Once upon a twisted time in the waning days of a sick republic, the country was no longer run by a president. It was run by a Don. Not a ceremonial Don. Not some Vito Corleone wax-museum wannabe. No, this Don had orange skin that looked like it was spray-painted by a blind contractor, a gravity-defying pompadour that defied both physics and good taste, and a voice that sounded like a chainsaw trying to seduce a garbage disposal while gargling McDonald's grease.
"The Don" ran America like it was a bloated mafia empire—except instead of bootlegging whiskey, he was trafficking truth. Bending it, breaking it, selling it to the highest bidder like knockoff Rolexes in Times Square. This wasn't politics. This was racketeering at the speed of Twitter, conducted by a man who thought the Constitution was a breakfast menu.
I. The Family Business
He didn't have a cabinet. He had a crew of genetic misfits and ideological arsonists.
Junior: The coke-fueled capo with daddy issues deeper than the Mariana Trench and Instagram fingers that moved faster than his brain. Spent most meetings snorting crushed Adderall off copies of The Art of the Deal while live-tweeting conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton's pizza preferences.
Fredo: The consigliere nobody took seriously, not even his own reflection. Had the strategic mind of a concussed goldfish and the charisma of wet cardboard. His primary role was standing in corners, breathing through his mouth, and occasionally clapping when someone said "America."
The Princess: The icy emissary, half-woman, half-furniture showroom, all synthetic grace. She spoke in corporate buzzwords that meant nothing and smiled like a Stepford wife having a software malfunction. Her superpower was making genocide sound like a lifestyle brand.
Jimmy the Snake: The shadow broker with dead eyes and a billion-dollar Rolodex filled with war criminals and oil sheiks. This human embodiment of unflavored yogurt somehow convinced everyone he could solve the Middle East because he once stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in Jerusalem.
Stevie Three Shirt: The wartime consigliere, straight out of a Bukowski fever dream, reeking of gin, sulfur, and the collapse of Western civilization. He looked like he'd been dragged backwards through a hedge maze made of broken bourbon bottles and far-right message boards.
Louie the Lip: The ghoulish architect of cruelty, a walking advertisement for why cousins shouldn't marry. This spectral policy wonk looked like he'd been assembled from spare parts found in a eugenics textbook. His dead-eyed stare could make concentration camp guards uncomfortable, and his immigration policies read like they were drafted by someone who'd never met a human being he didn't want to deport. Spent his free time practicing his Himmler impression in bathroom mirrors.
Vinnie No-Nose: The shape-shifting opportunist who reinvented himself more times than a used car salesman's pitch. From "Never" to "Always" faster than you could say "book deal." This bearded weathervane of ambition looked like he'd been focus-grouped by a committee of suburban soccer moms. His political spine was made of overcooked spaghetti and his convictions changed directions more often than a GPS with a concussion.
Johnny Sausage: The perpetual also-ran, sweating through suits like a guilty defendant at sentencing. This caffeinated chihuahua of foreign policy vibrated with the nervous energy of someone who'd never met a war he wouldn't cheerfully send other people's children to fight. His thirst was legendary - not just for water, but for relevance that remained forever just out of reach.
Maria the Muzzle: The prairie executioner who shot her own dog and somehow thought that made her presidential material. This botoxed rancher princess looked like she'd been carved from a single block of Midwestern passive-aggression. Her smile suggested she'd murder puppies for sport, and her political instincts were about as sharp as a butter knife in a gunfight.
Toni the Tigress: The legal mercenary with a briefcase full of bought-and-paid-for opinions. This bleached-blonde bulldozer of jurisprudence looked like she'd stepped out of a 1990s legal thriller where the villain wore power suits and had questionable ethics. Her legal principles were as flexible as a yoga instructor and twice as well-compensated.
The Turtle: The underboss who moved like he was swimming through molasses made of corporate donations. His neck skin suggested he was either 900 years old or slowly melting. He could kill democracy with a smile that looked like it was carved by a blind mortician.
Scam-a-Lago became ground zero—gold-plated like a Russian oligarch's toilet, chandelier-hung like a mob boss's wet dream, full of loyalists in golf shirts stretched over back braces and beer guts. The Don held court from a throne that used to be a bidet, because nothing said "American dignity" like conducting state business from repurposed bathroom fixtures.
The Well-Meaning Resistance
While the Don's crew operated like a cross between the Sopranos and a daycare center for sociopaths, the loyal opposition fought back with the tactical precision of a book club organizing a potluck dinner during an earthquake.
The Dealmaker: The Senate's most optimistic pessimist, perpetually convinced that this time he could negotiate with people who'd sell their own mothers for a Supreme Court seat. He approached bipartisanship like a man trying to teach quantum physics to a pack of rabid wolverines—earnest, well-intentioned, and doomed to failure. His superpower was making passionate speeches to empty chambers while Republicans were out back making deals with actual devils.
