Presenting the caricature/cartoon of President Donald Trump, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, and the said wall.
Trump’s Wall
Never has a wall generated so much interest and speculation before, except perhaps the Berlin Wall – but the hullabaloo around the Berlin Wall was about bringing the wall down while in this case, it’s about raising it.
But this post isn’t about Trump’s wall. It’s about Donald Trump, who is perhaps the most spoofed President ever. He’s also the most adamant, most mis-political (for want of a better word,) most impulsive, most irksome President too.
Trump’s Hurdles
He wanted a wall between Mexico and the United States, and he was clear on it from the very beginning. I remember the debates, and I remember that he always wanted the wall. Then the election results came out and he won. it was obvious that he’d want to build the wall. Unfortunately for him, the wall wasn’t going to be handed to him on a platter. The United States, is now a beast different from the one that it was when Trump was growing up.
According to this Wikipedia page – “As of July 2016, Mexican Americans made up 11.2% of the United States’ population, as 36.3 million U.S. residents identified as being of full or partial Mexican ancestry.”
Add to these those who are married to/are friends with Mexican Americans, and you have a huge bunch of non-Mexican Americans who can be called sympathizers. If Trump thought that he could nail the immigration problem shut by getting the Congress to nod like a trained pup – he was in for a surprise.
Trump’s Game
And yet, Trump being Trump, wouldn’t accept their disapproval as sheepishly as they’d like him to – and so the government rationing and now the National Emergency. He has played an open hand. While Nancy Pelosi and team were extrapolating the behavior of the past Presidents and expecting Trump to back off when they waved $1.4B under his nose – he went ahead and declared a National Emergency that would allow him to mobilize military funds to construct the wall.
Trump’s Logic
Now the game is on. Sixteen states have filed a lawsuit against Trump. Pelosi says that there won’t be a wall. Trump says, there will be a wall. The country stands divided. I can’t imagine why there shouldn’t be a wall. I understand why the Mexicans, American-Mexicans, American-Mexican-Pros won’t want a wall; but I can’t understand why the government wouldn’t want to protect its borders? I understand sympathy and empathy, but then there are hundreds and thousands of others who “need” to be in the US, more than the illegal Mexicans.
So Why?
I read the stories of battered wives and mothers who want their children to have better lives – but they don’t exist only in Mexico – they exist elsewhere too. And so do walls. The concept behind countries having borders is quite the same as that of having walls around our houses. Guests and family members and even those who we feel charitable toward – they all enter through the gate. It good to be magnanimous and philanthropic but would you feel similarly for someone who breaks into your house? The law applies to our actions, not to our intentions and reasons. But then each country has to figure out what they want to do (or not) on their own, and quite like families each country too must go through the cycle of wealth and poverty – khattu, nikhattu, udharichand, bechumal. The US is now experiencing the udharichand (borrowing against its assets) phase, if you please, and doing paropkar (philanthropy) on udhari (borrowings) isn’t a sign of wisdom.
Shafali's Caricatures, Portraits, and Cartoons 