Earlier this month some MAGA bonehead unfurled a banner at a baseball game that read “100+ million deportations.” The White House is trying to ban universal birthright citizenship. President Trump has said he only wants immigrants who can prove they love America.
Stop.
Where are we going with this? Do we realize the ramifications? Do we want every business in America to turn into Chick-fil-A — pious, patriotic and closed on Sundays? Do we want a land of inconvenience stores from sea to shining sea?
Judeo-Christian principles and America First attitudes are Yankee Doodle dandy. But I want to be able to gas up my car on Memorial Day. I want to buy a pack of cigarettes on Thanksgiving. I want to phone DoorDash on Yom Kippur for a dozen bagels or Lyft on Easter to drive mom home from church. And so do you.
You might be an agnostic Hindu who doesn’t own an American flag and has never heard of Toby Keith. But how are your math skills? Do you know how many patriotic teenage MAGA-Americans can’t figure out exact change without calling the manager? Our kids cannot spell H-1B visa, let alone qualify for one.
I don’t care if you pray five times a day, as long as you’re open 24 hours a day. I don’t care if your god Vishnu has four arms, as long as one of them is willing to tear off a dozen scratch-off tickets Christmas morning for my wife’s stocking stuffer.
Send me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses willing to work the Fourth of July graveyard shift at Sheetz. I lift my lamp beside the automatic sliding glass door.