We did not just ask for this, we looked at all of our other options and used our choice to begin this future. I understand that we deserve everything that has happened since. That is because I am very old, and beyond the ability to remember it, I have had space - packed boats and trains, apartments and cells - to do little more than think about it.
Some of the younger people I have met find it hard to believe that there was once a year 2019 AD. They, though we live in places with thousands of years of history in them, cannot imagine 2000 consecutive years, nor do they know what AD stands for. The words “anno Domini” are not as evident in meaning as we are used to. That makes sense, of course, considering that it is 96 ADT, obviously standing for After Donald Trump.
He was never humble and never informed. When those smart people would talk, he would just interrupt them. Suddenly the election was a joke, and we were roaring drunk with laughter. We loved Trump so much that no one cared when he said that the way to make America great was to build a wall, or that women should only be elected based on their looks. We didn’t actually think that he would win, but he seemed like the best way to show those show offs up. We would take their own baby of information and arrogance, the election, and slaughter it in the best way to kill anything; democracy. Well, not really. We did not do it to show anyone anything. We had no opinions or thoughts to show to them. We really just wanted to be entertained.
So we voted for him. Voter turnout was at it’s all time high; 100% of registered voters under the age of 25 voted. The overall turnout was a whopping 87%. The day of everyone was telling everyone that they were voting for Trump “as a joke.” The joke won. He won by a landslide, and we all watched giddy with giggles as straight faced announcers said “oh we can't believe it.” No one could believe it, and most of us could not understand it. At least not yet, anyways. It did not seem that he really understood what was happening either, but then again, that was part of his charm. Oh how foolish we were, and how sure we were that the leaders did not need to actually understand anything.
When Obama (the last president before Trump) handed Trump the briefcase with enough nuclear weapons to explode the entire world into nothing, Trump screamed “You’re fired!” His old tagline had the audience laughing so hard that we cried, and his vice president Sarah Palin - who was deemed attractive enough to join the punchline - was so dizzy from laughing that hard that she could have sworn she saw Russia. We clapped and clapped so hard that our hands were sore. It was the first time that a lot of us even watched the inauguration all the way through, and we were charmed. He said what he wanted, even with everyone watching him, and when he ran out of things to say, he dropped the mic, and walked into the doors that lead to the most important job in the entire world at that time.
He announced the next day that he would start two construction projects immediately. The first would be to redo the White House so that it demanded the same kind of respect that the Trump Towers did. The second, and most important thing, would be the wall.
The wall had been promised in his campaign, and had be sought after for years. The wall was going to take the border we shared with Mexico and make it into a concrete fortress. Trump promised that it would be armed, and we applauded that. We thought that he was looking out for our safety. All of us were too polite to say it, but we thought that ‘those darn Mexicans’ were dangerous. ‘Those darn Mexicans’ were stealing our jobs, and Trump was right about the fact that they were all drug lords or murderers. His announcement of the wall was meet by a sigh of relief. We wiped our brow and patted each other on the back for electing such a man. “I knew that he would take care of those darn Mexicans, which is why I voted for him.” “He is the only politician that I trust, and he is doing good on his word just like I knew he world.”
The sovereign nation of Mexico was greatly alarmed, and all of their top leaders met with Trump and his cabinet (Trump’s cabinet were cardboard cutouts of himself because everyone else had been deemed to know-it-all or too democratic or too womanly). As soon as they walked into the room where the meeting was being held, they announced their disapproval of it being turned into a live television event. We all watched live on our screens as our president cursed them out, spat in one of their faces, accused of them of speaking Spanish and then threatened to declare war, cut off all trade with them and force the rest of the world to do it to.
The wall was built largely by Mexican labor, and when one reporter had the guts to ask the President about it, he laughed and said “work like this is too good for us Americans. I say let the Mexicans build their own wall. That way we can round all of them up easier.” And round up all the Mexicans he did. Every immigrant, legal or illegal, was found. Anyone who could speak Spanish or looked somewhat tan was brought into interrogation rooms. They were forced to write down their family history, and if one part of it was not right, they were sent away. It may have taken all of the police officers in the entire country, but Trump got it down. Besides, we all thought, when the Mexicans left, we would have no need for police officers.
The last Mexican in the country was a little old women. She was taken by the police officers, and Trump himself came to deport her. We all watched on our screens as our hero said “I, the president of these United States of America, deport you.” She said back “please, sir. I have lived in this country all of my life. I have worked here and always paid my taxes. I am a volunteer. All I ask is that I get to die in my home.” Trump looked straight into the camera and announced “I told you that I would make this country great again, and getting rid of this ugly, lying, poor drug dealing murderer is how we are going to do it.” The star spangled banner played as she was marched into a giant catapult like thing, and thrown on the other side.
