"I shall destroy them. What's the matter with you?"

The infallibly entertaining New American
President has mounted a little drawing
room comedy on the dazzled gaze of the
People's representatives in the Repub-
lic, on the theme of depriving stunning-
ly innocent immigrants of shelter under
Liberty's torch, for lack of permission 
to have lived here for the last several
decades. As if to sustain the suspense,
he has even equated their immaculate as-
pirations with the revolting xenophobia
of his base, as in, "Americans" dream,
by way of typifying humans as rodents
straight out of Jud Süss. Of course, how-
ever, he means well, so that's different.

While swooning in his Pontius Pilate im-
partiality, he laments how his hands are
tied, by his predecessor's evil illegal-
ity, in sustaining Liberty's welcome. And
who remains, to recall his calculated, al-
beit seemingly precipitous, promise to re-
patriate these hundreds of thousands, on
a date certain to give his media thugs e-
nough time to hammer steel to his edge?

But we stray. For now, the New American
President has wrought his ingenious hyp-
nosis of the public, to blame itself for
balking at his seizure of power, black-
mail dripping from every homily of its
chorus, No nation is a nation without
borders. And don't his sectarian lem-
mings writhe with joy on every avowal
of those cleansing, ethnic torments,
the revelatory permissions of a wedge?

Now, therefore, his taunt goes out:
What on earth is the matter with you, 
for not stopping me in my bestiality?
As ever, in democracy's enchanted ba-
zaar, the matter comes down to whether
to do the right thing, or to gain more
seats, to be more comfy with the act.
Yes, it is a dilemma too ancient for
genealogy here, but with a corollary
luminosity to which many are blind:
time after time, whether to win So-
cial Security, to win voting rights
for all, to win health care for all,
the right thing has imposed a cost,
which only one Party has been will-
ing to bear, even if hauled across
the finish line by adamant martyrs. 
What's its claim now, as we speak, 
to call itself by our name?

Connor Hill

Timothée Chalamet

  on a visa in New York

2017