Satire/Rosie Sorenson

Condolences to the USA

The Year of our Lord 2027: Trump is in his third Presidential term. The New York Times has been forced to shutter its presses. Ditto the Washington Post, Politico and all other reputable news outlets. Fox has taken over CNN and NPR and has put MSNBC out of business.

There has been a wild upsurge in emigration with long, long lines at the airports, but only the uneducated are allowed to leave. If they can prove that they have nothing more than a high school education, Trump is happy to see them go. Anyone with an AA, a BA or higher is forbidden from traveling outside the country.

Great Britain has closed its doors to Americans. “We just can’t take any more,” says Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Britain’s economy crashed after Brexit, and they can barely feed their own people.

The US population has dropped to less than 290 million. “Just the right size,” says Trump. “Easier to control.” Mexico has erected border fencing to keep hundreds of thousands of Americans from crossing over illegally. “We can’t afford to have them here,” says President Obrador, in his second term.

“Send them on to Honduras or Guatemala—I don’t care,” says Trump.

One day, a letter with no postmark mysteriously appears at CNN. No one sees who delivers it. The only mark on the outside is a big “G” in the upper lefthand corner.

The clerk gingerly opens it and reads:

“Dear People of the USA,

I am sending you my condolences for the loss of your democracy. I never in my wildest dreams thought that you would abandon the great gift that was given to you back in 1776. I thought you were smarter than that. I can see now I was wrong. I was wrong to give you great intelligence and at the same time endow you with free will. If I could have a do over, I’d allow you your smarts but hold back a bit on the other. I know now I should have kept my hand on the tiller. My bad.

It’s too late for me to intervene. Your country will be decimated in the next few years from things you could have prevented, and there’s nothing I can do. I’m going to seek out another planet with intelligent life and begin anew to correct the mistakes I made in trusting you so much. I will find a planet whose inhabitants welcome guidance and restraint on their impulses. They will thrive for millennia. You people? Not so much.

With great affection and sadness,

God”

The letter makes it up the food chain to Emperor Trump. Mick Mulvaney rushes into the Oval Office, reads the letter to Trump and then hands it over to him. Trump tosses it into the trash.

“Ha! That’s a dumb joke—sounds like something the Clintons would make up. But of course, they’re dead now. Maybe Chelsea sent it—wouldn’t put it past them from the grave.”

“But Sir, it’s going to be broadcast on CNN-Fox in the next few minutes.”

“What? Oh, for God’s sake, stop it, Mick. We can’t have our stupid people believing this is really from God.”

“It’s too late, Sir.” Mulvaney points the remote at the TV. “There is a pretty, white-toothed blond reading the letter right now.”

“Fine. Let them have their little moment of uprising. If it goes on tomorrow, you know what to do.”

“But, Sir, you know what happened the last time you called out the Army.”

“Yes, yes. We lost a million or more—who cares? They weren’t my people. As I said years ago, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters. My voters.”

“As you wish, Sir.”

Rosie Sorenson is a humor writer in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can contact her at: RosieSorenson29@yahoo.com

From The Progressive Populist, August 1, 2019

Populist.com