I spent the holidays in the
Dominican Republic - sun, sand, and an
eclectic parade of humanity. Among the cast of
beachside philosophers I encountered: A French
bred woman who might’ve stepped out of a
classic Film noir flick, a retired Canadian
Mountie who sweat maple syrup, whose
tall tales outlasted the beach firepit,
and a few rugged gents from Nova Scotia who’d
clearly wrestled moose for sport. We discussed
the critical issues of our time: Black hockey
players (rare as unicorns), Sasquatch
(allegedly less rare), and the Titanic’s dead
(still very dead). But remarkably, there was
one subject that united us faster than cheap
piña coladas at an all-inclusive swim-up pool
bar: Donald Trump.
Here’s what we concluded: the
man’s a paradox. Predictably unpredictable.
How? Simple - he’s soulless. No heart, just a
“value meter” spinning like a slot machine in
Vegas. No brain, just a 1967 Montgomery Ward
cash register ka-ching-ing its way
through chaos, pinging every time he smells a
deal. The consensus? He delights in cruelty,
gleefully weaponizing borders, and turning
children into pawns in some hellish 4D chess
game of xenophobia.
Something dark and diabolical
this way comes.
Worse yet, Trump’s cruelty
isn’t accidental; it’s calculated. He wields
suffering like an artist wields a brush,
creating a masterpiece of misery: Muslim bans,
family separations, voter suppression, and a
coast-to-coast “Papers, Please!” policy. These
aren’t policies; they’re flaming arrows
pointing to a dystopian America. A U-turn back
to segregation so sharp it could slice a dime.
Let’s not sugarcoat it: MAGA’s mission is as
subtle as a bullhorn. They yearn for their
whitewashed, monochrome, mythical 1950s utopia
- a place where dissenters were silenced,
erased, or deported faster than you can say
“cultural genocide.”
Yes, silenced, deleted, exiled.
In short, eliminated.
The real question isn’t if they’ll stoop low - it’s
how
low. Will detention centers be
rebranded as “re-education camps”? Checkpoints
dividing communities like bad dystopian
fanfiction? Or perhaps they’ll rewrite the
Constitution into a weapon of suppression, a
240-year-old parchment turned into a cudgel
for authoritarianism. Every gerrymandered
district, every racist dog whistle, every
police-state proposal screams: “How far can we
push this?”
Will they dust off
segregationist policies, slap on some
Orwellian doublespeak, and sell it as
“progress”? Or will they invent new depths of
indignity, wielding the full weight of
government to crush multicultural democracy
under its heel?
And let’s not forget the
enablers. Trump didn’t strongarm his way into
power. No, his itty-bitty, ketchup-stained
hands were kissed and crowned by pocket women
- those white women who’ve turned codependency
into an Olympic sport. Alongside them, the
“wannabe” men of color, lost and miseducated,
suffering from Stockholm Syndrome so advanced
it deserves its own DSM category.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t
about sound governance. It’s about unraveling
civil rights with the finesse of a drunk
toddler unraveling Christmas lights - wrapped
in the flag and sold as “greatness.” But their
greatness smells suspiciously like Hitler’s
supremacy and Jefferson Davis’s nationalism.
If MAGA succeeds, tomorrow’s history books
will tell of a second Reconstruction - but in
reverse.
The challenge? Stopping this
uncivilized nightmare in its tracks. The fight
isn’t just for policy; it’s for the soul of
democracy. And I don’t foresee MAGA playing
nice. Violence, cruelty, and meanness aren’t
just their methods - they’re their ethos.
Based in an all-inclusive Hyatt
fortress in Punta Cana - a luxurious bubble
wrapped in a thin veil of paradise - we
ventured out nearly every day, only to be
struck, again and again, by the harsh reality
surrounding us. The poverty was suffocating,
the neglect blatant, and the exploitation
shameless. People, land, and resources - all
bled dry. It was European imperialism 2.0 and
America’s globalized manifest
destiny, stripped of its polite
facade, raw and naked as the day it was born.
I’ve been around the Caribbean
- Tobago, Costa Rica, St. Croix,
Jamaica, the Bahamas, and more - and it’s
always the same story on loop: Take, take,
take and take some more. Maybe toss back just
enough crumbs to pacify and placate the
“little people.” And when they’re not looking,
grab seconds.
It hit me like a tropical
cocktail to the face: the widespread, crushing
poverty and systemic misery of these so-called
paradises is exactly what MAGA would salivate
over for Chocolate Cities across America.
They’d relish replicating the same neglect,
the same exploitation, the same
“you’re-on-your-own” ethos. The same blind eye
Spain turns to the Dominican Republic, MAGA
would turn toward Black and Brown communities.
They've pimped and exploited us, and now
there’s no place for us in their America, the
country they built on their land with our
blood sweat and tears. “All-Inclusive”
Oppression: Lessons from the Dominican
Republic.
Picture it: stripping
Democratic-run municipalities of autonomy,
gutting public resources, and leaving millions
at the mercy of a federal government run by a
tyrannical madman whose only discernible skill
is sowing chaos. Sound familiar? It should.
The Dominican Republic has its president;
we’ve got ours - a wannabe emperor presiding
over a nation that’s no longer united, if it
ever truly was.
MAGA’s vision is eerily clear:
chocolate cities left to rot, their potential
stifled, their voices silenced. All under the
guise of “saving” America, which - let’s be
honest - means saving it for them.
Chocolate Cities and the
Caribbean Cry: A Shared Destiny of Neglect.
