Columns

SAN DIEGO — The world of politics can be a zoo. So it was only a matter of time before the demagogue-in-chief labeled some illegal immigrants “animals.”

It happened last week during a White House meeting that had the vibe of a carnival freak show. President Donald Trump met with officials from California who, judging from their remarks, are itching to put on junior G-men badges and play immigration agent.

Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims complained: “There could be an MS-13 member I know about — if they don’t reach a certain threshold, I cannot tell ICE about it.” Trump responded: “We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in — and we’re stopping a lot of them — but we’re taking people out of the country. You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals.”

The sheriff doth protest too much. An earlier version of SB-54 — which went much further in limiting cooperation between local law enforcement officials and federal immigration agents — was threatened with a veto by California Gov. Jerry Brown. It was a cynical play. The Democrat — who has been in elective office on-and-off since 1970 and has politics in his veins — wanted to keep his party from being branded “pro-illegal immigration” and “anti-law and order.”

Changes were made, and a watered-down bill was signed into law by Brown. Under the current version, Immigration and Customs Enforcement still has plenty of access to county jails, and it can still get a heads-up from the local sheriff’s office when an illegal immigrant is released from custody — if that person has committed certain serious crimes, or if ICE has a warrant with the person’s name on it.

That’s what Mims calls a “certain threshold.”

But I don’t see the problem. According to Trump, and most of the hangers-on at his White House meeting, every member of MS-13 — a gang that was created in Los Angeles, exported to El Salvador and now seems to be making its way back — is a mixture of “El Chapo” Guzman, Al Capone, and the indestructible villain Thanos from “Infinity War.” With the “bad hombres” of MS-13, meeting the threshold should be easy.

The bigger problem is what Trump said. Americans have a foul history of comparing immigrants — from Germany, Ireland, China, Italy, Mexico and El Salvador — to animals. So we should not brush off those comments so easily.

There is a backstory here. Just in the last 10 years, Republicans have repeatedly tapped into their “animal” instincts.

— Dr. Pat Bertroche, a candidate for Congress from Iowa, noted that he can microchip his dog and asked: “Why can’t I microchip an illegal?”

— Tennessee state Rep. Curry Todd insisted that illegal immigrants come to this country and multiply “like rats.”

— Rep. Steve King of Iowa wanted an electrified fence on the U.S.-Mexico border because it works “with livestock.”

Trump’s defenders made excuses for him, just as they did when he labeled Mexican immigrants drug traffickers and rapists.

I have to wonder: Why does someone who bills himself as a great communicator always need clarification when he talks about immigrants?

Besides, while Trump did mention MS-13 in doubling down the next day, he did not refer to the gang in his initial remarks at the White House. And it’s not the job of journalists to read his mind and try to figure out what he meant, only to report what he said.

That also applied to Hillary Clinton, who — while pushing for a crime bill in the 1990s — warned about a mob of violent young people who she called “super predators” who had to be brought “to heel.” Many African-Americans complained — and still maintain to this day — that Clinton was comparing young black men to animals. Clinton’s supporters claimed her words were taken out of context. There is a lot of that going around.

Meanwhile, Trump likes to portray himself as bravely standing up to political correctness.

Fine. Then he should stand up and admit that his antipathy toward immigrants is not limited to gang members. Such an admission would show maturity, honesty and character.

And those are things that separate us from the animals.

What if California held a race for governor and a big chunk of Californians couldn’t care less?

When I go to events, meetings or social engagements, people often talk about politics. The name “Trump” comes up. But no one ever talks about the California governor’s race, even though the crucial June 5 open primary is just a couple of weeks away.

Why crucial? In this heavily Latino and deep-blue state — where Republicans made themselves an endangered species by succumbing to racism when railing against immigration — Democrats tend to win general-election runoffs in November. So the primary is what counts. If the top vote-getters are both Democrats, the general election could be brutal. But if they’re a Democrat and a Republican, the former is a shoo-in and the latter should start updating his LinkedIn profile.

The state’s one-party rule could be the reason more people aren’t tuning in to the governor’s race, as it’s no fun watching a game when you already know how it will turn out.

Another explanation is that people in the nation’s most populous state are preoccupied. With perpetually nice weather and summer coming, who has time to worry about which Democrat is going to lead 39.5 million people into the future?

Personally, I think many Californians are burned out on politics. They can’t get over the 2016 election because Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton keep talking about it.

The stars of the state’s $2.7 trillion economy are the tech sector and Hollywood. One makes cool products, the other makes blockbuster movies. All politicians make is noise, division and promises they don’t keep.

