Succession Depression: Life After Trump?

Eating Pies and Telling Lies  (Based on a true story)

Possibly. But it feels like we’ve been here before.

The Republicans ate roast beef. That was one of the facts I hoped to verify, along with this vital tidbit: The new President wore mismatched socks. According to sources close to his feet, he picked them out himself.

When I finally discovered the truth he was sitting just above me, tucked behind the dais in a university gym. He’d flown in to honor a retiring senator, one of many these days. The commander-in-chief ate his beef and vegetables in silent tribute.

I was crumpled with my phone beneath his table, only inches from his blue and green socks. Mission accomplished, I suppose. Anyway, about midway through the meal I pulled on his leg. He passed a baked potato and continued chatting with the other Republicans. I tugged again and he leaned down, ostensibly to retie a lace.

“Is Ukraine really your Watergate?” I teased.

“You’re lucky I’m still a friend of the press,” he replied. “Bless your heart.”

A few hours earlier, I’d watched Secret Service men manhandle journalists at the airport. The concrete walkway near the planes had become a frisking ground hours before the arrival of Air Force One. As one photographer reassembled his equipment, the blond agent who did the frisk leaned over him, rechecking every item. He looked like an Ivy leaguer who had joined the mob.

Flashing an outdated press card I edged past them. Then a rock-hard voice froze me in place: “PLEASE. MOVE. BEHIND. THAT. FENCE.”

The face connected to the warning looked like tooled leather left out in a storm. I smiled, shrugged, then began to focus my camera on the gaggle of government studs.

Leather Face immediately turned friendly. As much as he wanted to help, he lamented, he simply couldn’t let me through without the special pass I might obtain at the gym. But there I discovered that only ten reporters would be allowed to actually see the president. And all of them were cleared a week earlier. Of course, financial contributions provided almost guaranteed clearance.

After dinner, tonight’s guest of honor rambled on for the stuffed contributors. “This is the largest group who ever ate apple pie together,” he proclaimed. Right, a patriot’s Cochella.

Personally, I was still brooding over my rejection from the press pool. Yet I’d managed to slip into the gym within a bunch of tipsy politicos singing “Hail to the Chief.” Before dinner I ducked beneath the dais and crawled to the front of the hall.

When a pair of legs invaded my hideout I peeked up. Wings of karma! The man known to millions as the nation’s top un-indicted co-conspirator. A light cuff tug let him know I was there. No threat intended, I explained. My paper, Metesky’s* Monthly, was just looking for a personal angle.

While the Big Guy ate pie I reviewed my previous encounter with the SS. Pretty tight on the reins, I complained. “Whatever happened to openness and candor?”

He beckoned me closer with an index finger just below the table cloth. But as I edged forward he silently smeared the remains of his pie into my face with a smile and snapped, “Pass interception.”

Apparently, “openness and candor” had turned into “fun and games.” That said, the pie was tasty.

It had been quite a night already, beginning on the dying lawn of a Ramada Inn. Cop cars zipping back and forth nearby on the commercial strip. A circle of chilled resistors stamping across the grass, carrying signs, chanting to bemused tourists and assorted local gawkers. 

The center of dissent was about two dozen cloaked actors/activists who had come to speak and act out about war and amnesty (for immigrants, not officials) and the general state of emergency that the new boss had declared. Their leader was a gangly apparition, grey hair streaming to his shoulders. Other members of the troupe wore black and too much makeup. In a monotone they chanted, “Pence, Pence, it’s too late, Ukraine is your Watergate.”

But something was missing. Call it real conviction. Tear gas or helmet-headed shock troops might have provided the necessary adrenalin rush. As it was, the performance delivered dramatic tableaus. But not much actual drama. Snake-lining beneath red dragon fabric they eventually formed a totem pole frieze, then shouted truisms about fascism, capitalism and other isms that ought to be abolished. Not many watching took up the chants. 

Another old slogan popped into my mind. If only they had included “Two, four, six, eight, organize and smash the state.” But it did feel outdated in the age of tranquility. 

