Imagine, if you will, that the citizens of the United States suffer a collective psychosis and manage to elect as President a well-known con man and real estate developer from New York City. I know that’s hard to imagine—but work with me.

Anyway, one afternoon he’s flying over New York Harbor, past the Statue of Liberty—because Stephen Miller thought it would make a great photo op—when inspiration strikes. When he gets back to the Oval Office, he demands that Russ Vought, his Director of the Office of Management and Budget, come see him.

When Vought arrives, the President asks, “How much does the Statue of Liberty cost the American taxpayer every year?”

Vought replies, “I don’t know, sir. Give me a moment to consult my staff.” After a flurry of phone calls and a series of ‘uh-huhs,’ he responds: “Supreme Leader—I mean, Mr. President—the cost of maintaining and staffing Lady Liberty is modest, only about $11 million a year. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. There’s a backlog of repairs and infrastructure upgrades that will cost us $289 million.”

The Supreme Leader—I mean, the President—pauses as if deep in thought and inquires, “Russ, what do you think we’d get if we decided to sell the island? I mean, that’s prime New York City real estate. We could—well, the people who bought the island could—call it Trump’s Golden Torch Towers. It would be magnificent. Everyone would love it.”

Vought, inspired by the Leader’s brilliant business mind, whips out his calculator and says, “Oh sir, how brilliant! Let’s see—average luxury towers go for about $1,600 per square foot, and we could probably build around 700,000 square feet of apartment space. And for shits and giggles, throw on a 20% premium because of the iconic location… Wowzer, sir—we could sell it for $1.5 billion easily and save taxpayers $11 million a year. Not to mention the additional $289 million in deferred maintenance we’d avoid. Sir, this is literally gold. The American people would be delighted to get rid of this burden and make money to boot. I’m sure Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos would be the first to place orders.”

The Supreme Leader—I mean, the President—smiled a self-satisfied grin, confident in his own brilliance, and immediately began typing a Truth Social post:

**“Folks, from today onward, Liberty Island will now be known as Trump’s Golden Towers. A gated high-rise condo community. It’s going to be gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful. People used to come there for the Statue of Liberty, but it’s outdated… now they’ll come for the views from the penthouse. And let me tell you—the views? Tremendous. The best in the world. You’re looking at Manhattan, you’re looking at freedom, you’re looking at success.

People will call it the Miracle on the Harbor. Some will say it’s the 8th Wonder of the World. I’m not saying that—but people are. Very smart people.

Bottom line? Perfect project. Perfect location. Perfect everything. We brought jobs, we brought beauty, and we brought class. And most importantly—we made Liberty great again.”**

And just like that, Lady Liberty was homeless.

I know. Unimaginable. (But so much is these days.)

The truth is, the U.S. is facing a historic surge in homelessness. Roughly 0.23% of our population is unhoused. The primary causes? Affordability and economic pressures. A person working a minimum wage job can no longer afford an apartment. Using New York City as an example, the average apartment outside Manhattan is roughly $3,000 a month, while a full-time minimum wage job pays $2,970 a month. In other words, they’re underwater—and that’s before food, transportation, or healthcare.

I could spend a great deal of time analyzing why housing has become so expensive. But the list is long: corporate collusion in rental markets, Airbnb squeezing out long-term housing, minimum wages not keeping up with inflation. It’s more productive to simply state: we have a problem, and we need to solve it.

The Supreme Leader—I mean, the President—could have included provisions to relieve this crisis in the Big Beautiful Bill, but he didn’t. Instead, he guaranteed it would get worse. The bill codifies opportunity zones, which are a boon to wealthy developers—not low-income renters. It calls for deep cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, meaning people will have even less money to pay rent.

What the Big Beautiful Bill did do was provide huge tax breaks for the rich, including allowing full deductions on the purchase price of new and used jets—eliminating approximately $6 billion in annual taxes from the federal coffers. Those savings could have purchased 120,000 single-wide trailers, virtually eliminating unsheltered families across the U.S.

The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the bill eliminated $94 billion in taxes for those earning over $1 million annually. That sum would have housed every homeless person in America—with money left over to fund mental health and addiction treatment.

But that’s not what the Supreme Leader—I mean, the President—did. Instead, he signed an executive order titled Ending Crime and Disorder on American Streets, which, in essence, criminalizes homelessness and mental illness.

Instead of embracing Lady Liberty’s credo:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Trump, the Republican Party, and the MAGA base have turned off the lamp by the golden door. They’ve said, in no uncertain terms: “Fuck the poor. To hell with the mentally ill. We celebrate the wealth and their golden jets.”

And so, the con man got his photo op, the billionaire class got their tax breaks, and Lady Liberty got evicted. The golden door was replaced with golden penthouses, the lamp swapped for luxury lighting, and the only huddled masses left were the valet staff. America, once the beacon of refuge, now sells naming rights to its ideals.

Liberty didn’t just get priced out—she got listed on Zillow.

God help us all