I have a (former) friend in my hometown of Mahopac, N.Y. He loves Donald Trump and believes strongly in his immigration measures.
He is a nice person with a high school education who was born on American soil. He has never served in the military or graduated from college. He was born into wealth, and his parents gave him money to start his own business. After his first effort failed, he tried again. The business has existed for five or six years, thanks in large part to the funneling of money from Mom and Dad.
His living of the American Dream is due entirely to womb placement. His mother was born here. Therefore, he’s an American.
I know tons of people like this. Tons upon tons. They wave the flag, bleed the colors, scream for the wall and mass deportations, love Trump’s fierce nationalism. Yet, like the president himself, they are success stories because sperm met egg in the United States. That’s it and that’s all. It’s their claim to our anthem and our Constitution and our patriotism. God bless America—my dad inserted his penis into my mother’s vagina here! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
I digress.
You probably missed this story, because there’s so much going on with Trump Tweeting and Trump barking and Trump drooling. But a few days ago a Cleveland man named Jesus Lara Lopez was deported to Mexico—the country he fled in 2001. Jesus worked myriad jobs. When he first arrived, he picked crops. Of late he was packing cookies and crackers for Pepperidge Farm. He had no arrest record, and is married with three children. Although during the election Trump said he would only deport (ridiculously) “bad hombres”—he was completely and totally full of shit. In this nation we now deport anyone and everyone who came illegally. That’s not what he ran on … but, hey. Such is the orange puddle.
There are people—loads of people—who surely applaud the deportation of Jesus. They see him being ripped from his wife and children and snarl. They figure, hey, he deserves it. Wait your turn. Come here legally. Do it the right way.
Well, how did I do it? How did you do it?
My parents had sex. Was that the right way?
Donald Trump’s parents handed him shitloads of money. Was that the right way?
The American Dream (or what’s left of it) doesn’t belong to the geographically lucky.
It belongs, in a just world, to Jesus.
