“The speed of America’s moral descent under Donald Trump is breathtaking. In a matter of months we’ve gone from a nation that stood for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to a nation that tears children from their parents and puts them in cages…What’s almost equally remarkable about this plunge into barbarism is that it’s not a response to any actual problem. The mass influx of murderers and rapists that Trump talks about, the wave of crime committed by immigrants here (and, in his mind, refugees in Germany), are things that simply aren’t happening. They’re just sick fantasies being used to justify real atrocities…And you know what this reminds me of? The history of anti-Semitism, a tale of prejudice fueled by myths and hoaxes that ended in genocide.” — from Paul Krugman’s New York Times column, “Return of the Blood Libel.”

Strong words from top GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, as reported by Dan Balz in his article, “A GOP strategist abandons his party and calls for the election of Democrats” at The Washington Post: “Trump’s election did not spell doom for the Republican Party,” Schmidt said by telephone Wednesday while traveling. “There’s a crisis of cowardice in the Republican Party that is profoundly un-American and, in my reading, unprecedented,” he said… “No one is prepared to lay down their political career to do what’s right to oppose the corruption, the assault on institutions, the nonstop lying, the assault on objective truth.”The reality is that our Founders always predicted that one day there would be a president like Trump, and that’s why they designed the system of government the way they designed it. What they never imagined is the utter abdication of a co-equal branch of government, which we’re seeing now.”

Balz writes further that Schmidt “cited Trump’s praise for North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, attacks on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the horrific images of immigrant children separated from their parents on the U.S.-Mexico border,” which “finally tipped him over the edge.” Schmidt continues, “The definition of conservatism now is the requirement of complete and utter obedience to the leader.” Balz adds, “He said he came to see the Republican Party as living in fear of the president and, as such, “a threat to the American republic and to liberal democracy.” The party, he said, “is irredeemable…He called the party “utterly corrupted,” a force for “incendiary politics and crackpottery and a real threat to small ‘L’ liberalism in the U.S.-led liberal global order…The Democratic Party is called to be the sentinel of American democracy and liberty…It is beyond bone-chilling to consider what happens if that party fails in that task, in that duty.” Schmidt’s statement should prove useful to Democrats in their midterm campaigns.

Ronald Browstein notes at the Atlantic, “With several polls this week showing that roughly two-thirds of Americans oppose Trump’s family separation policy and images of distraught children dominating television, many congressional Republicans were openly seeking a way out. But, by any reasonable standard, Capitol Hill Republicans marched themselves into this quagmire by either actively endorsing, or failing to effectively resist, almost every earlier step Trump has taken to redefine the party around his insular nationalism.”

“Activists are organizing a nationwide effort on June 30 to protest the Trump administration’s policy of separating families at the US-Mexico border,’ reports Jen Kirby at Vox. Also, “A #FamiliesBelong Together march is planned for Washington, DC, in Lafayette Square at 11 am on Saturday, June 30, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said Monday on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes. Sister marches are expected in dozens of cities across the country.” The protest is “being sponsored by the National Domestic Workers Alliance and MoveOn, and more than a dozen other groups.”

“Separating Families At The Border Is Really Unpopular,” wrties Dhrumil Mehta at FiveThirtyeight. “We finally have a decent number of polls testing support for the Trump administration’s policy of separating parents from their children at the border. As of early Tuesday, four pollsters — CBS News, CNN, Quinnipiacand IPSOS — had released surveys; they found that about two-thirds of the American public oppose the policy, on average.” According to a FiveThirtyEight chart, “Respondents’ views on separating families crossing the border and holding children and parents in different facilities while they await trial”: