USA Mock Re-Draft: Trades, Grades, & Closing Remarks

With the draft complete, both sides are now allowed a 48 hour window to make trades before solidifying their final picks. Given that each team now has a bird’s eye view of what the landscape looks like post draft, both sides get to work. 

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TRADES

Delaware for Utah

Team Bible gets fleeced here, but the Delaware pick had really soured the mood as it disrupted cohesion of the South Eastern coast. Not to mention that whole “micro-penis” jab…Grand Ruler Trump is not one to swallow slights as easily as he swallows McNuggets. All of the Mormons are stunned and cry foul – they think of going south to Arizona or New Mexico….but the desert sun would kill them. So instead they pack their bags and head east to the plains where fields of corn and grey skies really bring out the straw color in their hair and the polygamy in their values. 

Alaska to Canada 

Team Freedom strikes a deal with their neighbors to the North. Alaska is….way the fuck in the middle of nowhere. This pick and the land are traded for unlimited access, dual citizenship, military ally-ship, and last but not least: HEALTHCARE. Obama finally gets his unimpeded healthcare for all plan pushed across the finish line. Canada gets Alaska. 

Ohio & West Virginia for Nebraska & Missouri 

This is simply a cohesion trade to help clearly delineate borders. Team Freedom really tries to pry New York away from Trump, but he just won’t budge. So they settle for locking in the Northwest, and keeping their stronghold on the tip of the Northeast. A large majority of New York City packs their bags, and heads west. 

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GRADES

Team Freedom

Team Freedom’s strategy was pretty apparent from the beginning. Going with Massachusetts with their 2nd pick seemed like they were simply going to prioritize education and value, but when they started plucking up the west coast states, that theory went out the window. Captain Obama deployed the “Know Thy Enemy” tactic as he used Trump’s hubris and stupidity to make some stellar trades and steals late in the draft as well as post draft. Still – there were definitely some reaches here. Missing out on New York is understandable…but to let Pennsylvania slide THAT FAR and not take it was a mistake. The Alaska trade gets an incomplete. Trading a huge and valuable chunk of land to another country even makes MY stomach turn a bit. But if it fixes some harrowing societal and systemic issues, it will be well worth it. 

TEAM FREEDOM OVERALL GRADE: B (Pending future outcomes)

Team Bible

You have to hand it to Trump. In a battle of wits, he definitely had the disadvantage, but ever the businessman, it’s hard to find too many flaws in his approach here. He got New York, Texas, and Florida. He got his Southern Border and his wall. He was able to secure most of his base and find a balance of rich white people and poor white people. The Delaware trade is inexcusable (as is forgetting Alaska is a state). But the other trades and picks all make sense. However – this is a grade based on THE DRAFT. How this shakes out policy wise down the road is a whole other story. 

TEAM BIBLE OVERALL GRADE: B+ (Pending future outcomes)

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CLOSING REMARKS

I opened with a disclaimer about how this was simply a thought exercise, so I thought it only appropriate upon completion to offer some final thoughts. Seeing this all play out, with myself picking for both sides was really interesting. Am I saying we should do this? No. I think logistically it’d be such a headache. That’s not to mention that it would actually cause wars and chaos to erupt. America in its current iteration chooses to fight over compromise every single time.   

But I think if it were able to be done in an amicable fashion, then it actually makes a lot of sense. Ideally, we would all be united. But there are such core and fundamental differences in what this incredibly vast and diverse country wants, that I think that is borderline impossible. Religion is a good example. If you try to convince a devout Christian that their faith is flawed, and that God did not create the universe, all you will elicit is anger. Feelings and identity are not based in logic. They are based on what we’re taught as kids. What is passed down from generation to generation. And the division, represented by donkeys and elephants in this country is bizarrely oppositic. It’s basically a 50/50 split. It’s Almost as if our differences were so diametrically opposed, that we started pulling away from the middle ground in two separate directions with such force it started tearing the societal fabric apart. The harder we pull, the more we fight…the other side reciprocates. It’s symmetrical. It’s boxing with our shadows. And the more we pull… the more we damage the middle. We rip the wings off the butterfly and watch the body flutter to the ground like a juvenile pine cone as the wings turn to dust between our fingers. We don’t go anywhere. We don’t make any progress. We pull and pull and fight and fight, and yet all we do is destroy the fabric of compromise. “If I can’t have what I want…nobody can”.

If you read this piece and think I am stoking the fires of division…that is not my intention. I just simply do not see myself, my values, my morals, etcetera, in what a large portion of my countrymen and women have entrenched themselves in. I do not think it’s right to allow people to just buy automatic weapons. There are far more kids shot at their schools than “redcoats” caught storming the Carolina coasts. You think your Semi Automatic assault rifle protects you from the government? My friend, the government has tanks and stealth bombers. You and your NRA friends wouldn’t stand a chance. 

I see the president tweet a video where an old white guy in a golf cart yells “white power”. I’m white – and that disgusts me. It disgusts me that people still believe in and defend this absolute and total buffoon who sits in what is supposed to be the most distinguished and powerful office in the country. And as much as I argue with those that, in my heart, I truly believe are wrong, I simply see them arguing back and turning red in the face, while the other side argues until they are blue in the face. Everyday we get up and spit at the ocean. Why? At a certain point, I think we need to acknowledge that some of these differences are irreconcilable. And that admitting that isn’t failure or weakness. It’s simply the truth. And it’s necessary to move on and evolve. We have a choice as our nation falls to its knees, crippled by racism, hatred, greenhouse gases and Covid-19. We should ask ourselves: Do we want to take these ashes and disintegrated butterfly wings and consider them so holy that they will simply sit in an urn on a shelf next to the other failed empires…or do we rise from the ashes like a phoenix? Do we let the wind blow them in different directions, and plant the seeds for the future? That is the decision we must make right now. We are never going to agree on everything. Never. So I think it is highly important that we find a way to agree on just one thing. The answer to this question: Where do we go from here?

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Disclaimer: This piece is UN-editted.