to see his deputies harassing Hispanic-looking people for no other reason than their appearance.  The result was not only to terrorize that segment of our community but also to worsen racial tensions.  His widely reported and condemned inhumane treatment of prisoners . . . built a hatred and resentment in them . . ."]

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James Fotis, from "Trump's Pardon of Ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio Was the Right (and Courageous) Thing to Do."  FoxNews,com, August 26, 2017

President Trump stood up for justice and for enforcement of our immigration laws when he courageously granted a pardon Friday to Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona. Despite knowing he would face criticism, the president did what was right.

Arpaio was convicted by a federal judge in July of criminal contempt after being charged with violating a court order that attempted to prevent suspected illegal immigrants from being targeted by the sheriff’s traffic patrols. The sheriff acknowledged continuing the patrols, but said that targeting was not the focus.

Arpaio’s conviction arose out of a lawsuit wrongfully accusing the sheriff’s office of violating the rights of Hispanics, allegedly using racial profiling tactics to identify people for traffic stops, and detaining convicts based only on the suspicion that they were illegal immigrants. Arpaio denied all wrongdoing.

I sat in the courtroom through Arpaio’s trial and concluded that he was wrongfully convicted. As a former law enforcement officer myself and former executive director of the Law Enforcement Alliance of America, I know that Arpaio was dedicated to protecting the public he served and that his highest priority was keeping his community safe.

Hearing testimony during Arpaio’s trial, I realized that any reasonable person who was there to pass judgment on this honest law-abiding man – who gave his life to the rule of law – could never have found him guilty on the evidence presented.

However, the only one who could pass judgment on the former sheriff was U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton, because Arpaio was denied his right to a jury trial under the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The judge’s verdict convicting Arpaio was a travesty of justice.

Arpaio's critics have claimed for a long time that he is a racist and biased against Hispanics. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. . . . 

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump said that he would be the voice for law enforcement officers everywhere and always fight to protect them when they protected the public.

President Trump held true to his promise by using his presidential pardon for Arpaio to set an important precedent: judges should interpret law and not try to rewrite it. And good men like Arpaio should not be prosecuted, persecuted and punished for doing their jobs. . . 
Arpaio’s case has been politically motivated from the beginning, when the Obama administration’s Department of Justice filed misdemeanor charges against him a mere two weeks before the election, contributing to Arpaio’s loss in his reelection bid. . . .  By pardoning the wrongly convicted former sheriff, President Trump has shown he stands with the law-abiding people of our great country, who have the right to live in peace and safety. And the president has shown he stands against criminals, including those who have crossed our borders illegally."

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[President Trump defended the pardon, praising "Sheriff Joe" as a patriot and a good man, who kept his community safe and kept our borders secure.  Sure.  Fascistric states are usually "safe and secure" . . . for those in favor with the police.   But ask everybody else how safe they feel.   

Trump couldn't help adding the totally irrelevant point that the crowd at his rally in Phoenix very strongly approved of the pardon when he hinted that he would.  In effect, he turned his rally of supporters into a crowd-jury, presented a false case to them, and got their thumbs-up cheers.]

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There you have the two different stories about the same man's behavior.   And, largely, the audiences for Paul Krugman and for Fox News do not overlap.    Each hears only its side.  In fact, reading Fotis' piece was the first that I had heard that Arpaio was denied a jury trial.  So I did some research.

It turns out that Arpaio did request a jury trial.  It was denied by the judge, based on prior case law rulings (42 U.S. Code par. 1995) that, in cases of contempt where the fine does not exceed $1000, nor imprisonment exceed six months, there is no right to jury trial.

Some have argued, and I tend to agree, that in this case of contempt, this puts the judge in the position of being the accuser, the judge, and the jury.   It seems this would mitigate toward allowing a jury trial, even though the law is clear.   Arpaio had appealed the ruling to a higher court and was awaiting that ruling, which is now moot.

Having said this, however, the facts in the case seem clear.  Arpaio was violating constitutional rights of suspects, held them in horrible conditions;  and he did refuse to follow a court order to stop doing that.  And now the president has endorsed his flouting the law.

And, at the same time, probably sent a message to any of his people who might have to testify in the Russia collusion case, that he will pardon them as well.

My main point in citing the two editorials, however, was to illustrate how the public is so divided, at least in part, because we are operating on different versions of a story.   I do think the public should have available a wide range of freely expressed opinions.   But you have to evaluate the source, and not everyone does that.

I believe it was Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who said that "People have a right to their own opinions.   But they don't have a right to their own set of facts."

Ralph