Philosophically speaking, American government is the greatest experiment in freedom in human history. To ignore, or deny, that we have something great on our hands is a denial of an inheritance that was blood-bought at Antietam, Normandy and Fallujah. A casual unbelief in goodness or importance of the political system leads to apathy in participating in it. And a citizenry’s lack of participation allows the selfishness and largesse that has driven away Millennials in the first place. They embody a simmering disgust with the elite and an awareness that America has become a small filthy rich trumping ruling class, large swaths of poor laborers, and just enough middle class to appear like a democracy.
Apocalyptic movements only grow beyond the fanatics and cultists when the whole of human consciousness is tugged by the need to overturn the tables and make examples of the terrible people in charge of our futures. I bring to you, then the beginning of the Organized La Resistance! And it is starting even before Donald Trump sets tiny, be-loafered foot into the White (again) House. California has said no bueno to Trump’s amorphous campaign promise to deport two to three million immigrants in his first days in office. In reality, finding and deporting millions of human beings is a lot harder than saying it and getting cheers at a campaign rally with hats. Bug-eyed House Speaker Paul Ryan is too busy salivating over the prospect of privatizing Medicare, and said Sunday Congress is “not planning on erecting a deportation force. Donald Trump’s not planning on that.”
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But the Great Man Himself said on 60 Minutes that he intends to immediately deport 2 million to 3 million “criminal” immigrants. And by “criminal,” Trump means any Indiana-born Mexican-American judge who might be presiding over a case in which Trump is a litigant. The actual number of undocumented immigrants who’ve committed crimes is more like 820,000, according to the Migration Policy Institute, but hey let’s just round up for the round up.
Anyhoo, California Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León has already said NO – the deportation force the House isn’t funding (yet) had better not plan on rounding up Californians, because de León still has a nostalgic attachment to such pre-11/9 follies as “due process” and “rights of the accused.” In a statement released Sunday, de León writes:
Since Tuesday’s election, California’s leaders have hoped and prayed for the best but prepared for the worst – and, today, President-elect Trump confirmed some of our worst fears. It is erroneous and profoundly irresponsible to suggest that up to three million undocumented immigrants living in America are dangerous criminals – and threatening to immediately deport them only exacerbates the unprecedented angst and anger currently dividing our American community. It also appears to be a thinly-veiled pretense for a catastrophic policy of mass deportation that will tear apart families and weaken our economy. I implore President-elect Trump to reconsider and retract his preposterous statement.
Oh, there you go with your liberal “math” and democratic “accurate statistics” when America is in a round-em-up-and-put-em-in-boxcars mood. Why are you defending the millions of criminal aliens Trump really believes are out there? De León insists California is still committed to the sad outmoded values of the Old Republic:
I also want to assure the millions of people who are here pursuing and contributing to the California Dream, but lack documentation, that the State of California stands squarely behind you. State leaders will defend your due process rights and aggressively avail ourselves of any and all tools to prevent an unconscionable over-reach by a Trump administration in California. We will protect our people and prosperity.
In tandem, The LAPD has announced that they will refuse to work with Donald Trump, dealing a severe blow to his loudly stated goal of quickly departing enough Mexicans to satisfy his racist base who voted him into office. Police are officers of the law, not servants of the rulers. This occasionally comes as a shock to the rulers when the police remember this. It’s not yet clear whether Sen. de León and the LA cops have been targeted by the Trump administration for deportation. At the very least, he is likely to be sent a lot of angry Pepe the Frog images.
The difference between Blue Staters and Red Staters is a nuance that Republicans will never get: their anger just lies over a bed of hate, topped off with guns and tiny flags. Our anger lies on a foundation of wrongs that could be righted with action by people who give a damn. There was a time when Republicans were still racist as fuck, but they actually wanted the government to do its job and not turn the country into Mad Maxian petrol state where we drink poisoned water, wandered the desert avoiding the heavily armed rape gangs, and ate our own parents. But those days are over.
For those of us that give a damn, the bitterness and dissatisfaction and dull horror of American life seemed to manifest itself in this election, and for a little while were stunned into a dream state — a nightmare state — and all the while the actual state has been taking every opportunity to advance their empire, the resource wars, the degradation of humanity and nature. But it STOPS NOW.
Comrades, first we’ll need a base. I think Hoth is out, but Dagobah might work…Drain the swamp! But seriously, folks, California has a GNP equal to many large nations. So, even though we don’t have any water, I think we’ll be okay! We are the sixth terms of global economies – no wait we were the sixth until Brexit made us the fifth largest. The US of A needs us more than we need them. Christians were always wondering why God hadn’t burned California off the face of the earth when all along, God apparently hated the South and the Mid-West! And the Northern states…basically everywhere that isn’t New York and California where we like our moral decency, our political correctness, feminism, gay marriage and America’s first black president.
So please Dear Leader, since you probably already want to relocate California’s naval bases to someplace more loyal, like Ohio, just kick us Californians out of the union (and annex Oregon and Washington in time, and maybe Nevada as well). We’ll even let you build another wall along our eastern border and pay for it. Well, Silicon Valley will pay for it. Actually, Silicon Valley will be paying for most of California, when we opposite fair taxation plan.We think we’ll be alright and we promise not to cry (tears of joy) for too very long. We already have border check points to make sure no one brings any illegal oranges or kombucha into our self-sustaining land to manipulate our self-sustaining economy. See? We’re already half-way to building our wall of sanitation to keep out a fly-over cesspool.
Don’t know what we’d do about all the tens of millions of desperate outlanders who’d want to move here to The People’s Republic of Greater Clintopia….Americans be will scaling that wall like anti-communists fleeing East Berlin. We’ll throw oranges at them to beat them back because we don’t believe in guns. Of course, some people from the flyover meth lab that is America will be allowed in, after rigorous testing (no Ned Flanders).
For the scant remaining Republicans here (fckng FRESNO went blue on 11/9, it is very close to rural but apparently not Trump-stupid!), if they don’t comply, we will move them to an isolated island off the coast, the way the lepers were sent to Molokai in Hawaii. That way we an keep eyes on them, occasionally sending them a robot navigated raft with supplies.
(Maybe New Mexico could secede “under the radar”, and Trump would never notice because he’s one of those East Coast idiots who think it’s part of Mexico).
