(Cleaning up miscellaneous files today and came upon this, which I wrote early last year but never published, for reasons I no longer remember. Self-indulgent, definitely, but just a tiny bit comforting, too, in the way that pure fantasy can sometimes be.)
Once upon a time, in a faraway place (or maybe not so faraway), there was a very rich man. This very rich man owned many properties and made many deals all over the world, and came to believe that his vast wealth and properties proved he was more clever than other people.
So the very rich man decided to run for President. He made many speeches to very large crowds of people who admired his wealth, and many who even thought he was almost as clever as he believed himself to be. Eventually, even though more people preferred other candidates, the very rich man was elected President.
And so it came to pass that the very rich man, now President, was visited by several government officials with a report on how a foreign nation had influenced the country’s news media and voters, and had perhaps even manipulated the very rich man’s own campaign.
The very rich man was shocked to his core. At first, he resisted believing what he had been told. But as he read and reread the report all night, and considered the evidence it presented, he realized its conclusions were incontrovertible.
In the morning, the very rich man called a press conference to discuss what he had learned. “I have been an abject fool,” he said. “I convinced myself that I knew more than everyone else, that my own arrogant conception of common sense outweighed any facts, any knowledge, any expertise other than my own.
“But my own hubris is not the only problem now burdening our nation. We are also faced with the fact that my Vice President and several members of our Congressional leadership were completely aware of the foreign intervention and chose to ignore it in order to preserve their own positions of power.
“I am releasing a report to to Congress and to the public, naming these self-serving officials, and urge the Congress to move with the utmost dispatch to impeach and remove them from our government. Once this is accomplished, I myself will resign as President.”
Encouraged by a deluge of calls and letters and emails from citizens, Congress acted quickly. After half a dozen separate impeachment hearings, the House chose a new Speaker, a long-serving, well-respected, experienced Member of Congress; the Senate likewise replaced its Majority Leader.
The very rich man then kept his promise and resigned. He was replaced by the newly elected Speaker, who was herself replaced by another well-respected and experienced Member of Congress. Inspired by the newfound integrity and patriotism of the former President, the Congress proceeded to pass a Constitutional Amendment to eliminate the electoral college in favor of a popular vote for President, to strengthen voting rights nationwide, to enact comprehensive immigration reform, effective gun control, and single-payer health coverage, and to make significant progress dealing with climate change.
And everyone lived happily ever after.
(I told you it was a fairy tale. But it made a nice break from calling my Senators and Representative.)
Mary Griffith 