(CNN) -- I refer to the idea that children separated abruptly and indefinitely from their parents at the US-Mexico border are being housed in so-called "tender age facilities." The purpose of such language is to mask the cruel detention of these bewildered children in internment compounds, done in an effort to penalize their parents for attempting to enter America, some illegally.
The Trump administration's motivation for this quest to euphemize is hardly obscure. The moral horror of tearing small children away from their powerless parents is so patent and chilling that it cuts across all of us, regardless of political stripe or temperament. The very few among us, as in Trump's minions and writerly defenders, who can apparently neither imagine themselves in the position of the children or the parents subjected to such heartless abuse, stand out now as unfeeling and cynical to an almost staggering degree (which is saying a lot given the amorality of the Trumpians thus far). On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order that he said was "about keeping families together," but it's unclear what that will look like.
