Parliamentary idiocracy

 

At some point in the last three weeks the United States was reorganized along the lines of republics like Israel and Ireland, with a prime minister and a president.  The prime minister controls the central government, including finance, foreign policy and law enforcement, while the president carries out the ceremonial duties of receiving ambassadors, issuing proclamations and handing out awards.  Time magazine has decided it's not prudent to point this out in so many words, but its cover is very clear.

Nothing in writing bears the signature of Elon [Whatever] Musk, but it's not difficult to see who is behind every order.  For example, the executive orders on the "re-settling" of oppressed white South Africans while ending aid for the country supposedly oppressing them -- the president hates immigrants while the prime minister is a member of that very group.  He has already chain-migrated his mother, who misses sharing coffee and cake with her friends while disparaging the Kaffirs.  A thoughtful son.  You might think extracting as many Afrikaners as possible would be a favor to South Africa, but in all likelihood they'll take as much wealth as they can, leaving the country rich only in land.  Thousands of additional white supremacists -- just what we need.  They should consider settling in Louisiana, where Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D., assures us that the state's high maternal death rate is not a big deal if you "correct for race."  

The prime minister's minions have barged into every computer system of the federal government, helping themselves to financial and medical data that used to be protected, not to mention the files of the FBI and CIA.  Naturally the House has denied requests that the PM be subpoenaed for questioning, with James Comer declaring his machinations to be "transparent" because "he tweets multiple times a day."  What more could they want?  It's not like Hillary Clinton using a private server for recipes or something, that's virtually treason. 

But the president has not been idle.  Long known for his piety (as far back as 2017), he has established a White House Faith Office and hired Paula White-Cain to run it.  (Sorry, Mike Johnson, she's taken.  Find your own twice-divorced prosperity gospel glossolaliac to be chaplain of the House.)  Jon Root calls White-Cain a "heretic" but that's because he believes such sweet gigs should be exclusively for men.  Jesus never meant for women to speak in tongues.

The president has also indicated that he wants to take control of the nation's cultural life by naming a new chairman of the Kennedy Center.  What Trump knows about the performing arts could be comfortably engraved on one of his silver-plated tin cufflinks, but he is particularly agitated about cross-dressing, a theatrical convention since Aeschylus.  He also seems to think that dictating to the Kennedy Center will intimidate thousands of other venues across the country.  Since he already Hereby Ordered an end to the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, the people who run those sites have no reason to respond with anything but a gesture familiar to Shakespeare's audiences.

There is no American equivalent to the Third Reich's Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment, but give it time.  Meanwhile Washington National Opera is going to have a hard time presenting Faust, Le Nozze di Figaro, Hansel und Gretel, Der Rosenkavalier, Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Ariadne auf Naxos and about a dozen other operas featuring "trouser roles" -- women portraying men.  Never mind -- "We are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., GREAT AGAIN.  I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.  We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!"  All the Cheez Whiz has dripped off his Ritz cracker.  For four years Trump didn't even attend the Kennedy Center Honors broadcast, passing up a perfectly good chance to be on television because he would have had to sit in a box with the First Escort, shut up and pretend to care about five other people.  Something tells me this December's will include a speech by the "amazing Chairman."