One day, a Trumper wanting to get home from Mexico to make America Great Again knew he could not cross the border with his gun. So he set out on a journey through the desert and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached the Rio Grande.
The river was wide and swift, and the Trumper stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn’t see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.
Suddenly, he saw an immigrant sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the immigrant for help getting across the stream.
“Hellooo Mr. Immigrant!” called the Trumper across the water, “Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?”
“Well now, Mr. Trumper! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?” asked the immigrant hesitantly.
“Because,” the Trumper replied, “If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!”
Now this seemed to make sense to the immigrant. But he asked. “What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!”
“This is true,” agreed the Trumper, “But then I wouldn’t be able to get to the other side of the river!”
“Alright then…how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?” said the immigrant.
“Ahh…,” crooned the Trumper, “Because you see, once you’ve taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!”
So the immigrant agreed to take the Trumper across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The Trumper crawled onto the immigrant’s back, his gun secured in his holster and the immigrant slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the immigrant stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his feet and arms paddling wildly against the current.
Halfway across the river, the immigrant suddenly heard a loud bang and a sharp pain in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the Trumper put his gun back in it’s holster. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.
“You fool!” croaked the immigrant, “Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?”
The Trumper shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings immigrant’s back.
“I could not help myself. It is my nature.”
Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river.
[original ancient Sanskrit and American Indian story told to children, The Scorpion and the Frog]