Life Under a Trump Presidency

This is part one of a continuing series about what life would be like under various presidential candidates. This one is about life under a Trump  presidency, how it might actually impact people.

Consuelo

Last night, they took my abuelita away. She had lived here for forty-eight years, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, who cleaned homes, raised three children, and has five grandchildren. I’m 31, the oldest among them, and I was still awake when the six men in black uniforms broke down the front door and demanded to see the passports of everyone in the house.

The Guardia always wear black, are always men, always come at night, and if you want to live to sunrise, you turn over what they want. I handed them seven American passports. I was born in a refugee camp in south Miami. My two brothers were born in Little Havana. My mother and father were born in Key West, my ten-year-old daughter was born on Tango Key, where we live now, and abuelita’s bogus passport said she was born in Fort Lauderdale.

They zeroed in on that fake passport. We had paid a lot of money for authenticity, but they’d taken her anyway, hauled her out of the house in the darkest dark of the night, and I have no idea where they have taken her. An interment camp, that’s my guess, and there she’ll be out on a train headed for Mexico? Is there a tunnel through the fifty-foot high wall?

Wait, are there trains into Mexico? I don’t think so. Does this mean my abuelita and eleven million plus other illegal immigrants will be transported by a convoy of trucks?

Tom

I enlisted because it was the only way I could get a job. Even McDonald’s wouldn’t hire me, said I was over-educated. So my college diploma isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

I had hoped to go to grad school to become an architect, to design incredible buildings that are powered by the sun, by wind, by oceans. But I couldn’t land the scholarship I needed and couldn’t afford the tuition and my parents, who have low credit scores, couldn’t even co-sign on an educational loan for me.

So here I am in a place of endless deserts, endless, scorching heat, endless strife and poverty and rage. It may be Syria, but I can’t be sure. We were dropped here in the middle of the night, part of a massive boots on the ground brigade, and I’m scared shitless. I don’t want to kill anyone. But I’m surrounded by these nationalist fanatics who pump their fists in the air and shout in unison: “USA! USA! USA!”

Dawn

I’m 23 years old. White female. I have a college degree in English, am $91,256 in debt, with a thirteen percent interest rate on that debt. I earn what is considered to be a respectable salary as an English teacher in a privatized school system. But hello, the truth is that I can’t live on what I earn.

My rent in Asheville for an apartment the size of a closet is nearly fifty percent of my income. The rest of what I earn is divided among my college debt, food, utilities, Internet, gas for my car. Fortunately for me, I own my car, such as it is. It was my grandfather’s car way back, and after he died, I got it. A Mazda 3 is as long lasting, I hope, as the Duracell battery. 111,111 miles. All those ones bother me.

The other thing that bothers me even more is that I’m nine weeks pregnant and can’t find a clinic within 200 miles that will perform an abortion. Wasn’t this right upheld in Roe v Wade?

Leandra

The water running out of my kitchen faucet is dirty, dark, the color of my skin. And it smells as rotten as old fruit. Or as sour as really dirty feet. Or like sweat-drenched clothes. It’s been like this for months and the government tells us not to worry, the water’s fine, like they think we’re blind or something.

My fourteen-year-old daughter is losing her hair, it’s coming out in clumps and I saved the clumps, put them in a jar, and took the jar to the major’s office.

“What the hell’s going on, Mayor Louise?”

She was one of my mama’s friends way back when and she’s seen me riled up plenty of times before. But this time, she doesn’t pat the air with her hands. She moves quickly past me, shuts the door, and hurries back to where I’m standing, clutching the jar that holds clumps of my daughter’s hair.

“They’ve poisoned the water, Lee.” She whispers this. “With lead. Same thing that happened in Flint few years back. But this time, no one’s comin’ to change out the pipes, no one’s coming with bottled water, and the press is barred from entering town.”

Richard

Listen, he was the best thing that ever happened to this country. He’s making America great again. I can see evidence of this everywhere I look.

All the damn illegals are being deported, just like he promised, and that means more jobs for Americans.

The stupid minimum wage bill the Dems tried to jam through the Congress failed. I mean, c’mon, twenty bucks an hour for a secretary? Or a janitor? Or for someone cooking burgers at Mickey D’s?

He lowered the tax on corporations, just like he promised, so that my company now pays less than one percent in taxes on our gross revenues, which was about thirty million last year. I park a lot of my personal wealth in the Cayman Islands.

And you know the best thing? Humvee is producing again and I just bought my first one. The wife and kids love it as much as I do. Life is good. America really is going to be great again. Yes, siree.

Stay tuned for part 2 of Life Under…