Americans will miss having a friendly southern border

I’ve been in the game, the commentary game, what I sometimes touristically refer to as the Yakety yak industrial complex, for more than 35 years. And all that time, I really thought I’ve seen and heard it all, but then King Donald, or hopefully King Donald the last came along, and suddenly I realize I haven’t seen anything yet. Some say that within the United States, it feels like Germany in the 1930s President Donald Trump’s power grab, the war on the federal judiciary, a rollback of civil rights for certain groups, and the callous disregard for human rights across the board. We should be alarmed about all of these things, just as we should be concerned about the mental state of the Mad King. America is big and Trump is small. The President keeps getting the correct proportion of that dynamic all mixed up in his head. But along the US Mexico border, the vibe is not really that of the 1930s honestly, it feels more like the late 1840s

Okay, 32nd history lesson, because you know how much Americans love those things, whether we’re talking about the exploitation of African slaves, the killing and forced relocation of American Indians, or the internment of Japanese US citizens during World War Two, Americans have notoriously short memories when it comes to our misdeeds. The Mexican American War, which lasted from 1846 to 1848

resulted in the United States Army invading Mexico and stealing at the barrel of a cannon a chunk of real estate so large as to constitute half of Mexico’s territory. At the time, that parcel of land got divvied up into eight states that make up the American Southwest, California, Texas, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Idaho and New Mexico, that unjust land grab, which has echoes of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, by the way, came about because President James K Polk was drunk on the elixir of manifest destiny. In other words, God told him to invade his neighbor. Interestingly enough, Trump, in his inaugural address, used that same phrase, manifest destiny to explain his own exploratory ambitions. Quote, we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars. The new president said, Well, what if Trump isn’t satisfied with conquering Martians? What if he then sets his imperialistic sights on the Mexicans? Don’t laugh. Mexican president Claudia shine bomb isn’t amused. She’s drawing a line at the border and putting Trump on notice that her country will not accept or tolerate a, quote, invasion of its national sovereignty just because the United States wants to go hunting the members of drug cartels. Add that to shine bomb’s threat to impose reciprocal tariffs of her own on US imports into Mexico, to counter tariffs that Trump imposes on goods from Mexico, and her promise to sue us gun manufacturers for the guns that flow south into Mexico,

what put shine bomb on edge, apparently, was the fact that the Trump administration designated the cartels as terrorist organizations. If recent history of how the US dealt with al Qaeda and ISIS is any indication that designation alone could open up the possibility that the United States could send troops, dispatch drones, assign Special Ops, maybe even fire missiles into our neighbors front lawn.

Of course, that kind of scenario would be no bueno. In fact, Mexico is likely considered that sort of thing an act of war. And if that happens while Katie bar the door, we may soon look back fondly on recent times as the good old days when we actually had a friend on our southern border instead of an enemy. Can you imagine that having an enemy on our border? Trust me, you don’t want to