“Remember the Olive Garden!”

by David Benjamin

 “The cup of forbearance had been exhausted… now, after reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil. She has proclaimed that hostilities have commenced, and that the two nations are now at war.”

— President James K. Polk, 11 May 1846

 

Working with anonymous sources, I’ve obtained the transcript of a remarkable secret meeting among GOP leaders at an undisclosed resort hotel in Palm Beach. All participants are identified only by their code names, which reflect each one’s favorite brand of munitions.

Sen. GLOCK: Okay, listen up, boys. Our distinguished colleague, Congressman REMINGTON, has a terrific idea. Tell ’em, Gunner!

REMINGTON: Here’s what we do. We declare war on Mexico.

Sen. WINCHESTER: Wha’d you say? War with Mexico? Are you nuts?

GLOCK: Don’t fly off the handle, boys. Listen to what Gunner has to say.

REMINGTON: Thanks, Lindsey. Look, gang. We agree that immigration has long been our ace in the taco shell. We harvest votes by scaring white folks with the threat of invasion from south of the border by all those wetbacks and beaners.

Rep. BROWNING: Er, Gunner. I don’t think that sort of language—

GLOCK: Okay, stop right there. Look around. We’re all pale as sheets. We’re all male—except for Rep. HOWITZER, who’s an Honorary Guy. How ya doin’, Marge? Since Nixon, we are the proud Party of Bigotry. Among ourselves, we can use any sort of slur or racist vulgarity that pops to mind. Isn’t that right, chief?

COLT .45: Make Mexico Great Again!

REMINGTON: Okay, so, everybody remembers the Alamo. Davy Crockett, John Wayne, General Santa Anna. A horde of swarthy mestizos slaughtering a handful of gutsy white American frontiersmen. It wasn’t fair, man.

BROWNING: Yeah, we know the story, Gunner. What do you propose?

REMINGTON: Okay, picture this: It’s a Saturday afternoon in old El Paso.

GLOCK: (Parenthetically). Beto O’Rourke’s hometown.

REMINGTON: Happy throngs of Texans shopping at the Cielo Vista Mall. 

GLOCK: (Parenthetically). Biggest mall in south Texas.

REMINGTON: Suddenly, a mob of illegal Mexicans, Hondurans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Blacks, Chinamen, Socialists and Muslims swarm across the Rio Grande and wreak hideous carnage among the innocent moms, dads and kids. Hundreds injured. Killed! Shops looted. Sephora! Foot Locker! Victoria’s Secret! Abercrombie & Fitch! The Gap! Olive Garden! Macy’s! Zales! Hooters!”

HOWITZER: Oh, the humanity!

REMINGTON: The unprovoked assault ends. The mob retreats back across—

Sen. LANDMINE: Hold it, Gunner. Who are these guys? Where you gonna find all these “invaders”?

REMINGTON: Are you kidding? There’s a million little brown asylum seekers stuck across the border in Hoovervilles. We circulate there, hire a few hundred at five bucks an hour, issue each of ’em an ax handle or a machete—

HOWITZER: Oh, I loved that movie!

REMINGTON: —and we truck ’em over to El Paso. Before anybody knows what happened, there are bodies everywhere, Starbucks is burning and somebody—who knows who?—starts chanting “Remember the Mall!”

Sen. UZI: I love it.

COLT .45: Rapists, murderers!

GLOCK: NAFTA. Stolen jobs. Drug cartels. Abortionists. Illegals, illegals everywhere!

REMINGTON:It won’t matter who’s president. Even Sleepy Joe! We gotta go to war. Even before the Pentagon gets its head out of its backside, we’ll have a battalion of trigger-happy volunteers stacked up outside Tijuana. Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Three Percenters, Boogaloo Bois. Outlaw bikers. You name it.

HOWITZER: Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!

UZI: And this time, the Mexes are DOA. Do they even have an army?

(A moment of puzzled silence.)

LANDMINE: Hm, good question. Who knew Ukraine had an army?

REMINGTON: Nah! This war’s a walk-over. They’re just Mexicans! They’re short!

(Shouts of affirmation and “Remember the Mall!”)

GLOCK: Okay, according to Gunner’s battle plan, U.S. troops will storm all way to Guatemala in maybe two months. It’ll make Sherman’s march to the sea look like a sock hop. We declare Mexico a U.S. territory, like Puerto Rico. We’ll make ’em all “Americans,” except, of course, they can’t vote or have anybody in Congress and we’ll all still hate ’em because they don’t spica da Ingleesh, si?

REMINGTON: Then, the beauty part. We seize the factories, cut wages and make Mexico the cheap-labor capital of the world. Eat you heart out, China! Next, we round up the druglords, send ’em to Guantánamo and turn the cocaine, heroin and fentanyl trade over to our dark-money donors. But we can keep blaming liberals for all the horror because we’ll quietly empty every prison and ship the rapists and murderers across the border to Texas, Arizona and Minnesota.

HOWITZER: Democrat crime running amok!

REMINGTON: Finally, of course, we move the border 2,000 miles south and build a 100-foot wall 540 miles—1,500 miles shorter than the current border!—between the improved U.S.A. and the “new Mexico”, Guatemala.

UZI: Gee whiz, Gunner. Why not push our troops all the way down to Panama? We wouldn’t even need a damn wall.

GLOCK: Now, now, Ted! Let’s not get greedy.

HOWITZER: Can we have concentration camps?

WINCHESTER: Wait a minute, gang. Not so fast. 

REMINGTON: (Dismayed) What? You disagree? What are ya? Hispanic?

WINCHESTER: Hey, on paper, another war on Mexico? Terrific. We couldn’t lose. It’s a dream come true. But politically? No dice. Friends, it’s a dead end.

HOWITZER: What the hell you talkin’ about? What are ya? Chicken?

WINCHESTER: Look, guys (and gal). Mexico’s one of our best campaign gimmicks. Look around. Fear and xenophobia are our bread and butter. Every ruby-red Republican hates Mexicans almost as much as we hate, well, all the others we love to hate. But that’s exactly the point. If we conquer Mexico, if we turn aliens and illegals into mere second-class citizens—like, well, women—we risk the danger that some of our people might actually start to like Mexicans.  

LANDMINE: Oh my God!

GLOCK: So?

WINCHESTER: So, simple, bro. We stay the course. We make sure Congress passes no immigration reform that might slow the waves of coyotes, crooks and drug mules who smuggle coke, smack and thousands of refugees across the Rio Grande, while screaming at Democrats for welcoming the waves of coyotes, crooks and drug mules who smuggle coke, smack and thousands of refugees across the Rio Grande. Right now, we have an ugly, cruel, stupid, intractable immigration crisis at the souther border, and it’s our job—our God-given Christian duty—as good Republicans to keep it ugly, cruel, stupid and intractable.

GLOCK: In other words…

WINCHESTER. If it’s broke, don’t fix it.