Thread by @AnnaTarkov

I want to lift up this tweet once more because Lindsay’s analysis is 100% on point and SO important.

People have been parroting “cruelty is the point” to me for the last 2-3 years and on the one hand, yes, but on the other, it’s even worse than that.

1/?

https://twitter.com/l_toczylowski/status/1319524794883211264

What I mean is, in order to be cruel, you have to have at least some understanding of your target’s wants, needs, and desires. You have to understand at least a little bit how they think.

That’s what’s required if cruelty is indeed the point, and not just a byproduct.

2/?

In a sense, there can be no intentional cruelty without at least a modicum of empathy.

Trump has no empathy. None. Zero. He has demonstrated that time and time again.

He views everything as transactional, meaning: what’s in it for me?

3/?

So of course he thinks that only immigrants with low IQs would show up for their court dates.

Because he knows how stacked the system is against them and because he can’t fathom going into a situation like that himself.

He wouldn’t. You’d have to be stupid.

4/?

So it’s immaterial to him that something like 97% of immigrants show up for their court dates. If he has ever seen this number, he can likely just ignore it and say it can’t possibly be true.

Because again, in his opinion they’d have to be stupid to show up.

5/?

And you have to also think about the flip side of that.

He thinks they’d be stupid to show up because it would be easier to just “cheat” to stay in the country and live here undocumented.

Because cheating is all he knows.

6/?

This is a man who has never in his life has to face negative consequences as a result of bad decision-making or any other reason. And he knows this. He knows he is fully insulated from any kind of harm.

7/?

So when he seems someone who isn’t bulletproof like him, he truly can’t fathom why on earth they would subject themselves to a potential negative outcome.

Like I said: it’s worse than cruelty.

8/8