The performance ended after dusk. But the picket group core continued until a black limo carrying the Commander-in-Chief whizzed into the parking lot. Then the crowd surged forward. Eventually herded back to the front, they regrouped and restarted the chants. But the point was getting obscure. Why protest this accidental President? What did he represent, except possibly moral bankruptcy in its terminal form.

As if to echo the thought, one marcher asked, “How can you hate a banana?” That sounded right. Our new thief of state was indeed a strange political fruit, one with a pale, slippery skin that probably concealed a deeply rotten interior.

When Senator Magoo finally surrendered the podium the president leapt to his feet. It would probably be my last shot at an exclusive, so I yelled, “sir, what America is asking itself, does all that smiling hurt your face?”

Realizing he didn’t plan to answer I grabbed a leg, which sent his shoe skittering across the floor. An SS man lept from the front table and splayed himself over the footwear.

“Good save,” cheered the Prez. Then an aside, “You get used to this sort of thing.”

During his speech I did learn a few things. Very few. Here are two takeaways. When politicians talk the warm up is often as long as the speech. And, to be effective make a connection with the place being visited — even if you have to lie.

The new guy certainly had a way with words. I’m being ironic, but he did praise the “breadth and depth and greatness” of the honoree. He also explained that here was the only man he ever knew who could “go into a store with one dollar for four pounds of sugar and come back with change.”

“I am not a crook,” the old senator protested. After a while taking notes felt more like doodling than journalism.

Outside hundreds of people were hearing from several angry vets. The millions currently living underground were not likely to go along with the limited amnesty being offered, they explained. And pardoning the previous president, as well as his cronies? That was also a crime, one violating just about everyone’s sense of fair play. It felt like we had all been here before.

Despite the cold weather and dark sense of deja vu the resistance was optimistic. They were building a broad people’s movement, after all. And the president seemed to agree. But for him all this alternative political energy was a threat. “The politics of America is bound up in the two party system,” he warned. Exactly, bound and gagged.

“We fell into the pattern of the two party system,” he continued. And a lucky thing we did, since in countries with more than two there’s chaos, instability, and lack of direction. The choice is clear, he concluded with civics class simplicity. Loss of freedom with one party, or chaos with many.

After their book went to #1, Trump quit,
 made his escape, and bought part of North Korea.   

I couldn’t write down any more of this. My cheeks were streaked with tears. But I did finally understand. He was declaring war on independence in the name of stability and order. Thus, he called on stalwarts from both parties to join together and crush the threat of diversity. After all, how could congress function with more than two aisles, or more than two answers to any question? 

“Strengthen the twin pillars of democracy,” he urged. And what would that require? Sacrifice. Not again. I could feel a howl of pain spread across the nation. Haven’t we suffered enough? How about amnesty for the rest of us? Or maybe the Russian method. When dealing with “troubled” patients, just put them to sleep for a few weeks.

These days we’re all troubled patients, I thought. Maybe a sleep cure is just what we need. At least we’d save on gas. And many people would prefer a brief coma to another dose of sacrifice and responsibility.

But the Big Guy wasn’t listening. Instead, he was winding up with some nostalgia about the Continental Congress. After one early session, Benjamin Franklin reportedly told a spectator, “We have given you a Republic, if you can keep it.” 

All it took, added The Man, was sacrifice and vision. With an involuntary spasm, I bit my camera. The audience rose to cheer as I rolled out onto the floor. Seconds later the nearest SS man was hovering above. Grabbing both legs he began pulling me out of view. 

The cheers and standing ovation had meanwhile brought tears to the president’s eyes. Turning philosophical, he winked and said, “We have given you another Republican. But will you keep me?”

“Wait, check my credentials,” I protested, “I have references, good intentions. I’m registered to vote!” They dragged me out anyway. “Okay, okay, but just put me to sleep. Honestly, I came for the pie,” I pled hoarsely before blacking out. “But the main course in this place has made me sick.”

* George Peter Metesky, (1903-1994), electrician and mechanic, anger and resentment icon, also known as the Mad Bomber.