The impermanence of Trump the Temp

Jesus would be the very first to denounce it.

That someone able to help would wade through a desperate throng and aid only Christians runs contrary to everything Christlike.

If not, that Good Samaritan spiel is just jive.

Donald Trump has said of refugees from seven countries, "We don't want them" – unless, of course, they worship as he pretends to do.

Who is this "we," Kemo Sabe?

Bless those who swarmed U.S. airports to protest this abomination. Bless the cabbies who went on strike. Bless the civil rights attorneys. Bless the judges who enjoined the action. Bless the ACLU (oh, and "friend" it on Facebook).

Collectively, emphatically, they kicked Trump's tail.

Yeah, yeah. The injunctions will expire. Trump may win in court. Regardless, he will lose.

He will lose because when this moment passes, whenever that happens, America will return to itself. Indeed, it's increasingly clear that impermanence defines he who is the most unpopular president ever and whose numbers have nowhere to go but down.

This is not just about his re-election chances.

Everything Trump has done in his first few days, or said he'll do, is going to wash away over time like sand castles in the surf.

Gone. Irrelevant, except as a lesson – like the Red Scare, like the influence of the Klan, like the Edsel.

Right now, those of the angry right rejoice: Behold, the flexing of Trump the Terrible.

For the rest of us: Behold, the twisting to and fro of Trump the Temporary.

By that, we don't mean "four years or fewer by impeachment" temporary.

It means we are watching a president who is leaving his mark with an Etch-a-Sketch.

Take Trump and his precious wall.

The Republicans had complained for years that our treasury is bereft. We don't have money to help Americans with their health care or states with their highways.

The GOP will, however, somehow find $14 billion to mar the spectacular and untamed Rio Grande, to shove concrete in Mexico's face.

They can do it, of course. The Soviets did it in 1961, finding war-stressed resources to wall the world away from Berlin. It lasted a while, then it fell.

Walls do not fare well in history. The Maginot Line. The Warsaw Ghetto. China's Great Wall was the kind of "great" that Trump envisions for America – with human costs beyond measure, and wholly without function.

Reactionary policies don't meet long-range human needs. They are reactions to perceived scarcity, to fear, to moments in time. They come, and over time they are gone. They don't advance mankind -- or anything kind.

Trade wars are temporary, as any damage is always mutual.

Freezes on science and environmental protection are temporary, because ultimately, innately, we know each to be right and necessary.

Nods to dying bigotries are temporary, at least in a country where the founders' words about equality keep tapping us on our shoulders.

What's permanent? We are told by our president, for instance, that the Affordable Care Act is out the door. It will prove to have more permanence than he does.

Anything that meets the needs of 20 million Americans can't be tossed out the door, and many Republicans are realizing that they don't want to be the people tossing it.

They know they cannot simply end something they have long despised – a government program that helps Americans deal with one of life's most basic and essential needs, much like the health insurance they receive through their employer. Us.

Even under another name, even with higher costs and fewer choices, even with a crappy alternative, the permanence of Obama's doing the right thing will endure.

Meanwhile, what Trump ordered at American airports last week -- that border agents would have "discretionary authority" to detain and question travelers from certain countries -- won't last, for one reason, and one reason alone:

Unlike his policies, we are here for the long haul.

Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.