Laugh about it, shout about it. But Californians will soon have to choose — a new governor.

This race was supposed to be about San Francisco vs. Los Angeles, and two liberal ex-Democratic mayors — Gavin Newsom of San Francisco and Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles — slugging it out, with the conservative farmland of Central California breaking the tie. It was going to be about Villaraigosa looking for a sweet spot where he inspires brown folks without scaring white folks. It was going to be about Democrats vying to be the most anti-Trump candidate, because Clinton won the state by 30 points. And it was going to be about the GOP just running a placeholder with no shot at making the runoff.

Yet this race isn’t about any of those things. It’s about the lesser aversion.

Newsom is the state’s lieutenant governor, so he has an empty desk, a light workload and plenty of time to campaign. He has led in every poll.

The real contest — for No. 2 — is between Villaraigosa and the leading Republican, Illinois businessman John Cox, who has two votes for sure: his own and Newsom’s. That’s because, if Villaraigosa makes it into the runoff, and even a sliver of Latinos — who make up nearly 40 percent of the state’s population — turn out in November, it could be adios to Newsom.

The bad news for Villaraigosa: He seems stuck in the high teens, which may only be good enough for third place — behind Newsom and Cox, who has climbed to about the same level as Villaraigosa.

The good news: Most polls show a big chunk of voters — perhaps as high as 25 percent — are still undecided, and Villaraigosa just started going on the airwaves thanks to a huge infusion of cash from billionaire charter-school advocates.

Meanwhile, Cox may be a California transplant, but he learns fast. He has totally acclimated to the poisonous ways of the state Republican Party. The GOP is demonizing a widely misunderstood state law that supposedly protects illegal immigrants from arrest and deportation. This fantastical narrative would be easier to swallow if illegal immigrants weren’t being arrested and deported in California every single day. The whole drama has many people in the Golden State seeking “sanctuary” from stupidity.

No wonder many Californians would rather tune out and spend their time at the beach.

© 2018, Washington Post Writers Group

Email: ruben@rubennavarrette.com. His daily podcast, “Navarrette Nation,” is available through every podcast app.

Last week’s episode of Roseanne preached tolerance toward Muslim-Americans. Yet it contained an intolerant slap at “illegals.”

Creator Roseanne Barr has tweeted that, in her sitcom reboot, she wants to “challenge every sacred cow in USA.” But she missed the sacred cow in the immigration debate — the fact that blue-collar workers who feel squeezed out of jobs by illegal immigrants often have only themselves to blame.

Imagine you voted for Donald Trump and you were born on third base because you speak English and had the benefit of U.S. citizenship and a free education, and you maybe had a boost in life with a union job because your uncle hooked you up.

And imagine you’re competing for a job with someone who is in the country illegally, who doesn’t speak English and has a sixth-grade education, and who can’t get legal status because both major political parties flunked the immigration issue.

Now imagine you’re getting your clock cleaned because the immigrant has a work ethic that won’t quit.

Like the Germans who came in the 18th century, the Irish who came in the 19th century and the Italians who came in the 20th century, people with nothing who bet everything on a fresh start often show up early, stay late and hustle to get ahead.

An employer in Dallas once told me that when she interviewed prospective employees, she had no trouble telling natives from immigrants. The natives asked about vacation days, sick days and personal days. The immigrants asked how much work they could get. Whom do you think she hired?

Americans won’t admit that. We’re a proud people. So we tell ourselves that immigrants — especially those here illegally — work for lower wages, which makes them irresistible to employers. It’s not our fault, we say. The game is rigged.

This is what Dan Conner on Roseanne believes.

The episode last week confronted Islamophobia. Dan — played by John Goodman — tells his wife not to worry about the Muslim-American family across the street because, he says, “they’re probably just regular folks who want to make a home here.”

What the Conners really need to worry about, it turns out, are those dreaded “illegals.”

Dan, a contractor, is surprised to learn that he lost a bid to spread drywall in rentals for a regular client. “We work for union minimum,” Dan says. “No one is going to beat that.”

Someone did. So Dan speculates that his competitor “must be going non-union.” Then, he asks the client: “You’re not hiring illegals?”

We never learn the answer. But the story moves along with the assumption that illegal immigrants are the reason that the Conners can’t pay their bills.

Dan blames the immigrants who “are so desperate they’ll work for nothing, and we’re getting screwed in the process.” Meanwhile, Roseanne insists the real villain in this drama is the client, who is “taking advantage” of cheap labor.

