By Brian McKay
Recently I had the pleasure of having a casual conversation with a professor of history. His take on a Trump presidency was, “It will be fun to just sit back and watch.”
Last night was the viewing of history as this half assed historian watched the Trump immigration speech in Arizona.
First let’s clarify the term “half assed”. I love history, I do, and have, studied it but I don’t work in the field professionally. It would have been a great career choice but I cannot currently imagine the daily horror professors of history encounter with new students steeped in Tea Party revisionist bullshit. Anyone that likes accuracy must surely feel the shakes start simply when hearing the words and Tea and Party next to each other. Imagine correcting those kids who are the victims of intellectual child abuse in an educational setting. It couldn’t be fun.
So anyway, Trump gives this speech. Was it historic? Oh hell yeah. When this guy becomes president and creates a shit show unlike any ever seen, that will be one of the key speeches shown in the historical footage, provided we survive the whole affair. Why? Well he does what no other Trump speech has done before, provide 10 points of anything even resembling policy and attempted to at least masquerade some things as actual facts. A one-line summation of the speech would simply be “xenophobic, racism, populism at its finest and the KKK members bought shots later.”
His speech may have been about immigration but it pointed to policy and foreign relations within a Trump presidency to come. Yes, it’s all a bloody fucking disaster too.
Let’s start with his platitudes for the Mexican President Ernesto Peña Nieto. Mr. Trump played a game of wild diplomacy in lauding the leadership of the man while continuing to paint the image of Mexican nationals in a harsh light. It wasn’t necessary to record the speech and then attempt to isolate rounds of applause in order to figure out that sentences including the terms criminal, murderer, justice, deportation and a host of impossible claims brought the greatest cheers. Chants of, “USA! USA!” were more passionate than the chants of “let us in!” at the Wal-Mart Thanksgiving Day sale.
The usage of no less than 5 stories of people killed by illegal aliens whipped the crowd into a fury. Forget actual crime stats of any sort, this was the Orange Man playing to the crowd.
Mr. Trump said that it is always claimed that the total number of illegal aliens in the U.S. is 11 million but no one really knows. That 2 million criminal aliens currently live in the US, supposedly they live better than our vets and they cost us $113 billion annually. Furthermore, apparently Hilary Clinton wishes to bring in 620,000 Syrian immigrants and that the president and Hilary Clinton support sanctuary cities.
EVERY SINGLE THING said was false and brought large applause. A quick rundown: The estimated illegal immigrant population is 11.4 million and is arrived at via data from independent tracking groups. It is little changed over many years because the US was seeing a net outflow of illegal immigration after the recession. Currently, the amount of estimated criminal aliens (both legal and illegal aliens, a distinction not given in this speech) sits at 890,000. The presupposition of illegal aliens living better than our vets assumes that they are receiving public benefits when it is in fact illegal for illegal immigrants to receive any such benefits. A cost of $113 billion is extremely dubious and based on the accountings of several conservative groups which never accounted for the inflows from tax returns against which refunds will never be sought and costs savings from the productivity of illegal immigration. Finally, Hilary Clinton never said anything about 620,000 Syrian immigrants rather the possibility of 65,000 and no one in the administration has supported sanctuary cities.
That was Trump reality. Trump reality did not once include, “We want to protect America from these awful, hardworking people so let’s pay 50% more for hotel rooms and $5.00 for a tomato.”
Trump reality did include a wall with the greatest technology. It is a wall that some experts calculate would cost well over $30 billion could the aspects of terrain, water flow, native American grave sites and land ownership be overcome. To say it is highly improbable would be an understatement and, as John Oliver has said, “If you build a 30-foot wall, all it’s going to do is create a market for 31-foot ladders.” And yes… Mexico is still going to pay for it apparently.
Triple the number of ICE agents, add 5,000 border patrol agents and start immediate deportations to the other side of Mexico. It doesn’t matter if it is plausible. It doesn’t matter the economic devastation of eliminating 5.6% of the country’s workforce and it certainly doesn’t matter if produce will end up accounting for 10% of household spending. This is what brought applause.
And that was it. Complete populism. Who cares if it is correct, doable or even at odds with the US Constitution? Mr. Trump is a straight talker. A straight talker spewing straight bullshit that people want to hear. It really doesn’t matter if our own citizens account for much higher crime statistics, let’s blame the brown guy.
And this is where the shit gets crazy.
All a half ass historian, or any historian for that matter, saw was total populism. It isn’t rational, it isn’t thought out and it is nothing if not destructive. If anyone thinks populism is beneficial they may feel free to reflect upon things such as National Socialism, the French Revolution, Hugo Chavez, Peron, and a gazillion other movements that didn’t end well. It could be the basis for our next presidency.
A tax plan that costs $10 trillion, a loss of America’s most productive labor pool, foreign diplomacy taken straight from a half serious apocalyptic comedy film, continual science denial and a constant tweet storm from the Oval Office. Yes, it will be a disaster and yes it will literally destroy us both domestically and internationally.
But I kind of like it.
As the professor of history had said, it will be interesting to sit back and watch. A Hilary presidency provides nothing of the sort. One may as well stand a cop at the White House, while Hilary is in office, whose job is just to wave people by and say, “Keep moving, there is nothing to see here folks.”
Hilary is a normal disliked politician. She is mostly moderate, a policy wonk and considered the devil by the same Republican majority in the House that considered Barack Obama the devil. Nothing will get done, nothing will change, wealth disparity will continue to grow, response to climate change will be tepid, the American worker will keep falling behind.
Trump on the other hand will just fuck it all up right away. That could be glorious and maybe that is what we need. Burn it to the ground. Blow the deficit so high so fast, finally prove trickle down is bullshit, have reason for the majority of the American public to say, “What the fuck did we do?”, and realize the country was hijacked by nut jobs that spend hours of their life watching a news network called Fox.
From the ashes might just rise the Phoenix this country needs. We might actually get a do over.
So yeah, let’s just see how crazy shit can really get. If this all sounds fun and productive to you as well, vote Trump.
Brian McKay is a co-founder of zenruption. He currently needs sleep after watching that speech late last night and a motorcycle gang just checked into the hotel room next door. Maybe Trump could come magically fix this too.