XYZ: The millennial firebrand who tweeted truth bombs while older Democrats clutched their pearls and checked their stock portfolios. She had the energy of a caffeinated activist and the Twitter game of a digital native, but was stuck in an institution that moved at the speed of continental drift. Watching her try to drag the Democratic Party into the 21st century was like watching someone try to teach their grandparents how to use TikTok—admirable, exhausting, and ultimately futile.
The Brooklyn Bulldozer: The eternal revolutionary who'd been fighting the same fight since before Moses invented tablets. This wild-haired prophet of economic justice looked like he'd been animated by Disney to represent the concept of righteous indignation. He could diagnose every problem with capitalism in seventeen different languages but couldn't convince his own party to stop taking money from the very oligarchs he was railing against. His rallies had the energy of rock concerts; his legislative victories had the frequency of Halley's Comet.
The Scholar : The professor-politician who brought actual facts to a feelings fight. This bow-tie-wearing bastion of democratic norms tried to defend the Constitution against people who used it as bathroom reading. He delivered impeachment arguments with the precision of a surgeon and the passion of a poet, only to watch Republicans vote like they were being held at gunpoint by their own stupidity. His faith in democratic institutions was both inspiring and heartbreaking—like watching someone water plants during a forest fire.
The Gladiator: A Ken doll governor who looked like he'd been focus-grouped by a committee of yoga instructors and organic wine enthusiasts. He governed the world's fifth-largest economy while maintaining hair that could survive a nuclear blast. His policies were progressive, his presentation was presidential, and his timing was perpetually six months behind the national mood. He fought fascism with farmer's market energy and French Laundry sophistication.
The Tragic Irony
These were the good folk—competent, well-meaning, occasionally inspiring—trying to hold back a tide of willful ignorance with strongly worded letters and parliamentary procedure. They brought facts to a fantasy fight, civility to a cage match, and constitutional law to a mob war.
Their tragedy wasn't their failures—it was their persistent faith that reason would eventually triumph over stupidity, that democracy would survive contact with people who thought it was a liberal conspiracy.
They were the designated drivers at America's longest-running drunk driving competition, sober and responsible while everyone else careened toward the cliff singing patriotic songs and chugging beer.
The Circus Never Ends
And so the great American experiment limped toward its grotesque finale—not with the bang of revolution or the whimper of surrender, but with the wet, flatulent sound of a democracy shitting itself to death on live television while a mariachi band played "The Star-Spangled Banner" backwards in a shopping mall food court.
The Don had achieved what no foreign enemy ever could: he'd convinced half the country that freedom meant slavery, ignorance meant strength, and bankruptcy meant winning bigly. He didn't destroy America—he turned it into a carnival funhouse where all the mirrors were cracked, all the rides were broken, and the only game left was pin-the-tail-on-the-Constitution while blindfolded and drunk on bootleg patriotism.
Scam-A-Lago had been declared the new capital, its golden toilets now enshrined as the Founding Fathers intended. The Lincoln Memorial had been replaced with a 900-foot statue of the Don giving a thumbs up while riding a bald eagle that was simultaneously firing machine guns and shitting red, white, and blue fireworks.
Jimmy the Snake had been appointed Secretary of Breathing, his only qualification being that he could successfully inhale and exhale without written instructions. Junior was snorting cocaine off the Declaration of Independence.
The Supreme Court was now conducted via coin flip, with former justices selling lucky pennies in the courthouse gift shop next to "I Survived Democracy" t-shirts and snow globes filled with the ashes of burned voting machines.
And in the center of it all, like a demented ringmaster in an asylum circus, America kept spinning—not toward any destination, just spinning, spinning, spinning, while the crowd cheered and bought popcorn and pretended the tent wasn't on fire, the lions hadn't eaten the lion tamer, and the trapeze artists weren't all falling into a net made of Confederate flags and expired Amazon gift cards.
The house always wins. Even when the house is a funhouse. Even when the funhouse is a madhouse. Even when the madhouse is calling itself the land of the free while selling tickets to its own execution.
Welcome to America—now with 100% more fascism and a side of fries.
For now.
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Until we meet again, let your conscience be your guide.
Bret, you write like a crack head who's met his first glass pipe. Are you excessive? Yes! Are you transgressive? Indeed! Do you have an app that provides new adjectives and descriptors? I think so. It's all such an AI cartoon. Twenty second century flop-sweat. Used gym bags and jock straps as MAGA merch. Help me, dad, I think I've gone nuts!
Following what i first called a muted Independence Day and then realized was disrespectful to brass instruments this was hilarious political satire. The second cup of coffee washed that feeling down and then came the numbing brutal truth of “USA, The Reality Show For Real”. Nonetheless, an outstanding episode. Well, it’s now time to step outside into my experience of the next episode of the show. As always, thanx Bret!