Kinda sorta related to both Rich (who has covered Jordan Peterson) and Katie (who has covered Peterson booster Quillette): Jordan Peterson is in town tomorrow night.

Will you assign them to write about it from their respective perspectives, Dan?

Pretty please?

O sweet Jesus on a breadstick - how you have to stretch to somehow blame Democrats for this RepublIcan evil nightmare.

Which isn't over -- now families will be jailed by our evil Republican overlords.

In the future, please assign blame other than Fox news style -- they really don't need your help.

@2: But only for 20 days. Then, presumably, they'll be off to the kiddie concentration camps.

@3 Link broke. Source: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/and-there-you-have-it

@2: Agreed. Ahem, Stranger Staff--do NOT blame this on the Democrats! This heartless evil is purely RepubliKKKan.

ROTFL-of course Obama’s separated families and to add to the insult he gave them to human traffickers. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-obama-administration-children-human-traffickers/

Why didn't Dems shout sooner?

Because it wasn't politically convenient.

It's the same reason activists didn't speak up either. No one gave a fuck two weeks ago and no one will give a fuck in two months.

@2 "why didn't the dems shout sooner" is not blaming the Democrats. If English isn't your primary language, than some confusion is understandable, but otherwise, your zero-sum anyone-whos-not-with-me-is-wishing-for-my-death attitude is decidedly bad and wrong.

Here's what "blaming the democrats" (note that 'blame' is an active verb): "If Dems had shouted sooner, kids would not have been separated from their parents"; or "Trump installed his family separation plan because Democrats were asleep at the wheel"; or "Democrats are at fault for the family separation crisis".

News Flash: Stranger sets up for the Republicans to stay in Power for the Midterms

Maybe they'll help him out in 2020?

Last year the Democrats were accused of manufacturing outrage because the obscenity hadn't implemented the inhuman immigration plans that were being discussed. This year the Democrats are late because they didn't speak out early enough. Sounds about right. Maybe you just haven't been paying attention.

@7 Nice to have the neo-nazi perspective.

Sporty, I think you are correct about why Dems didn't speak up but totally wrong about activists who have been going on about this since the end of the Bush era. One of the reasons people on the left opposed Clinton (and one of the things we've argued about on this blog since the primary) was how terrible Obama's immigration policy was. He deported millions and had families with children in prison. And as much as I shouted about this, mostly liberals just didn't care. Sort of how they shrug off the coups and the horrific foreign policy, etc.

However, all that can be true at the same time as Trump's policy is actually more evil. That's the thing about the GOP- they really are more evil and what is happening right now really is worse. Asylum seekers were not immediately thrown in prison by policy during the Obama administration (though sometimes they were) and children were not separated from their families by policy during Obama (though sometimes they were), etc. And domestic raids and round ups were not at the level they are now nor the targeting of activists. Specifically with the kids in prison- separated from family by policy and even for asylum seekers then indefinitely detained- it is new and in just a few weeks it has affected thousands of kids.

So a generous response would be that people are starting to pay attention because it is affecting more people and therefore impossible to ignore. My own opinion is that it is a combo of this and of what you said. I don't think the Democrats themselves- the politicians- care about it. They are doing what is politically strategic for them to do, as you say. When no one cared, they were complicit. But I do wonder about people like Dan himself and other liberal pundits like Maddow and Colbert, etc. Where were these people when leftists and immigration activists were calling Obama the "Deporter In Chief"? Or talking about the raids under Obama or the children in prison (mostly with their mothers) under Obama? When men crossed the border with kiddos without mothers, the kids were frequently separated from their fathers, and usually ended up in foster care of some sort but sometimes sent to prison. And you can't say they didn't know at all. There was an exchange about it between Clinton and Bernie in the debates. Every time I see one of those "but her emails" memes, I think of this. Liberals refusing to acknowledge the very real issues- immigration, foreign policy, corporate funding - that make up the left opposition to Democrats.

@Fletc3her, Sportlandia says a lot of things I disagree with (most of what he says in fact) but he's not a neo-nazi. Best I can tell, he's a run of the mill centrist to libertarian with some resentment towards women, but more of the NYTimes op-ed reading sort, not Fox News watching sort.

In any case, the attention now is good, regardless of how/why it came about. I just hope it doesn't disappear when families start being imprisoned indefinitely together.

In defense of the democrats so-called belated response to this republican evil, they have been kind of busy lately. Trump uses the shotgun approach to scandals, he fires off so many that it becomes difficult to track them all, let alone prioritize them by how evil they are.

We ALL need to rise up in November, give republicans a shellacking like they've never seen before, and then we need to do it again in 2020. Stay focused, keep our eyes on the prize, folks, this too shall pass.

I apologize for calling Sportlandia a neo-nazi.

@Rick, the question isn't why they didn't respond in the last few months but rather why they didn't in the past few years. You know, all the years that Obama was expanding ICE, building private prisons for immigrants, deporting millions, and yes- imprisoning children (with their mothers) in family detention centers. Trump has made things worse, but Obama's ICE shouldn't have existed either. It's a Patriot Act era Bush Jr creation and- like with the rest of the bullshit that Bush Jr created - Obama should have shut it down when he had the chance. But just like every other terrible Bush Jr creation, Obama expanded it instead. Then the Dems handed all of this to Trump.

@11 well there are certainly legit activists who have been paying attention to this issue for a long time, I did not mean to refer to them (you?). I was generally referring to the semi-professional activist class, that is, the Twitter activist, who hop pointlessly from one outrage to the next calling people neo Nazi's and... Well that's really all, they just sling mud and consider that effective action and pay themselves on the back for being "more moral"..

45 is such an asshat that every action he takes is being thoroughly investigated. Even Bush was amenable enough to just focus on the big things

@13 RickFromTexas: Once again you are so spot on. Thank you and bless you.
As for your projected outcome of the midterms and 2020, I sure hope that's what happens. before it's too late for all of us. Shit like this is what comes from lies, propaganda, racism, woeful ignorance, and too much "reality TV".
@16 EmmaLiz: sigh Wow. I'm amazed President Barack Obama didn't stop this exploding ICE insanity when he had the chance during his eight non-scandalous years in office.

One can drive oneself crazy asking the "Why didn't Democrats do something...?" question. Dirty little secrets: the money's too good, they're hooked on lifer reelection, and most of them are neoliberal closet Rockefeller Republicans. The unsecret: "I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat." - Will Rogers

17L that "class", however, is only a trivially small sector of the progressive side of the spectrum. You have no reason to act as though MOST of us are like that.