Mike Pence, Kellyanne Con­way and I will look alike this week­end. All three of us will claw through our clos­ets, and pluck out our green­est garb.

I’m celebrating St. Paddy’s Day in the Trump era by stepping up as an Irish-American progressive.

Like Pence, Con­way and one too many oth­er mem­bers of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s inner cir­cle, I’m descend­ed from Irish immi­grants, and I’m cel­e­brat­ing my her­itage while dressed in clover col­ors this St. Patrick’s Day.

Unlike Trump’s Celtic cronies, how­ev­er, I feel com­pelled to point out a his­tor­i­cal truth that they seem to have over­looked: though Ire­land is gor­geous (with rolling hills and sweep­ing seascapes), it was for cen­turies con­sid­ered a ​“shit­hole coun­try” of the very same sort that Trump now derides.

For most of Amer­i­can his­to­ry, Irish immi­grants were not exact­ly wel­comed when they washed up on these shores. They came here in droves, and they were des­per­ate. In the mid-1800s alone, more than a third of Ireland’s pop­u­la­tion was lost to star­va­tion or emi­gra­tion. Mil­lions of Irish refugees fled to the Unit­ed States and scram­bled to sup­port them­selves by doing menial work. And over time, one too many of their descen­dents have grown unset­tling­ly com­fort­able with their mate­r­i­al ease and their rel­a­tive­ly new­found white privilege.

The ​“unde­sir­ables” that Pence and Con­way are help­ing to demo­nize? Those ​“oth­ers” are actu­al­ly us. In an iron­ic and har­row­ing twist of his­to­ry, right-wing Irish Amer­i­can lead­ers are foist­ing per­se­cu­tion — a wall along the Mex­i­can bor­der; the revo­ca­tion of DACA pro­tec­tions — on undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants who are, like our fore­bears, sim­ply seek­ing the sanc­tu­ary that is a human right.

As we peel our pota­toes, bake our soda bread and pre­pare to plunge into our St. Paddy’s Day feasts this year, pro­gres­sive Irish Amer­i­cans are find­ing our stom­achs a wee bit unset­tled. We’re wor­ried about the 50,000 undoc­u­ment­ed Irish immi­grants who are cur­rent­ly liv­ing in the Unit­ed States. And we’re not just embar­rassed — but mor­ti­fied — by Pence, Con­way, Sean Han­ni­ty, John Kel­ly, Michael Fly­nn, Mitch McConnell, Lin­da McMa­hon, Mick Mul­vaney and Paul Ryan — all descen­dants of Irish immi­grants, and all right-wingers who have betrayed their own her­itage by either sid­ing with Trump on immi­gra­tion or qui­et­ly acqui­esc­ing to his racist rants.

One year, 54 days, and too many hours into the Trump­tas­tro­phe, I want to rea­son with the freck­led mem­bers of Trump’s inner cabal. In my fire­brand fan­tasies, we debate immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy. Because my wit proves to be sharp­er (wit rules, among the Irish), I win the argu­ment, they change course, and America’s refugees final­ly find peace in this land.

Trou­ble is, Pence, Con­way and their ilk are too busy per­se­cut­ing immi­grants (and carv­ing up Amer­i­ca and feed­ing it to the priv­i­leged) to sit down and have a chat with me. I sup­pose I could sink to my knees and pray the rosary to atone for my brethren’s sins. Trou­ble is, I gave up Catholi­cism — ini­tial­ly for Lent, and then per­ma­nent­ly — in the wake of Church pedophil­ia scan­dals that enrage me even more than Steve Bannon’s smug Irish grin.

What to do? When I was younger and still had nat­u­ral­ly red hair, one of the Irish priests who was charged with edu­cat­ing me gave me a dog-eared copy of Pao­lo Freire’s Ped­a­gogy of the Oppressed. Thumb­ing through it in the lead-up to St. Paddy’s Day, I con­tem­plate Freire’s expla­na­tion of why peo­ple who have once been oppressed often turn around and foist the same oppres­sion on oth­ers who they see as below or beneath them. It’s hap­pened for mil­len­nia. It hap­pens across cul­tures. It’s human. It’s pre­dictable. But that doesn’t make it any less hor­ri­ble — espe­cial­ly when your own peo­ple are doing it in your name.