Everyone accepts that undocumented immigrants hurt working-class Americans by taking jobs and lowering wages. But Americans need to ask more questions.

Like this one: Do illegal immigrants really work for lower wages than Americans demand? Hard to say, given that Americans won’t go anywhere near most of the hard and dirty jobs done by illegal immigrants — not at any price. In Central California, which produces most of the nation’s fruits and vegetables and which now suffers from a labor shortage, farmers tell me workers set the daily rate depending on how many of them are available that day, the size of the job, and what other farms are paying. It’s the workers, and not the employers, who have the leverage.

Or this one: Why is there a “union-minimum” in the first place? It’s an arbitrary number set by organized labor which collects dues from union members and then spreads that cash around to politicians, mostly Democrats, to get favorable laws written. Maybe the “union-minimum” is too high, and it has more to do with greed than what the work is worth.

Or this one: Why do we blame workers and not employers for low wages? Do we honestly think that the workers wouldn’t like to be paid more? As Roseanne notes, it is the employer who is using undocumented workers to cut corners and thus “taking advantage.” Why don’t we ever hear that the Trump administration is cracking down on employers?

Or, finally, this one: What responsibility do American workers have to improve themselves, get more education and skills, and stay competitive so they’re not losing out to the lowest bidder? Employers and clients want bargains, but they also want quality employees and contractors.

I had an uncle who laid brick. To fend off competitors, he spent his off-duty hours learning how to become a stone mason. Soon, he was naming his price. His work was that good.

Dan Conner spends his down time drinking beer and tinkering with motorcycles in his garage.

We all make choices. Make the wrong ones, and you could find yourself in the humiliating spot of claiming that you’ve been put out of work by undocumented immigrants.

If television shows are going to fiddle with an issue as complicated as immigration, they ought to fiddle responsibly.

Ruben Navarrette Jr., a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors, is a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group and host of the daily podcast, Navarrette Nation. Follow him on Twitter: @RubenNavarrette.

SAN DIEGO — Commencement speeches should pose a challenge. At this moment, it’s clear what message graduates — and the rest of us — need to hear:

“Instead of aiming for a better job and a bigger house, strive for something that is often more difficult to achieve: being a better person. Don’t be self-centered. Make a positive impact on others. And don’t ever look down on anyone.”

It’s fine to work hard, achieve financial success and enjoy the benefits of your labor. But it’s not fine to use your elevated position to insult or pick on someone that you see as less than.

Like a gardener. You see, I have a story for you.

First, some context. America is getting meaner. We’re closing our doors, retreating to our living rooms and watching news channels that reinforce what we believe. We’re angry whether there are jobs or no jobs. We’re angry whether the economy is good or bad. We’re just angry.

It’s easy to make this about President Trump. If you oppose him, you think he made Americans more abusive. If you support him, you think the abuse comes from his critics.

Whatever is causing it, the evidence of our deteriorating civility is everywhere.

In one of the latest incidents caught on video, a white man in Riverside, California, viciously insults a Muslim woman who is wearing a black niqab, a headscarf that covers most of her face except her eyes. The man asks the woman, “Is it Halloween or something?” She replies that she is Muslim and asks if he has a problem. “I don’t like your religion,” he says. “How’s that? I don’t want to be killed by you.”

We can recall the presidential candidate who labeled Mexicans criminals and rapists, or the one who said that anyone who didn’t support her belonged in a “basket of deplorables.” We can point to coffee shops and college dormitories, where police are now summoned if a white person feels threatened by the presence of a black person. We can look at the White House staffer who jokes that the administration needn’t worry that Sen. John McCain opposes its choice to head the CIA since the Arizona Republican is “dying anyway.” We can refer to the cringe-worthy video of an arrogant Port Authority commissioner in New Jersey scolding police officers over a traffic stop.

Or, if we want to be here all day, we can talk about the ham-fisted way that many cable television pundits discuss immigration. Fox News contributor Tomi Lahren — who seems to have flunked history but majored in hysteria — recently insisted that welcoming immigrants with “low skills” and “low education” who speak foreign languages is “not what this country is based on.”

It’s unclear which country she was talking about.

And when genealogist Jennifer Mendelsohn looked up Lahren’s German and Norwegian ancestors and found they were not exactly Ivy League graduates who spoke the King’s English and came over on the Mayflower, suddenly it was Lahren who was offended. She accused Mendelsohn of trying to play “gotcha.”

All those are examples of manners going out the window. But I want to talk about how people treat gardeners and landscapers — most of whom these days are Latino immigrants.

Recently, on a social-media forum for people who live in my neighborhood, a woman posted an angry screed against “self-designated gardeners” who are just “mow and blow guys with limited English.” She said one of these impersonators had “destroyed” a $1,000 plant, the care for which she had entrusted to someone making just $20 per hour. The woman found support from the mob, with one person after another expressing hope that she found a “real gardener.”

I know what you’re thinking, and I thought it, too. If this woman wants a “real gardener,” she should be willing to pay more. Or she could — gasp — tend to her own yard.

Another woman, who claimed to be a “horticulturist from the East Coast,” offered her services — but only as a “consultant” and presumably for much more than $20 per hour.

But the Humanitarian of the Year award goes to the lovely gentleman who suggested the woman go to the authorities. “Please report this to the police or ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement],” he posted. “There are some illegals hanging, looking for homes to robb [sic] acting as landscapers.”

We used to worry about criminals and drug traffickers. But now, you’re a “bad hombre” if a plant in your care perishes.

I said that we should all aspire to be better people. Surely, we can be better than this.

Ruben Navarrette’s email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com. His daily podcast, “Navarrette Nation,” is available through every podcast app.

During my freshman year in college, I took a course in political philosophy. My classmates and I studied the writings of Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, John Locke, Immanuel Kant and others. Every week we’d be presented with a moral quandary, and we’d be asked to explain how we thought it should be resolved, using the philosophies available.

I remember one scenario in particular. There are three men adrift on a lifeboat in the ocean, far away from land and without any food. It is clear that they won’t all survive, but two of them might have a chance if they resort to cannibalism and devour the third.

The question: Is it justifiable for the two strongest men to kill and eat the weaker one?

Before I could contemplate an answer, I suddenly came to the realization that the question was moot. I heard a voice in my head — from my hometown 3,000 miles away, from my childhood.

It was telling me that the whole premise of this exercise was absurd, and the outcome unthinkable. It wasn’t a matter of what could be justified. It was about right and wrong.

Besides, the voice asked, what if there were a scenario where I was the weak one? In that circumstance, who would speak up for me?

The voice belonged to my mother, whose sense of what is good, just and compassionate has always been — and still remains — unshakable and unequivocal. With her, on moral issues, there is no negotiation. There is no convenient justification, served up courtesy of a political philosopher.

There is only right and wrong, and you had better know one from the other.

Having grown up in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, as the oldest of five children born to Tejano migrant farm workers with deep roots in the Lone Star State, my mother started working in the fields as a teenager in the 1950s.

Her family bounced between Texas and California for several years before settling in Sanger, a small farm town in Central California. My grandfather reluctantly pulled up stakes from Texas when he heard a rumor that the growers were paying $1 more per hour to pick fruits and vegetables in the Golden State.

While attending Sanger High School — from which I would graduate a quarter century later — my mom discovered poodle skirts, malt shops and Elvis. And, at a high school football game, she met my dad.

In November 1963, my mother was a student at Fresno City College, taking typing courses with plans to be a secretary or at least work in an office of some kind. It was there that she heard the unbelievable news that President John F. Kennedy had been shot and killed in Dallas. She recalls that Thanksgiving was sad that year, and for many years to come.

Five years later, as a working wife and mother chasing after her 1-year-old son, there would be more sadness with the death of Sen. Robert Kennedy — who was, more often, known around my grandmother’s house as simply “El Bobby.”

Also in the 1960s, on the East Coast, a suburban housewife and freelance writer published what would become a widely read book, challenging what was then the popular idea that women could find fulfillment only as wives, mothers and homemakers.

Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” is considered to have been extremely influential, and it is said to have played an important role in the creation of the modern feminist movement.

My mother missed the movement. After college, she went to work in an office and focused her efforts on what she considered her life’s most important goal: becoming a wife and mother, two roles that — along with being a good and attentive daughter — seem to have left her feeling quite fulfilled.

In 1972, Congress passed The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and sent the measure on to the states for ratification. The amendment — which declared that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex” — died 10 years later when it failed to be ratified by 38 states.

The ERA didn’t mean much to mom. That same year, she had the last of her three children. Along with my father, she worked tirelessly — both inside and outside the home — to provide my siblings and me with a happy and safe upbringing. She couldn’t always help us with our homework, but she did help make us into good people who were taught to be kind and respectful to others.

That in and of itself is a fitting tribute to one of the women she most admired. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was fond of saying: “If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do matters very much.”

Whatever else my mom did, or didn’t do, in life, she did not bungle the raising of her kids. She got that right.

My mother is always the first to applaud what other women have done with their lives, the things they’ve accomplished and the barriers they’ve broken. She was “all in” for Hillary Clinton in two presidential elections.

It’s just that, in her case, more than money or fame, she counts the way her kids turned out as her life’s greatest achievement, even if my mom doesn’t always get the credit she deserves as a chief architect on the project.

My dad is the louder and more outspoken of the pair, and so he commands most of the attention. It’s a role that my mom is content to let him play.

We ask my mother a question, and often my dad answers. It’s annoying. But, within the family, it’s clear which one of them has more influence — over each other and over the rest of us.

All of which makes it harder to accept the reality that now, at 75, my mother is slipping away.

She forgets things — often. She repeats herself. She can’t remember if she ate or not. Her doctor is charting a “cognitive decline.” My grandmother, her mother, had Alzheimer’s, and my mom seems headed in that direction.

The woman who did everything for her kids now needs her kids to do more and more for her. It’s a privilege. And yet, it’s also heartbreaking to watch her slowly disappear.

In the upcoming film, “The Wife,” Glenn Close plays an invisible woman — if not literally, then at least figuratively. Her character represents generations of brilliant, hardworking and capable women who — because of sexism, tradition and societal norms — were, as the promotional material for the movie puts it, “relegated to supporting players in their own lives.”

In her life, my mom was no supporting player. She was performing at center stage, hemming costumes backstage, working lights in the control room, ushering people to their seats, selling popcorn in the lobby during intermission and doing a hundred other things that needed to be done.

It’s why I love the song “Mama” by the all-male quartet Il Divo. I sit alone and play it every Mother’s Day. The lyrics sum up what many of us would like to tell our mothers, and what the less fortunate never had the chance to tell them.

Mama thank you for who I am

Thank you for all the things I’m not

Forgive me for the words unsaid

For the times, I forgot

Mama remember all my life

You showed me love. You sacrificed

Think of those young and early days

How I’ve changed along the way

And I know you believed

And I know you had dreams

And I’m sorry it took all this time to see

That I am where I am because of your truth.

My sister — who didn’t have kids of her own, but instead now enjoys a hugely successful career and travels the world — reminds me that people make choices, that women make choices. She looks back on a former company, and notes that it’s no coincidence that most of the women managers who earned the highest salaries also had no kids.

Look at the data. Studies show that, for each child a woman has, her wages will decrease by about 4 percent. When a man has a child, however, his earnings increase by 6 percent. It’s completely unfair, yet totally believable.

Talk about wage inequality. There it is. Even when they re-enter the workforce after having children, some women will never catch up. Like my sister says, we all make choices.

My mom made her choices, and I hope she’s happy with them. For me, and for my siblings, her truth made all the difference.

Ruben Navarrette, a contributing editor to Angelus News, is a syndicated columnist with The Washington Post Writers Group, a member of the USA Today Board of Contributors, a Daily Beast columnist, author of “A Darker Shade of Crimson: Odyssey of a Harvard Chicano” and host of the podcast “Navarrette Nation.”

SAN DIEGO — Politics is making me sick. I have written about pandering, broken promises, partisan spin, opinion polls, situational ethics, flip-flopping, echo chambers, red and blue states and all the rest for 30 years. And it has taken a toll. I’ve never been more cynical or more distrustful.

Spend most of your time in swamps, and pretty soon all you see is alligators. Over the years, I’ve been deceived and disillusioned by politicians in both parties. I’ve also often bet on the wrong horse and trusted the wrong people.

After a speech about eight years ago I was asked if I could name any politicians whom I respected.

“Yes,” I said. “I only have two. A Democrat: Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois. And a Republican: Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana.”

So I settled on two Midwesterners from neighboring states. On immigration, each man had bravely challenged leaders of his own party.

Gutierrez was the first to disappoint me. Arrested twice outside the White House while protesting President Obama’s heavy-handed immigration policies, the congressman tried unsuccessfully to get Obama to use executive power to defer some deportations. In 2011, in an attempt to push the White House to adopt a more sensible and humane immigration enforcement policy, Gutierrez embarked on a 20-city tour he called the “Campaign for American Children and Families.” Several congressional lawmakers, including Rep. Michael Honda, D-Calif., said at the time that administration officials had warned them not to attend. That is how upset the White House was with Gutierrez’s mutiny.

But after the Obama administration launched the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) in June 2012 — essentially tricking young undocumented immigrants into turning themselves in to authorities in exchange for a two-year deferment from deportation and a temporary work permit — Gutierrez took the crumb and declared it a steak dinner. In September, in exchange for a speaking slot at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., he fell totally in line and enthusiastically praised the same Obama administration that he had spent the last few years railing against. Awkward.

Now, it is Pence’s turn to disappoint. I’ve written about the Indiana Republican — who is now vice president — for more than a dozen years. He usually has a good mind, a good heart and a good supply of the kind of common sense that grows in farm country.

Pence came to my attention in 2006 when, while serving in Congress, he wrote a bill that would have let millions of undocumented immigrants stay in the United States legally. One member of a family would return to the home country for quick processing sessions — at what Pence called “Ellis Island Centers” — before coming back to the United States with a temporary work permit. Nativists hated the Pence plan, calling it “amnesty lite.” I hated the nativists, and so I reached out to Pence. We began a series of interviews and conversations. I became a fan.

But last week, in Phoenix, Pence made a fool of himself. Having hitched his wagon to a president who believes that Mexican immigrants are criminals from a poor, violent, and corrupt country — the kind of place that Trump has previously referred to as a “shithole” — who steal jobs and resources from real Americans, the vice president has embraced the crazy. Speaking to supporters, Pence lamented “open border activists.”

Apparently, the Hoosier doesn’t know much about borders unless perhaps we’re talking about the boundary between Indiana and Kentucky. The U.S.-Mexico border is fortified, militarized and patrolled by more than 17,000 Border Patrol agents. That is not “open.”

Pence also praised former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio — who is now running to represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate — as a “tireless champion of strong borders and the rule of law.”

In truth, Arpaio’s contribution to “strong borders” was limited to clownish stunts like having deputies raid a fast-food restaurant in Phoenix because Spanish was spoken in the kitchen. Arpaio wiped his feet on the “rule of law” when he defied a federal judge’s order to stop enforcing immigration law and profiling Latinos. The lawman-turned-outlaw was found to be in contempt of court. Trump gave him amnesty, i.e., a pardon.

Nonetheless, Pence welcomed Arpaio and told him: “I’m honored to have you here.” So, I guess, the vice president is also a little fuzzy on the meaning of the word “honor.”

You see why I’m sick. And as long as I continue to cover politics, I don’t expect to feel better anytime soon.

Ruben Navarrette’s email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com. His daily podcast, “Navarrette Nation,” is available through every podcast app.

(c) 2018, The Washington Post Writers Group

SAN DIEGO — Elitism is ugly. If you want to know how ugly, just watch the widely circulated video of an arrogant, obnoxious and profane political appointee scolding a couple of police officers during a traffic stop in Tenafly, New Jersey https://youtu.be/S6vlu1FRaic

The cringe-worthy encounter occurred over Easter weekend, and the dashcam video — which has now been watched by more than 2 million people — was released a few weeks later by the Tenafly Police Department.

Caren Turner is now a former commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates bridges, tunnels, ports and airports in both states. Whatever power comes with that position appears to have gone straight to her head.

Soon after the video surfaced, Turner resigned.

Good to hear. Let’s just say that, during the eight-minute encounter along a busy freeway, this public official didn’t exactly cover herself in glory. Port Authority Chairman Kevin O’Toole called Turner’s behavior “profoundly disturbing,” “demeaning” and “deplorable.”

He’s right on all counts. And as the officers repeatedly told Turner after she flashed her credentials, she was not even involved in the traffic stop. She was called to the scene by her daughter, who was one of the passengers in the vehicle. The car was stopped, cited and towed due to expired registration.

Does the Tenafly Police Department always tow cars with expired registrations? I’ve been pulled over for expired tags before, and all I got was a ticket. Why didn’t that happen in this case?

Turner managed to remain calm until the 6:45 mark on the video, appearing as if she just wanted to verbally joust with the officers. She insisted on knowing why the car had been stopped. The officers wouldn’t tell her. Since the driver was 18 and a legal adult, they said, they had already explained it to the driver. If she really wanted to know, they said, she could ask the driver.

As Turner became more agitated, she descended into the swamp of elitism. “You can’t put a sentence together,” she told the officers. She also felt the need to point out that two of the people in the car were “Ph.D. students at MIT and Yale.”

Turner came totally unglued at the 7:15 mark. When she was told by the lead officer — Matthew Savitsky, who did most of the talking — that she “may” now take her daughter home, she lost it. “You may not tell me when to take my child,” she screamed at Savitsky. “You may shut the [expletive] up!” She also called both officers “pathetic” and a “disappointment.”

The now ex-commissioner was way out of line. She made a fool of herself, and she came across as a high-falutin’ snob with a disdain for lowly civil servants.

However, there is more to this story. Tenafly Police Chief Robert Chamberlain has said that he was proud of the “composure, poise and restraint” shown by his two officers. But, as the son of a retired cop, it is clear to me that the officers could have handled the situation better and more professionally.

Savitsky could have de-escalated the incident and ended it in half the time. That’s also part of good police work. When Turner pressed him as to why the car was being towed, the officer said that he didn’t “appreciate” her “demeanor” and claimed that she was “being very demanding.” Finally, he told Turner, “You have no right to know what’s going on here. I’m under no legal obligation to tell you.” When she made a snide comment about how he had “ruined” the students’ weekend, he responded: “I didn’t ruin anything. I’m just doing my job.”

The back-and-forth was inappropriate. This wasn’t a debate. Just end the standoff. Say goodbye, get in your squad car and drive away.

Of course, none of this lets Turner off the hook. She was 100 percent in the wrong, and she gave us all a glimpse of what the better and smarter “1 percent” thinks of the rest of us.

Let me say a word to the students who witnessed this spectacle up close and in real time.

Listen up, kids: Life’s most valuable lessons don’t come in the classroom. You should pursue a Ph.D. in people skills with an emphasis on how to treat people with respect. That will do you more good than degrees from fancy schools.

But what do I know? Despite a couple of degrees from a fancy school, I’m just the son of a lowly civil servant.

Ruben Navarrette’s email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com. His daily podcast, “Navarrette Nation,” is available through every podcast app.

(c) 2018, The Washington Post Writers Group

SAN DIEGO — The dustup over an offensive rant by a comedian at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner should prompt journalists to take a hard look at themselves and their profession, and ask what has become of both in the era of Donald Trump.

For one thing, members of the media should investigate whether some of them have picked up bad habits from the people they cover.

Like how to lie. Enduring falsehoods is something that I have in common with my dad, a retired cop: People lied to us all the time, usually to get out of a scrape. It makes you cynical and distrustful — especially of the powerful, who sometimes have a lot to lose from telling the whole truth.

In the recent film “The Post,” Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee — played by Tom Hanks — says about officials in the Nixon administration who misled the public about the Vietnam War: “The way they lied, those days have to be over.”

Of course, those days are not over. Politicians in both parties still lie with ease and often without a second thought.

Yet what happens when the “lied to” become the liars? It has been my experience — over three decades of working in the media — that reporters, producers and anchors can fib with the best of them. And if you can’t trust the media, whom can you trust?

Legendary newsman Walter Cronkite — once regarded as “the most trusted man in America” — couldn’t get a job today. The idea that the public could put even an ounce of trust in the media seems quaint. Cable hosts have gone from covering the story to becoming the story.

And now it appears that some of them are not being totally honest and transparent with their audience, which only increases public distrust and feeds the perception that Big Media has its own agenda. One thing I hear from readers is that the media often talk down to them or keep them in the dark. Well, dishonesty is a clear sign of disrespect. And it sure doesn’t produce any light.

The latest round of media offenders who have cut corners includes Fox News’ Sean Hannity, MSNBC’s Joy Reid, and CNN’s Jake Tapper. They all seem to have been less than forthcoming — about their relationships, their personal views, the credibility of their sources, or their own biases.

Hannity interviewed and defended Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, without telling us that he was also one of Cohen’s clients. The conservative host — who is not a journalist but sometimes likes to play one on television — also tried to argue that Cohen’s work for him was limited to real estate deals. But that assertion unraveled when Hannity acknowledged that Cohen’s work for him went beyond real estate. These details would have been good to know when Hannity was registering outrage over what he considered unfair and heavy-handed treatment of Cohen by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Confronted with a series of ugly and homophobic entries that were posted on her personal blog from many years ago, Reid offered an elaborate take on “the dog ate my homework.” With Reid, it was something akin to: A homophobe hacked my blog. Nearly a week after the blog posts came to light, the liberal host acknowledged that there didn’t appear to have been a hacking and told her viewers: “I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things. But I can definitely understand, based on things I have said and have written in the past, that some people don’t believe me.” Less defensiveness and more contrition could have done wonders.

Finally, Tapper deserves scrutiny for not being upfront about his relationship with a controversial figure: James Clapper. According to a newly declassified congressional report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the former director of national intelligence leaked and lied. In early January 2017, Clapper allegedly gave Tapper information about the dubious Christopher Steele dossier. Then Clapper misled Congress when he denied talking about the document with any journalist. It doesn’t look good that Tapper defended the dossier when CNN published its story and Trump attacked the network, and that the host later interviewed Clapper, all without revealing the extent to which he was involved in the story. It also stinks that, a few months later, CNN hired Clapper as a contributor.

Of all people, journalists can’t afford to play fast and loose with the truth. It hurts our credibility, which in turn destroys our effectiveness. After all, what’s the point of having a voice if no one believes a word that comes out of your mouth?

Ruben Navarrette’s email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com. His daily podcast, “Navarrette Nation,” is available through every podcast app.

(c) 2018, The Washington Post Writers Group

Much of cable television has become toxic. The poison comes from overheated primetime shows that blend together things that don’t mix: news, analysis and opinion.

I’ve been a guest on these shows on multiple networks for more than 15 years, dating back to my first appearance on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.” Bill O’Reilly and I would argue, but always with mutual respect. He never cut me off, shouted me down or dumped me from a segment. He often gave me the last word. O’Reilly was unpredictable, like the time that he told then-presidential candidate Donald Trump that changing the 14th Amendment to eliminate birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants was unwise and unconstitutional. That kept things interesting.

Lately, I’ve lost interest in every single nighttime cable news offering. My wife — who has traveled this road with me over the years — calls the current roster of programs “clown shows.” But that is an insult to clowns.

In recent months, I’ve turned down invitations to appear on MSNBC shows where the producers wanted me to criticize Trump for his immigration crackdown, which is stoking fear and separating families. Glad to do it. But I don’t remember many segments on MSNBC during the previous administration where guests criticized Barack Obama for his immigration crackdown, which stoked fear and separated families.

I’ve also rejected requests from CNN, because the network seems so deeply invested in its increasingly personal mud-wrestling match with Trump that most of its anchors, reporters and commentators are incapable of giving the president even an ounce of credit when it’s due. They gloss over scandals involving Democrats, while piling on every misstep by the White House. When settling scores with Team Trump, truth comes second.

As for Fox News, where I appear most often, letting Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham drone on about immigration just about every night — in the most simplistic and dishonest manner — shows about as much sound judgment as giving your 16-year-old a bottle of liquor and the keys to the car. Both hosts are rude, snarky, condescending and full of themselves.

I wouldn’t mind them talking about immigration so much if they actually understood the subject. They don’t. For one thing, since both Carlson and Ingraham work in Washington, geography works against them. If you want to learn about immigration, you can’t do it from the banks of the Potomac River. You’re better off on the Rio Grande. The Fox News hosts’ schtick is shallow, dismissive and one-dimensional. Instead of challenging people, they go easy on them. No thinking required, feeling will suffice. The hosts are good communicators, but they don’t seem very smart. And they’re not making their viewers any smarter either. Worse, when they talk about immigration, they don’t mind pushing people’s buttons and coddling racists who think Latino immigrants hurt America.

These shows chalk up ratings by focusing on hot-button topics that are driven by emotion. They produce discussions that viewers come to with preformed points of view in search of validation. They oversimplify everything, which short-changes viewers and leaves them ill-prepared to confront opposing views on the rare occasions that they venture outside their bubbles.

Meanwhile, the audience has been divided into silos. Conservatives flock to Fox News. Liberals cling to MSNBC. And if you’re an anti-Trump Democrat who likes to pretend that you’re in the middle of the road, CNN welcomes you.

These shows should inform the public — not push agendas or pander to constituents. Producers, bookers and hosts have been reduced to brazen opportunists, keenly aware of the political leanings of viewers and feverishly tossing them red meat.

It is enough to make you want to become a vegetarian.

We probably won’t see a CNN host tell her viewers that there is no such thing as “Russian collusion,” or that the GOP tax cuts help the economy. Likewise, we’re not likely to hear a Fox News host tell the members of his core audience that there is no such thing as a “level playing field” in the trade debate or a “sanctuary city” when discussing immigration.

Such honesty, maturity and sophistication might cause viewers to change the channel. The networks can’t have that. With so many other choices about how to spend their time, folks might not find their way back.

Contact Washington Post Writers Group columnist Ruben Navarrette at ruben@rubennavarrette.com.