There is not a shred of doubt in my mind that Donald Trump’s “Gold Card” immigration stunt will one day go down in history books that our children and grandchildren will read in their classrooms — and certainly not in the manner in which Donald Trump so desperately wants to go down in history.
The sitting US president first floated the idea of a Gold Card visa program back in February, stating at the time that individuals could essentially buy their American citizenship from him, at a whopping price tag of $5 million smackaroos.
Ultimately, that crockpot idea was actually, formally implemented in September, though the price was reduced from a staggering $5 million to a cool $1 million to secure your very own Trump Gold Card. As part of the announcement last month, Trump also made an overly big to-do about revealing the design of the card itself.
During the big Oval Office event, Trump officially unveiled the Trump Gold Card — a literal gold colored card that features Trump’s image alongside a bald eagle and the Statue of Liberty.
It was giving Willy Wonka, if Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory had been set in a dystopian hellscape nightmare.
As such, the very man who served as the screenwriter for the 1971 cult classic film — which infamously featured a plot surrounding children receiving golden tickets hidden inside chocolate bars that granted them access to the highly coveted and secretive Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory — has now spoken out to publicly slam Donald Trump’s Gold Card immigration stunt as viciously “anti-Willy Wonka,” and further argued that, had the film been produced in Trump’s greedy, narcissitic style, it would have been a complete flop, rather than the beloved cult classic it’s known as today.
David Seltzer, the Willy Wonka screenwriter, slammed Trump’s Gold Card stunt as antithetical to everything that the cult classic film he penned over 5 decades ago stands for.
Speaking with the Washington Post for a piece published today, Seltzer, who was brought onto the film to rewrite its screenplay later in its development, in an uncredited role, said, “It’s the anti-Willy Wonka. If Willy Wonka were asking $5 million to give someone a gold ticket, this movie wouldn’t have flown.”
Trump has never personally drawn a comparison between his Gold Card immigration visas and the 1970s cult classic film, but it was certainly a no-brainer for Americans and onlookers around the globe.
“It’s the realization of opportunity for a poor boy, for a boy whose family is suffering and who can’t catch a break,” Seltzer went on to add. “What it represented is what everyone hopes for: a break.”
In addition to the Gold Card visa that’s up for sale now, President Trump also introduced a Platinum Card, a premium version that grants buyers the same immigration status, but also comes with massive tax breaks and exemptions.
The Platinum version of Trump’s immigration card will set you back a breezy $5mil.
Debbie Millman, who leads the branding program at the School of Visual Arts, said in no uncertain terms that Donald’s immigration card stunt, in combination with its painfully obvious parallels to the Willy Wonka cult film, serves as nothing more than a direct slap in the face of what American immigration and citizenship are supposed to truly represent.
Also speaking with the Post, Millman said, “Both the brand of America and the brand of Trump are being merged into this symbolic gesture. The gold card reframes America as a luxury product, a gated community of privilege, rather than a frontier of possibility.”
Read the full report from the Washington Post here.
Featured image via screen capture