I think of my Irish-born grand­fa­ther, a life­long lefty who was stub­born in his pro­gres­sive ideals because he came to them by way of oppres­sion (his rur­al mar­ket vil­lage was burned by out­siders who came storm­ing in with guns, and after he rebelled by becom­ing an activist, he was sum­mar­i­ly thrown into a series of dank pris­ons). When my grand­fa­ther fled to this coun­try (under legal­ly murky cir­cum­stances that would like­ly have ICE knock­ing down his door today), he made a point to befriend oth­er ​“oth­ers.” Nev­er mind that the col­or of their skin did not match his own. He got it. He under­stood that them also means us.

Some­times, I fan­ta­size about flee­ing to my grandfather’s home­land and wait­ing out the Trump­tas­tro­phe there. (I have dual cit­i­zen­ship in the Unit­ed States and Ire­land, and had my Irish pass­port renewed the instant Trump assumed office.) Though I clash with con­ser­v­a­tive Irish Catholics on the mat­ter of repro­duc­tive choice (I am for it; they are not), oth­er issues are ones on which the Irish natives and I hearti­ly agree. My cousin Maeve in Coun­ty Sli­go thinks Michelle Oba­ma should be the U.S. pres­i­dent. And Ireland’s taoiseach—or prime min­is­ter — is a gay man of Indi­an extrac­tion who’s cur­rent­ly in a pub­lic rela­tion­ship with a hand­some Irish lad. Ire­land legal­ized gay mar­riage before Amer­i­ca did. And the country’s reign­ing ruler may not be the taoiseach or even the pres­i­dent who helps steer the Irish gov­ern­ment. That hon­or may actu­al­ly fall to Pan­ti Bliss (aka Rory O’Neill), a six-foot-three-in-stilet­tos, HIV-pos­i­tive drag per­former who bills her­self as ​“The Queen of Ire­land” and who is uni­ver­sal­ly beloved by the sheep farm­ers and grannies who occu­py Ireland’s rur­al pubs.

My own granny would not stom­ach Don­ald Trump. Nor would she stom­ach my whing­ing about him as I beat myself up about his advi­sors’ eth­nic­i­ty. (This is all-too-typ­i­cal Irish-Catholic behav­ior. We are guilty about every­thing, and we are espe­cial­ly guilty by asso­ci­a­tion.) ​“You’re a great one for com­plain­ing,” I can hear my grand­moth­er chas­tise me in her thick Sli­go brogue. ​“But you need to get off your cross, because the rest of us need the wood.”

Because I can think of no bet­ter way to atone for Pence and Con­way — and because my grand­par­ents and Pan­ti Bliss would hearti­ly approve — I’m cel­e­brat­ing St. Paddy’s Day in the Trump era by step­ping up as an Irish-Amer­i­can pro­gres­sive. Ear­li­er in March, accom­pa­nied by three gay gen­tle­men of Irish-Amer­i­can extrac­tion, I attend­ed the St. Pat’s For All parade here in New York City. (LGBT friend­ly, as the main­stream parade has not always been, this small­er cel­e­bra­tion was buoyed by the music of bag­pipes, tin whis­tles, and rain­bow flags flap­ping in the breeze.) This week­end, accom­pa­nied by my freck­led, social­ist father, I’ll help pack the aisles at Irish Stand — a mas­sive New York City ral­ly that calls on Irish Amer­i­cans to sup­port immi­grants and refugees. Along with Irish Sen­a­tor Aod­hán Ó Ríordáin and writ­ers Malachy McCourt and Colum McCann, I’ll toss my mon­ey into the bas­ket and help drum up fund­ing for the New York Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union Foun­da­tion. I’ll have my cri­sis of con­science. And then, I’ll drink to that.