A month in Trump's NYC
Now is the summer of our discontent.
I
The last weekend of June is real New York summer. The punishing heatwave that dominated the preceding week has mellowed into beach weather—hot, humid, but not so utterly ghastly that the only thing to do is to huddle in the one room of your apartment whose window can accommodate an AC unit.
This is the sort of weather that makes you actually want to leave your apartment. In fairness, that’s at least partly because it remains intolerable inside—but that doesn’t really matter, because on days like this, no-one’s inside anyway. On days like this, it feels like everyone in the city is out on the street, and the only thing to do is join them.
Outside the neighborhood kids are merrily jacking the local fire hydrants while their folks cluster around very, very serious games of dominoes. It’s Pride weekend, and as I wander up to the local bodega for some beers, I pass multiple groups of trans and non-binary kids, all en route to the local bar’s Pride party. And when I arrive, I find that the family that runs the bodega have relocated their entire living room onto the pavement, complete with pedestal fans, a startlingly loud stereo, and a barbecue to cook dinner.
New York City. As the sun begins to settle toward the horizon, the street is cast in the sort of golden hour palette that enthralls poets and photographers alike, an amber-and-cerise wash of promise and possibility. And once the sunset gives way to the long twilight, the city hums with the sort of energy that makes visitors coo about the idea of living here and reminds a transplant like me of why I moved here in the first place.
It reminds me of why I brave the terrible healthcare system and the sky-high rents and all the rest, just for the dubious privilege of a front-row seat to the violent death throes of late capitalism. It’s because I love this city. I really do. It’s a city where you can meet people from literally everywhere in the world, a city that--despite its reputation—is probably the friendliest big city on the planet.
And it’s a city that, in a clear repudiation of the national political climate, just voted in droves for a Muslim socialist in the Democratic mayoral primary. On the internet and in the media, Zohran Mamdani’s victory set off a racist right-wing shitstorm whose like hasn’t been seen in, y’know, at least a week. But in the city? People are psyched. In a country that hasn’t so much lost its mind as very deliberately removed its mind and fired it into the sun, New York feels like a bastion of sanity.
Quite how solid that bastion’s walls will prove under pressure… that remains to be seen. ICE isn’t dragging people off the street here as visibly and aggressively as they have been doing in, say, Los Angeles. But they’re still doing so, and there’s nothing stopping them from upping the ante at any point. Unlike Mamdani, incumbent mayor Eric Adams has promised eagerly to aid them in their operations. In a civic sense, this fills me with disgust. How dare these masked bullies abduct people from schools and court hearings? In a personal sense, it’s terrifying, because like one in every four residents of the five boroughs, I’m an immigrant.
In fairness, you wouldn’t know it to look at me. I’m just another white guy. And I’m from Australia, for god’s sake, a country that until a few months ago could still claim to be even more unpleasant to immigrants than the USA. No-one’s going to grab me off the street for speaking Spanish.
At the airport, though? I don’t travel much anymore, but last time I flew into the USA, I spent an entire day sanitizing my online presence. The idea of going through every single photo on your phone to make sure there’s nothing remotely controversial… it seems ridiculous until someone gets deported because their “Pictures” folder contained a meme featuring an unflattering image of JD Vance.
Or maybe I just get unlucky. You can get the wrong guy on the wrong day, a charming gentleman who calls you a “retard” and sends you back to Australia on your return from your sister’s funeral. You have a visa? A green card? Everything’s in order? Whatever. We just don’t like your face.
II
A week later, it’s time for Patriotism: The Nation to celebrate Patriotism: The Day. The 4th of July dawns hot and humid, and again, New York City takes to the street. But there’s no beautiful languid twilight to enjoy on the evening of Independence Day, because if the 4th of July means anything, that thing is fireworks. Fireworks are technically illegal in New York State unless “conducted by authorized individuals as permitted by law”. You wouldn’t know it, though: long before the sun sets, people start letting off fireworks left, right and centre.
And look, I’ll be honest. I’m not big on fireworks—not on the big official displays, and definitely not on the people-letting-off-god-knows-what-from-their-back-yard variety. As far as the former goes, well, you’ve seen one patriotic pyrotechnic display, and you’ve seen them all. And w/r/t the latter: I’ve put a lot of effort into staying alive. The last thing I want is to end up as a statistic because some dickhead can’t read the instructions on the bootleg Roman candles he brought back from Texas.
In view of all this, you might well question my decision to go and watch the official fireworks display from my friend’s rooftop. All I can say in my defense is that I’d forgotten just how fucked 4th July was last year, and the idea sounded like fun right up until we actually got up onto the roof. At that point,
I lose patience with the whole thing and retreat back downstairs half an hour or so before the official fireworks are due to start at 9:25pm. But since I’m here, and all that, I venture back up the stairs as that time approaches. 9:24pm. 9:25pm. 9:26pm. Are they… happening?
