Today is Purim, and so we begin the spring cycle of Jewish holidays that will culminate in Shavuos (the subject of my favorite line in all of Martin Scorsese’s films, but I digress). Naturally, I’m thinking about Passover, which we’ll be celebrating in about a month, and the meaning of the Passover story this year.

At progressive and liberal seders in the US this year, there’ll be a tendency to interpret the story through the current political moment. How could there not be? Immigrants will be cast as the ancient Hebrews; Trump as Pharaoh. And just as Pharaoh is depicted in the story as a sudden appearance out of the blue — remember, for years, things had been good for the Hebrews, and then a new Pharaoh came, “who knew not Joseph” — so will Trump be described as an intrusion upon an otherwise placid and benign setting, the undocumented a suddenly victimized Hebrew.

But we know that will not do. The war against the undocumented, waged by Republican and Democrat alike, has been going on or decades. And Trump, however specific and peculiar his viciousness, is the result of decades of political rot and misleadership, from both parties.