The unemployment rate did not go up after that, but across the land Center for Registering American People sprung up. All of us were proud to do the service to our country of documenting in an easy to use chart where we were from. Even then, we knew that something was wrong. We did not know what it was, but a general feeling of anxiety crept up everyone’s spine. Something was not right, and it was more than us needing to adjust to the empty houses all over.
“Why, Mr. President, is everyone feeling so anxious?” A reported asked, and like always, our President had an answer.
“There is another border that we have forgotten about. We can’t be the strong country we once were if we have all of these week Canadians coming in. Besides, I say it is about time we get them back for all of this war of 1812 stuff.” We were proud that he had an answer, and doubly proud that he knew what the war of 1812 was. We certainly had never heard of it.
The International community insisted that we do not build another wall. Trump insisted that they shove their collective feet up their collective asses. I have thought long and hard about why no one stopped us then, back before the first bit of foundation went in, and I am honestly not sure why they didn’t. Perhaps, they did not believe that he would do it, thinking that his deportation and anti immigration stands were rooted only in racism. Perhaps they thought that the American system of checks and balances would prevent him. Perhaps they did not want to deal with a country that had elected that manchild president. Regardless, they did nothing. And we did the same. Of course we supported the other wall. None of my friends were Canadians, so why would I do something. Besides, this was going to be our last wall. And, it wasn’t like there was a lot more to do than to build a wall. What other choice did we have? We were going to back up the same man that we had voted for. We were going to support someone who seemed like our brother, even if he was a millionaire. He was one of us. He was an American, and we loved him because of that.
The wall was built. Sarah Palin, in the only act she ever did as vice president, made sure that her Alaska also had a wall around it. That did mean that it was separated from the rest of the world by water and by wall, but it was better, she declared than being next to those darn Canadians. There was a giant T where there would have been a gate. All of the Canadians were sent back to Canada.
It did not stop. All of us good Americans wanted to make the country great again, and if that meant bringing our neighbors to the giant deportation centers, that is what it meant. Everyone left. I do mean everyone. It is hard, even now, for me someone who lived through it to explain how it happened so fast. But not, just thinking about it, I can still feel that fervor that we all felt. We were making a difference; we, like Trump was, little people with a plan and the ambition to do it. So maybe what we were doing wasn’t the right thing or the smart thing. At least it was something.
How can I describe to you the fervor that followed? It was as if, by turning in our friends and our family, we were doing something so much greater than ourselves. We were saving our country from all of the rapists and murderers. We were protecting ourselves. but more than that we were serving the best man since Jesus Christ. Better even. It seemed that everyday was rich with opportunity to make a difference. Finally, the little man was making strides. We were in control.
In 15 short months, our population was cut in half. Then that half was cut in half. AFter people ran out of others to deport we began deporting ourselves. IT seemed like you were truly giving yourself to the cause, and to your country by moving to another one. I sent myself here, back to Poland. He applauded us and then promptly sent those darn ‘so called’ native Americans back to Africa, near the Congo where all of humanity came from. Even the people that staffed the Trump Tower of Washington, formerly known as the White House were dismissed and deported. And then we were all gone.
And now I am an old man. Now, I have lived enough to see how my choice caused Nations to collapse like dominoes after ours fell because of the stress of so many immigrants, and the rapid economic changes. I have lived to see overcrowding as we all pack into countries that do not fit us in the name of another country. I have lived to see scarcity of water, food, education, space, compassion. I have been pointed at as one of those darn Americans who ruined the world. And it is true. I did, and now people generations and generations after me will have to navigate this chaos that is ADT.
And what about him? What happened to the millennial Jesus?
I like to imagine it sometimes. The vines that must have grown around Lady Liberty, covering her book and engulfing her touch. Oh, how the lawns of suburbia must have turned into forest again, with new trees sprouting where once there was only picket fences. Our baseball fields are probably home to family of deers. Our grocery stores must be overpowered by the smell of honeysuckle. Dams, without the proper maintenance, must have burst so again there is river and hills. A layer of moss must have covered the ground like a soft rug, that, if everyone was ever to touch, would feel like clouds. Little frogs, bright and slippery, will jump. In some places the foliage will be so dense that no sunlight can ever touch the ground. Where there is rot, something new will grow, a perpetual cycle of life and death. And, somewhere, the bones of a man who hunted for his last meal will lay, not exactly white, gnawed on by something, with flowers going around them. They will lay there in the sun and in the wild grass that grows high. They will lay there, and it will be known that those bones belong to a man who did it. America, overgrown and uninhabited, with all the trash degraded and all the waterfalls roaring, will forget about this man, but it will have been forever changed, restored by him and his victory, for he will have achieved exactly what he set out to do. America will be great again.