| 1. | Have you said or done anything that would anger the President? | |
| NO | 2. | Give it time, friend. Give it time. GO TO 1 |
| YES | 3. | Has your statement or action that angered the President been reported on by the press? |
| NO | 4. | Give them time, friend. Give them time. GO TO 3 |
| YES | 5. | Was your statement or action that angered the President reported in the left wing or right wing press? |
| RIGHT | 6. | No harm done, then. The story will be buried between accusations that Special Prosecutor Robert Meullitallover is secretly an Alpha Centaurian sent here to weaken our world’s defenses to prepare us for our alien overlords, and reports of George Sorobororos’ fake prostate exam results. GO TO 5 |
| LEFT | 7. | President McDruhitmumpf tweeps about what you said or did. It is not a happy tweep. |
| 8. | Does the media pick up on the tweep? | |
| NO | 9. | You’re getting really good at the whole dodging a bullet thing, aren’t you? Lavish praise on the President privately and hope he accepts your grovelling. GO TO 1 |
| YES | 10. | Does this start a downward spiral of tweeps leading to more media coverage leading to more tweeps leading to even more media coverage? |
| NO | 11. | Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean the bullet isn’t looking for you. Still. Privately offer the President your resignation and start polishing your resume. GO TO 1 |
| YES | 12. | Does the news cycle move on to another crisis? |
| YES | 13. | The bullet stopped just short of your heart. You may feel intermittent chest pains for the rest of your life, but your career is, for the moment, safe. GO TO 1 and never sin again |
| NO | 14. | Are you still furthering the President’s agenda? |
| YES | 15. | The bullet stopped just short of your heart, but it contains explosives that could go off at any moment. Try doing your job with that hanging over your head! GO TO 1 |
| NO | 16. | If you don’t resign, you’ll get to hear the President say his second favourite phrase in the whole world: “You’re fired!” Don’t let the damage to your reputation hit your ass on the way out. |
Notes
There’s no delicate way to put this, so we’ll just come out with it: current revolving door technology is not sufficiently advanced to accommodate all of the senior McDruhitmumpf administration officials who have left the Grey House in the President’s first year in office. The rear entrance to the building now appears to sport a revolving big hole in the wall to handle the traffic.
Okay, maybe we could have put that a little less indelicately, but the point is that a pattern can be discerned within the seeming chaos of goings and more goings from the Grey House. The McDruhitmumpf Administration Insubordination Response Algorithm is an attempt to tease out the main features of this pattern, just like your stylist teases out knots in your hair.
Some of the activities outlined in the algorithm may be difficult to codify. To use an obvious example, it’s hard to know what speech or action will anger President Ronald McDruhitmumpf. Beating him at golf? Making a joke about son-in-law Jared Kushkushinthebush’s hair? Making a joke about Kushkushinthebush’s hair while beating the President at golf? Sometimes, the President’s complaints can seem petty, sometimes the President can be…magnanimous may be overstating the case, but…not quite as petty. Yeah. Not quite as petty will have to do. This step is trial and error, just like walking through a field of land mines.
Or, take the question of Grey House activities being “reported on” by the press. This is sometimes a euphemism for “leaked to,” except in the McDruhitmumpf administration, where the terms appear to be synonymous. President McDruhitmumpf appears to have taken Linkedinonalog’s idea of a team of rivals to its logical extreme: he has assembled a team of take no prisoners fight to the death scorched earth psychotic mortal enemies.
This reveals one of the flaws of an algorithmic analysis of behaviours: while the algorithm treats each case individually, they rarely occur in a vacuum. In fact, President Scorched Earth – sorry, I meant President McDruhitmumpf reportedly has been in a continual state of high dudgeon (which is connected to the island of heightened animus by the isthmus of low comedy) since the second week of his administration. This undoubtedly makes the trigger for his anger much hairier than it would ordinarily be.
You may get the impression from the way that the algorithm is structured that sooner or later everybody in the McDruhitmumpf administration will be fired. You might say that – we couldn’t possibly comment.
As ever, we caution that this algorithm is descriptive, not proscriptive; it is an attempt to show the world as it is, not as it should be. Because, boy, oh boy, the world should definitely not be like this!