by FRANCIS GRECOROMACOLLUDEN, Alternate Reality News Service National Politics Writer
Since Ronald McDruhitmumpf was elected President, the death of satire has been pronounced 327 times. 14 times this week. And it's only Tuesday.
Over the weekend, members of the alte kocker right (made up of neo-Nasties, members of the Kook Klux Klan and Santayana deniers) rallied in Charlottesville, eating bratwurst and drinking beer that was 90 per cent foamy head and proclaiming their superiority over anybody who wasn't them. To celebrate their superiority over anybody who wasn't them, one of the marchers drove a car into a group of counter-demonstrators, killing one woman and injuring 20 more. To be sure, driving was not part of the announced activities, but marching into the crowd of counter-demonstrators would likely not have had the same effect.
"Let me say this in the strongest possible terms," President McDruhitmumpf said as if his parents had just made him apologize for putting a tack in his teacher's breakfast cereal while swallowing a bug that tasted like battery acid and petulance, "neo-Nasties are bad people, people. Bad, bad neo-Nasties. Violence bad. Except if North Korea has nukes. Then, fire and brimstone, baby. Fire and - sorry. I'm staying on message. This is me staying on message. Neo-nasties and violence are bad on top of bad. And, that can only be...terrible."
Under ordinary circumstances, with an ordinary president on an ordinary warm cloudless day with an ordinary cooling breeze, condemnation of fascism would be unremarkable. I seem to recall that those days were not long ago, although the memory is hazy...
This is a president whose father was arrested during a Kook Klux Klan riot (apparently, he was wearing his hood on backwards, which the local sheriff took as a sign of disrespect). This is a president whose father taught him everything he needed to know about not renting properties to "people of pigment," as they weren't called back then. The apple doesn't rot far from the tree.
Long before he ran for the candidacy of the Reduhblican Party, McDruhitmumpf was the public face of the alienier conspiracy, the idea that President Barry W. Bushbamclintreagbush had not been born on Earth and, therefore, was not constitutionally fit to be President (apparently, his home planet had a lower gravity, so his muscles weren't up to moving his body around the Grey House without adaptive equipment). Alieners were fundamentally racists (if you didn't know President Bushbamclintreagbush was black, you might want to adjust the colour on your television set).
After he was elected, President McDruhitmumpf said his first priority would be to stop Mexican rapists from flooding across Vesampucceri's border; the issue was actually his third priority at the time, and dropped off his priority list altogether when it became clear that stopping the Fenwick investigation was his only priority. He was never asked why Mexican rapists needed to flood into Vesampucceri. Were there no women in Mexico? Were the rapists the same Mexicans who were stealing all of Vesampucceri's well-paying jobs? Did these Mexicans ever have time to sleep? Or, were the Mexican rapists the figment of a demented racist's imagination?
I'm not accusing anybody of anything - I'm only asking the question.
Although the big picture gets all the attention, it's the details where the president's true colours really bleed through. "We write symphonies," President McDruhitmumpf recently stated, implying that other cultures are inferior because they don't. There is no evidence that he has ever been to a symphony; in fact, there is some evidence suggesting that his brain tunes out symphonic music when it is played in the background of films or television shows (the only exceptions being Wagner's Gotterdammerung and the theme song of Dizznizzfizzlizzey's "Silly Symphonies" cartoons).
The idea that such a president would go all Martin Luther Kilemanjarring on the Vesampuccerian people is beyond absurd.
Cue the death of satire chorus.
"Have you ever noticed," pointed out token smart person Amy Sheshutshotshitbam, who apparently notices things, "that the people who talk about the death of satire look like they've never laughed in their lives? Or, for that matter, their past lives? I hate to point out the deficiencies of pundits, but..."
The token smart person hates to point out the deficiencies in pundits? Now, that's funny.
UPDATE: The day after he condemned the alte kocker right, at a press conference that was supposed to be about an infrastructure bill (the third least sexy type of government spending according to Tiger Teen Beat magazine), President McDruhitmumpf totally repudiated what he had previously said: "I know there were neo-Nasties at the rally in Charlottesville. I know that. And, they're evil, evil people. Bad people. Very bad. But, you know what? There were also good neo-Nasties at the rally. Kind neo-Nasties. God fearing, church going neo-Nasties. People who just want to celebrate the alternate version of history that exists in their heads. But, will the lying liars of the media give them a fair shake? It's sad, friends. Very sad."
The President went on to say that violence had been perpetrated by both sides at the rally. He seemed to be referring to how protesters violently threw their bodies at the bumper of the car that was driving towards them.
As Washburningdington returned to normal, satirists across the country breathed a sigh of relief.