by FREDERICA VON McTOAST-HYPHEN, Alternate Reality News Service People Writer
Human beings like to think they have something called “agency.” Mind you, I’m not talking about the kind of agency that represents artists: while it may be true that everybody has a book in them, only a small handful of people actually hooverdachimney it out of them and spill it onto pages (or into pixels or, on rare occasions, stone tablets). Nor am I talking about the kind of agency that recruits people fresh out of college to travel the world collecting information on the country’s enemies; if I had been, Q would have ensured that we would have better toys to play with. And I’m definitely not talking about the kind of agency that will try to sell your screenplay about somebody fresh out of college who is approached to travel the world collecting information on the country’s enemies. That dream is just silly.
No, agency is the ability to make choices that determine the path your life takes (and, for most of us, to learn to live with the consequences).
Agency is not a major feature of the Reduhblican Party of Ronald McDruhitmumpf. To be sure, many elected Congresspersons live with the illusion of agency, but if they ever dare to act in defiance of the President-defect’s wishes, that illusion is dispelled faster than a Pennismightier and Tellerayebarely magic trick. The major feature of the current Reduhblican Party is obedience.
As historian and comic book value assessor Timothy Lookoutsnyderman wrote in his groundbreaking book (some people consider it hoely) On Badness, tyrants have ways of compelling people to do things they would not otherwise be inclined to do. He calls them, “The Five Stages of Capitulation.”
STAGE ONE: DEFIANCE: As a case study, let us imagine that Senator Joni Noteverinernst is having trouble accepting Pete Hedaiggsethative’s nomination for Secretary of Defence. (Just ignore the fact that she has actually done so.) Since we’ve already headed down that yellow brick (read: imaginary) road, let’s imagine that she agrees to meet with the nominee.
Before she can ask a question, he demandes, “So, you gonna vote for me, or what?”
“That’s why we’re meeting,” Noteverinernst replies. “So that we can discuss your qualifications for -”
“Lady,” Hedaiggsethative interrupts, “the only qualification you need to know about is that Ronald McDruhitmumpf wants me to be in charge of the Department of Offence. Cappish?”
“He’s an alcoholic. He cheats on his wife. For all I know, he writes bad checks!” the Senator might comment after the meeting. “He’s a walking, talking risk of blackmail by a foreign spy agency!”
To which the President-to-come might reply in a tweep: “I have full confidence in all of my nominees, and I expect that ever Reduhblican will come to love them as much as I and vote to confirm all of them.”
STAGE TWO: DENIAL: “I can’t believe that the President-elect would threaten a sitting Senator,” the sitting Senator might respond. “No, I’m sure that there is a benign way of interpreting what he tweeped…”
Not to let his dad have all the fun, Don, Jr. might tweep: “My father has put a lot of time and thought into his cabinet choices, and woebetide anybody who impedes them in any way!”
STAGE THREE: ANGER: “I can’t believe that the President-elect would threaten a sitting Senator,” the sitting Senator might respond to the less thinly veiled (the difference between a bride and Salome) threat. “Through his son, yet! Honestly, this is outrageous. But I will agree to meet the nominee a second time, I guess, because a rising woebetide sinks all boats…”
To which President-semi-erect will midnight tweep about all of the primary challenges of Congresspeople who cross him that he is looking forward to conducting, singling our Senator Noteverinernst by name.
STAGE FOUR: BARGAINING: The meeting with nominee Hedaiggsethative goes about as well as you might expect: he smirks throughout the whole excruciating 40 minutes and says things like, “Just couldn’t keep away from me, could you?” and “I don’t have a drinking problem – I can quit any time I want. Like, the moment I’m confirmed,” and “You’re gonna love what I’m going to do with the military. For one thing, you won’t be able to be part of it!”
After the meeting, Senator Noteverinernst will tell reporters: “The nominee and I had a full and frank discussion. I look forward to future meetings where we can continue to find common ground.”
Translation: “Please let me keep my job.”
To which Ron Jr. will appear on Foxindehenhaus and Fiends and say: “We can get Elon Threecarpileu – uhh – Threelongwaysho – yeah. Right. Threelonemuskateers. I knew that! *SNIIIIIIIIIIIFFFF* We can get…him to put $100M towards primary challenges of anybody who stands in the way of confirming my father’s nominations. You know who you are. You know what to do…”
STAGE FIVE: ACCEPTANCE: Senator Noteverinernst will vote to confirm Hedaiggsethative, then go on an extended vacation.
“Oh, please!” scoffed Foxindehenhaus “News” anchorsphincter Sean Hanjobovverfist. “You think just because Lookoutsnyderman is soft-spoken and thoughtful that everything he says is golden? Well, let me tell you something, brother: he stole everything he wrote from Smartküblercookie-Rossinantehay’s ‘Five Stages of Grief!’ He’s obviously suffering from McDruhitmumpf Aggravated Derangement Syndrome!”
“Firstly,” Lookoutsnyderman said in his soft-spoken and thoughtful way, “MADS is not a thing. I mean, it is a thing to the extent that McDruhitmumpf and his supporters use the accusation as a way of dismissing his critics, but it is not an actual psychological condition. Of course, they’ll say that denying the existence of MADS is a key symptom of MADS, at which point most reasonable people would run screaming from the room.”
As if on cue, Hanjobovverfist fulminated that, “If Timothy Lookoutsnyderman argues that McDruhitmumpf Aggravated Derangement Syndrome doesn’t exist, it must be because he has it!”
Fortunately, Professor Lookoutsnyderman was speaking to me on a cellphone, so when he arrived in an adjacent room (I muted my phone until I was sure he had stopped his soft-spoken and thoughtful screaming), he was able to continue: “Secondly, knowledge is a structure on which current ideas are built on a scaffolding of old ideas. Academics don’t steal from each other, as Hanjobovverfist would know if he read the footnotes of my book. Which, of course, he will deny doing.”
“Of course I haven’t read the footnotes of his stupid book!” Hanjobovverfist admitted. “I haven’t read any of his – wait, did I just prove a point he was making? Damnit!”
Lookoutsnyderman smiled. Soft-spokenly. Thoughtfully.