Dwain Northey (Gen X)

It’s Christmas Day, that sacred annual pause when we celebrate peace on Earth, goodwill toward men, and—if you’re running certain political operations—ICE raids before brunch. While some families exchange socks and awkward hugs, Christie Gnome and Dumb Donald, the Mango Mussolini himself, are faithfully observing the season in their own tradition: cruelty, gift-wrapped in buzzwords and tied up with a ribbon of selective outrage.

This is, after all, the season of giving. Giving speeches about law and order. Giving interviews about “security.” Giving marching orders to agents to knock on doors in the dead of night. And taking—taking parents from kids, taking workers from jobs, taking communities and calling it “restoration.” It’s a holiday miracle how the Nativity gets reinterpreted as a zoning ordinance and the Three Wise Men are replaced with three press releases explaining why compassion is unaffordable this quarter.

We’re told these raids are about “gentrifying the country,” which is a fascinating euphemism, because gentrification usually means nicer coffee shops and inexplicably expensive toast—not a coordinated effort to make America look more like a catalog model from 1954. Funny how the dragnet never seems to snag immigrants from places with vowels you can pronounce without rolling an R. No Scandinavians sprinting from yoga studios. No Irish nannies tackled outside brownstones. No Canadians—politely apologizing, no doubt—being escorted away from artisanal breweries. The enforcement has a palette, and it’s aggressively beige.

Meanwhile, Christie Gnome plays the dutiful ornament on the tree of enforcement, all tinsel and talking points, while the Mango Mussolini conducts the choir: louder, meaner, and wildly off-key. “Chief Con” is a fitting title—part carnival barker, part strongman cosplay, all confidence and no receipts. He assures us this is about fairness, which is rich, considering fairness here means targeting the same faces, the same neighborhoods, the same accents, year after year, like a cruel Advent calendar where every door opens to the same punishment.

So Merry Christmas, America. Light the candles, sing the carols, and watch as the calendar keeps turning while the world keeps revolving—sometimes forward, sometimes in shameful little circles. If there’s a lesson in this season, it’s that peace on Earth is optional, goodwill is conditional, and the people who talk the loudest about Christian values are often the ones least interested in practicing them. Still, hope persists—quiet, stubborn, and inconvenient—waiting for a year when Christmas is about giving again, not taking notes on who looks “out of place.”