This is the sort of down-to-the-minute question for which Twitter used to be great. Out of habit, I search “NYC fireworks” on the site anyway. The top hit is somebody with a blue checkmark and a single-figure follower count claiming that everyone should enjoy the fireworks this year because Zohran the Commie will ban them in 2026. We should be so lucky. I amuse myself by telling this person that the 2026 celebration will in fact involve loading a MAGA supporter into one of those human cannon things every half an hour and firing them directly into the sun. This is the most fun I have all night.
(As an aside: I just logged into Twitter for the first time since that night, to see if Zohran the Commie’s biggest fan actually replied to me. They did not. However, in the interim, Twitter did see fit to recommend me several of Stephen Miller’s posts, which I present without comment:
Because I hate myself, I clicked through to his page, where I was met with THIS hilarious bullshit. It’s hard to find the words for how this makes me feel, given that i’ve spent yet another day navigating the depths of this country’s terrible, exploitative, for-profit and decidedly un-free healthcare system. If you’re this cynical, this mendacious, this… evil: seriously, how do you sleep at night?
Anyway, it eventually becomes clear that the fireworks did in fact start on time—we just couldn’t see them. There’s probably some symbolism here, but I’m tired.
On the way home, my Uber pulls to a halt halfway down a block. I look up from my phone to see a group of people is gathered on the sidewalk. As I watch, one kid—maybe 15 or 16, but it’s hard to tell because his head is wrapped in a t-shirt—makes repeated dashes into the middle of the road to set a match to what I can only describe as a mortar. Each time he does so, a firework rockets into the sky and detonates overhead, loud enough to shake the car. The air is thick with smoke. My driver doesn’t want to drive past this. I don’t blame her. But there are cars behind us, sounding their horns with increasing venom.
-Maybe you can back up?
-I don’t know if there’s space…
She’s genuinely freaked out. Another firework detonates overhead and we both flinch.
-OK, let’s just do it. The car behind will have to back up.
-OK.
She engages reverse and backs toward the angrily honking SUV behind us. It sits for a moment, refusing to move, but begins to back up. Can a car look angry? This car looks angry. It’s moving begrudgingly. We pull a sweeping turn across the pavement and escape.
-Are you OK?
-Yes. That was frightening.
-It really was.
III
It really couldn’t be any made any clearer at this point: immigrants, legal or otherwise, are no longer welcome here. At best, they’re second-class citizens—in the most literal sense of the term, since as of this week, their citizenship can be revoked unilaterally. And at worse, they’re game to be hunted by stupid, sadistic men whose unifying characteristic is that their necks are wider than their heads.
As I’m typing this, I realize that the reason Twitter is recommending Stephen Miller’s tweets to me is that I recently clicked on a link to another of them, in which he states baldly that the Constitution grants immigrants no rights at all. This is wrong, of course. Denying immigrants their constitutional rights is unambiguously illegal. The document refers throughout to “people”, making no distinction between citizens and non-citizens, nor any reference to immigration status. But if the first Trump administration taught us anything, it’s that the law is useless if no-one enforces it.
It’s hard to explain what the experience of living in the USA today does to your mental health. Beyond the visceral disgust and disbelief at whatever new horror the daily news cycle brings, there’s a weird sense of dissonance to navigate. Every day requires reconciling the basically unaltered nature of your day-to-day existence with the knowledge that terrible things are happening elsewhere in the country--and could happen here tomorrow. It requires looking at the guys who run the bodega, laughing and clapping as they fire up the barbecue and fetch more beers from inside, and knowing they could be gone tomorrow. It requires biting down on the disgust and fury that knowledge evokes, for fear that you might be next.
Fear. A sense that you’re standing on shifting ground. All accompanied by an incessant barrage of patriotic rhetoric about freedom and democracy. And fireworks. So many fireworks.
IV
Today is July 23. On the way home, changing trains at Union Sq, I see two NYPD officers “moving along” a homeless man who’s been sitting and asking for spare change on the landing of one of the station’s many staircases. I watch as he packs up his sign and blanket and shuffles off up the stairs, shooting a reproachful look at the cops as he goes. The cops stand there jutting their chests out.
I want to say something like, “Great job! That’ll teach him for being poor.” But it occurs to me that I don’t have my wallet with me. No ID. Accent. Are you here legally? You have your green card with you? Oh, it’s at home, is it? Please step this way. Sir.
I say nothing.