In the Shallow End

I started writing for the Daily Beast this year, a weekly opinion piece focused on the presidential election and the general political landscape. Yesterday, I published a satirical essay about Day One of the Trump presidency, pointing out he and his goons have promised militarized mass deportations – a dictatorial move – starting on the first day, but also that he promised Sean Hannity that he would only be a dictator for the first 24 hours. This suggested to me that, if he intended to keep both promises, he would need to deport millions upon millions of immigrants on that fateful first day back in the round office with the button . This suggested to me that he would need to round up millions upon millions of immigrants on that fateful first day. The article was obviously not intended to be taken literally, but, of course, that is exactly what right-wing readers did.

When I got home from a day of poker-playing (I won because I’m an incredible poker player), I opened Twitter and found the following video of ski cap model Tim Pool going critiquing my article sentence by sentence. So I thought I would critique Pool’s critique of me.

He begins by asking, “What is the most extreme position of the mainstream right?” The answer, according to Tim: “The mass deportation of every illegal immigrant in the country.”

Well, yeah. That is pretty extreme, considering a couple facts: it’s not possible, nor is it desirable. Why isn’t it desirable? Because it would DEVASTATE THE ECONOMY. What does he think those people are doing here? If he’s not sure, I’m happy to tell him - they’re working their asses off. They’re trying to create better lives for themselves. They’re picking strawberries and working in slaughterhouses and mowing lawns and doing odd jobs and generally keeping their noses clean because to do otherwise is to risk jail and deportation.

Yes, sometimes these people commit crimes. Sometimes terrible crimes, like the murder of 22-year-old Laken Reilly, a nursing student in my home state of Georgia, (allegedly) by a Venezuelan national here illegally. The crime rate for undocumented immigrants, however, is about half that of native-born Americans according to the libertarian Cato Institute.

But the mass deportation of millions of people from our borders, while extreme, may not be the most extreme position. Pool himself acknowledges that Trump and his followers are now the mainstream right, and considering their allegiance to him, I think it’s fair to consider Trump’s positions to the be position of the mainstream right.

So what are Trump’s positions that are more extreme than mass, militarized deportations?

• Well, we could start with his threats to withdraw from NATO and allow Russia to do “whatever the hell it wants.”

• What about banning a massive swath of the Muslim world from entering our nation, as he tried to do during his first administration?

• He has promised to prosecute and jail his political opponents.

• What about the threat to institute the Insurrection Act, also on Day One? If you’re unaware, the Insurrection Act “allows the president to use the military as a domestic police force,” according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

• Oh! There’s the threat of firing tens of thousands of career civil servants who are deemed not sufficiently loyal to Trump.

• His Supreme Court justices have lately made noise about overturning gay marriage. I don’t know about any of you, but if my marriage was nullified overnight, I would consider that pretty extreme. (My own marriage happens to be of the hetero variety, but same diff.)

• Along similar lines, he has said he will “ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that ‘only two genders,’ as recognized at birth, are recognized by the United States.” In other words, he wants to criminalize out of the box gender expression.  Iran much?

Shit.

I intended this to be a critique of Pool’s critique of me but I literally couldn’t get past the first sentence out of his mouth. I can’t tell if he’s merely stupid or stupid and disingenuous. With these guys, it’s always a tough distinction to draw.

The video is ten minutes long and I didn’t even mange to make it through the first forty seconds, but I’ve got just enough space to at least agree with his second point: “If someone breaks the law, they need to be held accountable.”  

On this point, Mr. Pool and I agree.

Is there somebody who has been indicted 4 times under 91 separate felony charges in recent months? Should that person be found guilty of some or all of these charges by a jury of his peers, will Mr. Pool stick to his song about the law and accountability? Somehow, I suspect his tune will have changed.

Anyway, there’s another ten minutes of this stupid shit if you want to watch. Personally, I couldn’t get through it.