There are only a couple real currencies in Trumpland: the ability to fan Dear Leader's ego, which is considered a sign of intelligence, and a bottomless capacity for cruelty, which is seen as strength. Oh, also a willingness to lie—shamelessly and whenever necessary.

For a while, nobody was richer than Corey Lewandowski, his first campaign manager, who pioneered the "Let Trump Be Trump" strategy. That's until he was accused of grabbing a female reporter violently, the charges were dropped, but—at the urging of the various Trump offspring—he was eventually dropped from the campaign in favor of Paul Manafort. Life, they say, is a series of choices.

Lewandowski still has some spare Trumpian change he can dig out of his sofa, so he occasionally scores an invite to the presidential pravda network, Fox News. He surfaced there Tuesday night to discuss the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" policy and the family separations—and human rights catastrophe—it is causing on the border. Naturally, things did not go well.

Ah, yes. The "womp-womp" as a response to the story of a little girl with developmental issues, all by herself in a strange land where she does not speak the language because she was torn from the arms of her mother in the name of Zero Tolerance. These authoritarian ghouls are climbing over each other to prove to the Leader they can be the cruelest of his disciples.

Lewandowski apparently saw Laura Ingraham's routine about how kids separated from their parents are living it up at "summer camps"—after an outcry, she decided to go with "boarding schools," another point of reference for her audience—and took it as a challenge.

You don't need to be an immigrant rights activist to show that barest shred of humanity it would require not to treat a small child's misery like it's a laugh-tracked bit on The Big Bang Theory. But none of that empathy, at least towards people of a certain complexion, will fly if you want to make it in Trumpland. You want a job in the White House? Just try ridiculing a little kid who flees her home to escape gang violence and extreme poverty, seeking refuge in a country that once called itself a beacon to the world. Tell them being the Mother of Exiles was a waste of taxpayer money.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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