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The “Real World” is the place a mindful person chooses to live.

It is the practice of staying in the moment with both eyes peeled, ready to face whatever is happening. This is challenging on normal days, let alone during a mindless campaign season. The objective is to pay attention to a candidate’s ideas—no matter how outrageous or unlikely they sound (like building a wall between the United States and Mexico).

Donald Trump has likened his vision to the “Great Wall of China.” That wall took approximately 200 years to build. Considering how long it takes to repave a highway in Everytown U.S.A., it’s unlikely the work would be completed anytime soon.

Beyond the time constraint lies the other impracticalities. For every wall there’s a tall enough ladder or a deep enough hole to make it obsolete. As Berlin and Beirut learned, a barrier is nothing against the will of the people. In a recent poll, a shocking 41% of Americans think this wall notion is plausible enough to want one.

If Donald Trump were actually on a job interview his analogies would get a horrified look, not a “hell yes!” Oh that’s right, this is a job interview—for President of the United States. The Donald and 41% of us must be thinking this is another version of “The Apprentice.” It’s time to remind ourselves that the candidate in question is asking us to hire him and not the other way around.

Mr. Trump’s ideas and statements should be conscientiously scrutinized, like any regular Joe seeking a job. A few years ago when the Food Network hired Robert Irvine, he erroneously stated that he’d been a chef at the White House. The bigwigs had to be kicking themselves for not thoroughly fact checking Mr. Irvine, after a curious reporter discovered the truth.

Let’s not be like the Food Network. As American voters let’s put the most recent of Donald Trump’s ideas under the bright lights of Real World and consider two of his biggest proposals. Both of these concepts have similar threads linked to keeping Americans safe, which gives us—Mr. Trump’s potential employers—an inkling of how his mind works.

Donald Trump suggests a mass deportation of illegal Mexicans, plus their American-born children and the banning of all Muslims from entering the U.S.

If these two suggestions were taken into action, this is how they might work in concert:

Mr. Trump’s position on deporting illegal Mexicans is based on the unsubstantiated belief that many are rapists or smuggle drugs into the United States. He figures that once everyone is on the other side of the border, each person will be assessed and then we could let the “good ones” back in.

For Mr. Trump’s plan to be accurate and fair, we’d need to go back as far as documentation allows. My deceased grandmother and grandfather came here illegally. Technically their children, who are now septuagenarians, would need to be expelled. To be equal in meting out punishment, all their offspring until we’re up to the present should go. I’d be in sorry shape since my Spanish is best left unspoken.

The mass deportation of illegal immigrants (and unfortunately blood-linked to an illegal immigrant) can be managed alongside the compilation of presumed terrorists trying to gain entry. It would save time and money to create an arm of the FBI to review the documentation of every Mexican residing here and the religious affiliation of anyone coming to the United States.

Donald Trump’s stated purpose of denying admission of Muslims to America is to keep us safe from terrorism. Reasonable people can agree that anyone killing multiple people at the same time is inflicting an act of terror, which means all situations should be taken into consideration equally. Evens-stevens and all that.

To be thorough, as well as to follow guidelines of our Constitution, we will also need to analyze other mass shootings. Using this year as an example, 3 out of 381 instances where a person murdered multiple people on U.S. soil were perpetrated by someone of Muslim faith.

Analysis under the lens of a stricter, more invasive Patriot Act could determine where the other 378 murderers worshiped, where they originated from and which flavor of crazy Kool-Aid they imbibed. As with illegal Mexicans, we should go back as many years as documentation allows and include those who are home grown.

The end result would mean denying entry and booting anyone linked to a mass shooter by blood, marriage, religious belief or similar thinking. Which also includes those with mental illness who commit murder en masse, as is the hypothesis of the suspected murderer of three people at the Planned Parenthood in Colorado. For safety’s sake, under Mr. Trump’s plan it might be that those who’ve ever been diagnosed with a mental disorder are made to live on a deserted island, that way there’d be little chance of them hurting anyone but themselves.

With the sorting of Trump’s ins and outs complete, a large number of boats and airplanes would be needed for the exodus. Since very few visitors would be allowed to cross our borders, there’d certainly be plenty available.

Left behind would be vacated neighborhoods, schools, churches, mosques, baseball fields, malls and gun shows. Within that large population of Americans, we would witness Muslims and Mexicans floating on large barges in the Atlantic, camping on the border in Tijuana or sent to an island there would be teachers, doctors, politicians, arborists, veterans, scientists, lawyers, air traffic controllers, car salesmen and priests. Our country might have difficulty operating, but at least the leftovers could imagine themselves “safe.”

Donald Trump says that since he’s “a great manager,” it’s possible to deport several million people and bar all Muslims from our country. Taking into consideration what that might look like, his assessment of himself may be akin to claiming as Robert Irvine did, that he cooked at the White House.

It is absurd to believe that generations of Mexicans can be tweezed out of our masses to be sent “home.” If a candidate says it is achievable or even desirable to eject illegals and their children, doubt that individual’s “Real World” abilities.

When Mr. Trump says that all Muslims are dangerous because some of them are sociopaths, wonder whether he is up to the task of being leader of the free world. There are sociopaths of all different faiths, all over the world, including those who have been conceived in our own Petri dish.

Candidates for President of the United States are asking to be hired by us, the voters. One of the most important requirements of the person elected is the ability to consider how situations could play out in Real World terms, for our country as well as everyone on this planet.

A mindful practice is hard work in an election season. It means being present during debates that can at times be like watching 3rd graders argue about whose turn it is to be the good guy. The thing is, that’s what we’re choosing in this election.

We’re selecting the person who best represents our best selves. The best of the best, of our best selves. Surely telling two populations of people they aren’t welcome and building an illusionary wall as an exclamation point isn’t the best that America’s got to offer.

As one of the 146,311,000 employers of the next President of the United States, I follow the interview Golden Rule: When a candidate fails the in person sell, they don’t deserve the job.

Donald Trump this interview is over.

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Relephant:

To Mr. Trump, with Love

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Author: Deb Lecos

Editor: Caitlin Oriel

Image: Gage Skidmore/Flickr