THE rIGHT IS THE lEFT:

I think it should not surprise anybody familiar with the economic analysis of politics that our own states--in the "free" countries--also use national security to increase their own power, albeit not as uncontrollably as the Chinese government does. Think about the Trump administration imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imported from allied countries in the name of national security and threatening to do the same on automobile imports from Europe.

A few days ago, on May 19, the same administration did something similar, even if it is not as immediately obvious how it harms Americans (while it clearly hurts poor people who are legitimately looking for asylum in America), and even if national security took a public-health face. The Wall Street Journal explains ("Trump Administration Extends Order Blocking Migrants at Border," May 19, 2020):

The Trump administration extended a public-health order allowing it to reject migrants crossing U.S. borders without giving them access to the asylum system until the government determines the new coronavirus no longer poses a danger to the public.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the indefinite extension on Tuesday. The order was introduced in March for a duration of 30 days and extended in April for another 30 days.

The public-health order allows the government to turn back any migrants it encounters crossing the border--including unaccompanied children and anyone asking for humanitarian protection--without taking them into custody or allowing them to file asylum claims.

What's nice of Mr. Trump is that, with his limited understanding of the world, he often reveals his ulterior motives as a badge of honor--in this case, that the extension of the public-health order has little to do public health. The Wall Street Journal quotes him:

Every week, our border agents encounter thousands of unscreened, unvetted and unauthorized entries from dozens of countries. And we've had this problem for decades. With the national emergencies and all of the other things that we've declared, we can actually do something about it.

This looks pretty close to what Rahm Emmanuel (pardon me but I am tempted to write, borrowing from Mr. Trump's invectives, the radical left, do-nothing Democrat Rahm Emmanuel, or the Democrat Savage Rahm Emmanuel) said in 2012:

You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean by this is, it's an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.

Both President Donald Trump and Chairman Xi Jinping invoke nationalism to excite their respective political bases and reinforce their power.

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