A Park Slope lawmaker had a stirring and eloquent rebuke to Americans who support Donald Trump’s mass deportations of low-level or even non-criminal aliens over the past few days: Open your heart.
Councilman Brad Lander was the latest “TrumpBuster” to join Brooklyn Paper Radio — and he used Brooklyn’s biggest megaphone to slam the President’s approach to immigration after devil’s advocate co-hosts Gersh Kuntzman and Vince DiMiceli pointed out that kicking out undocumented workers may have an upside.
“People who are here and working and following the rules should have a path to citizenship,” Lander said. “Here’s what I say to people who are so angry about their lives that they believe that their success is blocked by hard-working immigrants doing often low-wage jobs trying to take care of their families here and around the world: We are a big enough and compassionate enough country to have policies that allow white working and middle class Americans to get a good education and get a good job without blaming immigrants for problems they didn’t cause. We can’t lose our compassion.”
Lander blamed Trump specifically for the situation we’re in.
“We are at an odd and dangerous moment in the country,” he said. “Aside from the political polarization, having someone in the White House who has a diagnosable narcissism disorder is creating a level of chaos and uncertainty.”
Lander, of course, was referring to Kuntzman’s seminal piece last month in the New York Daily News that featured mental health experts finally declaring that Trump is mentally unstable.
“You’re welcome,” said Kuntzman, a columnist at New York’s so-called “Hometown Paper.”
Also on the program, Kuntzman and DiMiceli chatted with Brooklyn Heights psychoanalyst Tracy Morgan, who raised $1,600 on GoFundMe to send flowers to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Massachusetts.) as a Valentine’s Day show of support a week after she was censured by male Sen. Mitch McConnell (D–Kentucky) for trying to read a letter in opposition to Sen. Jeff Sessions’ attorney general candidacy.
The flowers — 20 vases worth! — were delivered Tuesday afternoon.
“Flowers are very libidinal and sexual,” Morgan said. “These guys clearly envy her verve, her diligence. Her drive.”
Kuntzman interjected.
“Paging Dr. Freud! Are you talking about penis envy?” he asked.
“Yes! She’s got the phallus, the power. They see it and want to take it from her. That’s why they shut her down. It was about humiliation. And the flowers say, ‘We support you. We’ve got your back. Don’t let the bastards get you down.’ ”
On a sad or happy note, the boys discontinued their weekly tribute to America, failing to sing the “Star-Spangled Banner” for the first time in three weeks. So let’s hope they remember (or forget) to sing it in two weeks, after a well-deserved vacation in Florida.
Brooklyn Paper radio is recorded and podcast live every Thursday at 4:45 pm — for your convenience — from our studio in America’s Downtown and can be found, as always, right here on Brook