noun.
gar·bage ˈgär-bij
Synonyms of garbage
1a: food waste
b: discarded or useless material
2a: trash
b: inaccurate or useless data
So, which way are you floating? I asked Hernandez, our neighbourhood trash collector, barely 24 hours before the Big Ballot in Tuesday's election -- my first r.e.a.l. experience of American Democracy at work, three years after our great crossing to the much Promised Land.
Obama's big ballot was defined by his "Audacity of Hope", Trump 1.0 by "Make America Great", and Joe's big moment... joe who? I can't quite remember (pun absolutely intended).
This time around, the defining word for Harris-Trump 2.0, is certainly not Freedom-Again!
Fall 2024 must go down in US history for that single G-word that follows the F-word: GARBAGE, lately made famous, first, by a joker in the Trump pack, followed closely by the huge re-endorsement by a jaded President who has turned out to be a joke himself.
So, which way are you floating? I asked Henandez this morning, keen to suss out the Latino flavour this election season. Will they take the Harris highway to the border, walled out as a pile of floating garbage in mid-Atlantic? Or will they, like Injuns -- oops Indian-Americans, not American-Indians who don't count -- 'swing' either way, ever since Modi taught them how to cut deals with both Russia and America in keeping with his profit-maximizing outlook from a multipolar world centered on a unipolar nation back home in India?
Or are the Latinos really just waiting and watching, in the quiet.
Much like China?
After all, both Reds and Blues have been betting big on the 'undecided voter' too close for comfort in the middle of nowhere America? This, when, everybody, who is anybody, has already DECIDED.
If the Indians, the richest income group, are to count, I guess they have long ago floated over to the Trump-way, despite Ka-ma-laa's Madrasi mother. There are reasons.
Quite a few have booked apartments in the Trump Towers at Gurgaon, Mumbai and Kolkata at anywhere between Rs 12 crore and Rs 21 crore ( USD 1.5 million to USD 2.5 million). So, loyalty bonus matters. For those who haven't, and there are many more who can afford but haven't for want of space, there is always Modi magic at work to return a triumphant Trump to the White House. Because Harris hardly hip-hops to Brown Munda. What's more, a vast majority are in business, with their mom-and-mom stores, gas stations, motels and kirana chains. They are happy about Trump's pro-biz agenda.
And then, there are still others. A class apart, with a stiff upper lip and a hanging jaw. They love to roll, the toilet roll, hand-bidet be damned. People like them. They believe every new migrant from the boondocks who visits their home on temporary assylum, messes the tub with a strange water purification ritual after morning ablutions. And that's a helluvalot of stinking floating garbage to negotiate. Frankly.
How about the Latinas?
So, which way are you floating? I asked Hernandez a third time, by when he had made a round of our cul-de-sac dumping garbage into the trash truck on his weekly early morning round.
Hernandez, raised a brow."I am voting against any gay parade in the White House. I am voting against ABORTION. I am a devout Catholic. All this is a lot of GARBAGE. For us. For US."
I sincerely pray for Harris that Joe didn't point to the Latins when he claimed Trump supporters were a pile of Garbage.
....
"So who is going to the White House?" a Senior from my IR school at campus pinged this morning. She had lent me mounds of her laboriously hand-written notes to clear my graduation before I dumped them as garbage for recycling.
Exactly 40 years later, I finally felt obliged to write an answer.
"I guess, Trump."
I bet I must be wrong. 🫡