Dorothea Lange's Lens on Humanity

Abstract

Donald Trump has a loud voice, no shame, and precious little evidence of humanity. He has distorted language and lies endlessly. He appears to get away with it. The stately New York Times is disapproving and The Washington Post has tracked his lies at about six per day for the first 500 days of his presidency, but the President's view of the world, false as it may be, dominates the airwaves. The few times that his presidency has been rocked, even a little, visual images have played a part. His lies about the crowd at his inaugural were shown to be nonsense by the juxtaposition of two photographs, the large crowd at President Barack Obama's inaugural and the comparatively sparse crowd at his own. Trump has spoken about deaths “caused by people that shouldn't be here”. The fact that migrants are less likely to commit crime than people born in the USA doesn't stop him. What did stop, even him, were the pictures of would-be migrant children torn from their parents and locked in cages. The pictures touched our humanity. Facts matter, but images move us.