Scylla and Charybdis

One of the mysteries of our current political drama is why so many people who would, one would think, be hostile to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton nevertheless support them. Trump, for his part, has received a lot of love from people who identify themselves as either Christian or conservative or both, yet there's not much in Trump's personal history nor his current deportment which would engender confidence that he is sympathetic to the concerns of either group and an awful lot in his history and conduct that would indicate that the opposite is true.

Even so, Trump is very popular and one reason why may be found in this article from the Washington Examiner:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has revealed that 124 illegal immigrant criminals released from jail by the Obama administration since 2010 have been subsequently charged with murder.

"The criminal aliens released by ICE in these years — who had already been convicted of thousands of crimes — are responsible for a significant crime spree in American communities, including 124 new homicides. Inexplicably, ICE is choosing to release some criminal aliens multiple times," said the report written by CIS's respected director of policy studies, Jessica M. Vaughan.

What's more, her report said that in 2014, ICE released 30,558 criminal aliens who had been convicted of 92,347 crimes. Only 3 percent have been deported.

Her analysis is the latest shocking review of Obama's open-border immigration policy. And despite the high number of illegal immigrants charged with murder, the list doesn't include those released by over 300 so-called "sanctuary cities" and those ICE declined to take into custody.

Vaughan added that "ICE reported that there are 156 criminal aliens who were released at least twice by ICE since 2013. Between them, these criminals had 1,776 convictions before their first release in 2013, with burglary, larceny, and drug possession listed most frequently."

In a way, Donald Trump is a product of President Obama's open borders immigration policy. Trump has promised more forcefully than any other candidate, certainly more forcefully than either of the Democrat contestants, that he will put a stop to the flood of illegal aliens and criminals pouring into our country. It's that promise, perhaps - along with the fact that his supporters believe that, unlike the "establishment" Republicans who've been running the show for the last eight years and whom the rank and file regard as a bunch of milquetoasts, Trump will actually fight - which has won a lot of people to his candidacy despite his lamentable emotional immaturity and sundry other shortcomings.

For others, contemplating the looming choice between Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton, who has made herself rich peddling access to the wealthy, both domestic and foreign, who wish to influence policy and legislation for their own benefit, and who behaved at best recklessly as Secretary of State and certainly incompetently, Homer's Odysseus comes to mind. The hero Odysseus was forced by circumstances to navigate his boat between the monster of Scylla and the whirlpool of Charybdis, a perilous and terrifying task, and a political counterpart to which confronts the American voter this November. Americans will likely find themselves having to choose between the Scylla of Hillary and the Charybdis of Trump, who together comprise, perhaps, the most disagreeable pair of presidential candidates in modern times.

Scylla and Charybdis