With Frickin’ Laser Beams

Today, we’re going to focus less on the fact that Donald Trump is a treasonous idiot willing to abuse the power of his office for personal gain and more on the fact that he’s just an idiot.

When I got a news alert on my phone reporting that Donald Trump wants to put a moat at the base of his racist border wall and fill it with snakes and alligators in addition to shooting migrants in the legs, I thought, “when did I start subscribing to notifications from The Onion?”

No. It wasn’t from The Onion. It was from The New York Times.

The Times’s published an excerpt of Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear’s forthcoming book, Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration. In the article last March in an Oval Office meeting, Donald Trump was fuming about migrants crossing the southern border. He demanded that the 2,000-mile border with Mexico be shut down the next day at noon. Aides worried it would strand Americans in Mexico, strand children in schools on both sides, and cause an economic meltdown in both nations. They were eventually able to hold him off for a week. After that week, he changed his mind and hiked tariffs on Mexico. But if you think that idea was stupid and cruel, it got much worse.

Trump had publicly called for shooting migrants who threw rocks at American soldiers on the border (where U.S. soldiers are not supposed to be policing. There’s a law). During this meeting, he suggested that migrants be shot in the legs to slow them down. He was informed that wasn’t legal. Then, he argued for placing spikes on top of his yet-to-be-built wall that could pierce human flesh. He also wanted the wall electrified. And then…yes…he said he wanted a moat in front of the wall stocked with snakes and alligators. Hoo boy.

What’s even more ridiculous is that aides started researching this idea to seek cost estimates (if it’s legal in your state, a baby alligator costs about $150.00). The only shocking thing he didn’t request, a la Dr. Evil, was sharks with “frickin’ laser beams on their heads.” Yeah, it didn’t work out in the movie either.

It’s really hard to create an obstacle that’s more dangerous than the one migrants already face while traveling through a desert to cross over the U.S. border. That obstacle is that they’re traveling through a desert. In 2018, over 260 migrants died trying to cross the border. In 2018, two people were killed by alligators and another two were killed by snakes. On average, cows kill 22 people a year in the United States. Maybe we need a moat filled with cows. We could call it a “moooat.” Get it? Moo….oat? Never mind.

Here are some fun facts about migrants, snakes, and alligators. If you bump into Donald Trump (I hear he likes to hang out in teenage girls’ dressing rooms. Maybe that’s where there should be a moat), feel free to relay them to him.

I have some experience with snakes and alligators as I used to work in a reptile house in a zoo. Fun fact: Alligators are not cooperative animals. Gators don’t stay where you want them to stay.  They don’t do what you want them to do, even if you’re a billionaire. Unfortunately for Donald Trump, they’re not really big on joining cults.

People swim with alligators every day and usually, they don’t even know it. When I was a kid, I was aware there were gators in the Louisiana bayous where I was swimming, but I just decided to ignore them. Spoiler alert: I wasn’t eaten. Filling a moat with gators won’t stop migrants. It’ll just be another thing they have to overcome. If anything, they may come to see the alligators. Gators are cool. Except, they probably won’t be able to see any gators because gators don’t do well in deserts. Donald Trump needs to spend less executive time watching Fox News and more watching Animal Planet.

As for snakes, they’re already dealing with those. They’re crossing a desert filled with snakes and there’s already a moat on the border full of them too. That moat’s called the Rio Grande River. Snakes are everywhere. There are snakes in your yard right now but you’re still going to the mailbox today. Well, maybe not now. I’m more concerned about the snakes in the White House.

Snakes don’t go after people. They would rather get away than bite. Most people killed by snakes were trying to kill a snake. But, I’d hate for someone in the Trump administration to read this and realize the idea of a moat full of snakes and gators won’t work, so they seek out something crueler.

And that’s just it with these people. The cruelty. They campaign on being cruel. Republicans seem to be in a race on who can be the biggest asshole. Trump is winning. Fortunately for us, they’re also stupid.

What really bothers me more than Donald Trump thinking spikes, moats, snakes, and gators are great ideas, is that his cult will think they’re great ideas. I mean, after all, Trump is a stable genius so the moat has to be a great idea.

Donald Trump is no Dr. Evil. But feel free to call him Dr. Dumbass.

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