In the world of Mayans M.C., President Trump’s wall along the Mexican border has already been built. Mayans M.C. is the sequel series to motorcycle club drama Sons of Anarchy, and it has been explicitly political from the get-go, centering the titular gang in a political upheaval right on the border between California and Mexico.
The show’s second season, now three episodes deep, has turned the political messaging up several degrees by not only alluding to the Trump administration, but also depicting a world where Trump’s regime has been successful in implementing several of the president’s campaign promises.
In Mayans M.C., a literal wall has been built separating the US and Mexico, and it’s implied that Mexico took on at least some of the tens of billions of dollars in cost. Here’s how the politics of the last few years have played out in the show.
The Wall Was Erected Recently
Several months passed between the end of Mayans M.C. season 1 and the start of season 2, and the first thing the show does to demonstrate this passing of time is show this new concrete barrier that people are being forced to live with. At first, it seemed this was an inconvenience nobody would directly discuss, but in the second episode, Emily and Miguel Galindo get a big surprise when they find out there’s some hurdles to their land development plans.
In the episode “Xaman-Ek,” Emily goes to have a sit down with the Santo Padre Town Council about what she and Miguel believe should be a smooth process in buying a piece of agricultural land. Instead she finds out they’ll be bidding against at least six other prospective buyers, and that the town is limping along on resources despite a “70 billion dollar wall” being built half a mile away.
One of President Trump’s central messages was that he intended to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. It isn’t specified directly if the Mexican government did spring for at least some of controversial move, but the mentioning of it while talking how little aid is being sent to struggling communities makes the implication high.
Trump Has Emboldened The Existing Racism In The World Of Mayans M.C.
“Xaman-Ek” ends with racist cops killing a member of a Sons of Anarchy charter that the Mayans were particularly close with. In the following episode, “Camazotz,” the third in the season, the club decide to get revenge. The murdering officer is re-introduced watching a Trump rally that the “fake news media” is ignoring. The connections are overt and obvious, the show only heightening what many against Trump already know to be true: that his regime is helping make existing bigotry and prejudices more pronounced. There’s no doubt the dirty cops the club had to deal with were dirty long before Trump took office, but his presence gave them license to be riskier and sloppier, which ultimately gets them killed.
In the lead-up to show’s premiere, last June co-creator Kurt Sutter told Variety that the border would be an issue in the series, despite him not setting out to make something political. “This is a show that takes place on the border, and it’s a politically-charged, and emotionally-charged, part of the world,” He said. “That stuff will have to bleed into the storytelling, or it won’t be authentic."
The linking of President Trump to police brutality is a bold statement, made even bolder by the idea that Trump’s made better on his promises in the world of Mayans M.C. and Sons of Anarchy than he has in the real world. This may be one case where the our world is preferable to the fantasy.
Next: 5 Characters From Sons Of Anarchy We Want To See In Mayans MC (& 5 We Don’t)
