Death by Texes (A Satire of Trump and Clinton)

Texas? Our Texas? asked Presidential Advisor Dineh.

Stupid! Idiot! Losers! The illegals are killing us! I will make America great again! cried President Tyrumpton. He pounded a map on the wall with his fist. It’s destiny!

The Invasion of Texas was on.

President Tyrumpton explained:

Texas fits to a T all the criteria for achieving a glorious military conquest by the USA!

First: there are a lot of people of color in Texas! Many not US citizens! And many with little or no money! Texas is full of enemy types!

Second: Texas is a distant land, far from Washington DC! It was once a foreign land! No one likes a war fought at home!

Third: many Texans speak a language other than English! They might be spies!

Fourth: Texas holds huge reserves of oil and gas! Money literally flows out of the ground! Who can resist?!

Fifth: the military already knows where all the good targets are! Fireworks for everyone!

Sixth: Texas is full of women and children! Easy pickings!

Seventh: much of Texas is empty, inhospitable, moonscape! Familiar fields of war!

Eighth: odds are good that some Texans wearing black cowboy hats and white hoodies will assist in the onslaught and policing! Texans love law and order!
Ninth: well-placed Texan officials can be bought off! They already are!

And finally: recent opinion polls show Texans by a healthy 2 to 1 margin prefer to be invaded and conquered than be nuked off the map!

Yahoo! Google it! Tyrumpton screamed. He explained to Dineh that a war would boost his popularity the way military conquests, invasions, bombings, and even mere saber-rattling works for any President of the USA.

Texas is a prime suspect! Tyrumpton tutored. Ripe for conquest! If we invade Texas now, our poll ratings will spike, weapons sales will boom, the bankers will roll in the money, building contractors will rush in behind the bombs, a whole new world of goods and services will explode! The stimulus to everyone will be incredible! Conquered Texas will provide jobs for people from all over the country where work is scarce.

Sir, Advisor Dineh interrupted, the profiteers will hire have-not Mexicans from across the border.

Profiteers? Tyrumpton asked. Dineh, speak American.

Contractors. The contractors will hire Mexicans. Mexico’s economy, somehow, is worse than ours.

The illegals! They cause us so much suffering!

President Tyrumpton paced in front of the map of Texas.

We can invade Mexico simultaneously! Don’t worry, Dineh. We’ll scare Mexico into walling their people in. By threats. Dollar threats. Gun threats. The works.

Mr. President, neither dollar nor gun threats are legal under international law.

Who are you, the National Political Police? If I want the FBI all up in my business, I’ll send out a memo. International law is for losers, Dineh. I don’t care who the judge is. By invasion or by threat of invasion, by munitions or by money, by fear and by force, by the People, of the People, for the People … what am I saying? You know it. I know it. The world knows it. Every idiot LOSER knows it. The Invasion of Texas is reality. International law is bullshit.

You can’t be serious.

Plague serious, Dineh. After we conquer Texas, we attack Appalachia to control its coal, methane, timber! Timberrr!!!

President Tyrumpton pumped his fist at the prospect of invading the deep South to restructure its agricultural lands. He vowed to re-conquer the Native Southwest to control its Native jewelry and crafts, and the many mines.

These are the four poorest regions in the USA! Tyrumpton exclaimed. Appalachia! The Deep South! The Native Southwest! The Tex-Mex border! Neck in dirty neck in poverty, overflowing with people of color: the blacks! the browns! the reds! except for Appalachia, a pity. These four regions are rich, rich, rich, rich in natural resources! How can we hold back?! The One Percent demand plunder! I mean profit! I mean prosperity! The prosperity that we so generously bestow upon foreign lands! Bombs and bullion! Missiles and money! Drones and debt! Dollars and…more debt!

I’m sure the people will be eternally grateful, Mr. President. Though at first they might flee. Or fight back.

Hell on them then. You know the drill, Dineh: Invade, Conquer, Privatize, Sell-off, Cashout, Repeat. Whatever the Banks want. What’s good for the Banks is good for all! For all we know.

The people of Appalachia are honorary people of color, Advisor Dineh pointed out. He explained the disturbing reality that the diabetes epidemic, drugs, and other diseases of the poor in Appalachia had darkened the color of many inhabitants’ skin, which had become as often as not a too-flushed red or a morbid splotchy yellow with greenish tinge. As it turned out, Appalachians were people of color too.

Great God, you are right! declaimed Tyrumpton. Let’s attack and invade them all! These people are the scum of the Earth: Black, Brown, Red, White, the hideous poor! Haters! Free-loaders! Carpers! Complainers! Useless! Annoying! Obnoxious! Obscene! We will purify the country! I have a book I can loan you, My New Order, the collected speeches of Adolf Hitler, a truly remarkable read. My ex-wife spilled the beans: I keep it by my bedside.

Whoa, Mr. President. Whoa, now. Whoa!

What’s wrong?

You’ve gone too far!

Don’t worry, Dineh, we are not invading Russia. Much as I would like to. I’m not that big a fool. We are invading Texas! It’s sunny in Texas. Texas winters are nothing.
The Panhandle aside.

Bombs and drones, Mr. President. Is that all you ever think about? Endless war?

The bankers love war, Dineh! It fills the vaults!

And the graveyards.

Business is business, Dineh. You know that.

What about the legal problem?

Fokkk the law, Dineh! I am the law! We’re talking Texas here! Texans love guns! Guns are good, guns solve problems, guns are what made this country great!

Mr. President, Texas is officially a part of the USA. It remains legally unavailable for invasion.

Texas!? Dineh, is that an American name? Well, is it? Texas illegally broke from Mexico! Illegal immigrants from the USA – can you imagine? – moved into Texas and helped overthrow the Mexican government which only goes to show: illegal immigrants are a menace everywhere forever! Holy Shia, we thought the Muslims were bad. These Texans are out of control, unlawful infidels of The Badlands. Look, we can’t only be invading Muslim countries. They are blowing our heads off! Anyway, our original enemy lives closer to home, Dineh. Grimy Texans. Nothing but outlaws!

What about the blowback, Sir? My people have a saying –

Your people? Goddamn it! Americans are your people! I’m not attacking you, Dineh, don’t worry. I’m attacking Texans. This is not history repeating itself, I assure you. This is history as sequel. So what if the USA was out of control back in the day? Technicalities, Dineh. Today we are a state strictly endowed with law and order. I am in charge! Back then we were baboons, monkeys throwing shit. Not today! Back in the day, the USA was wild! Illegal! We were Conquistadors, a nation founded as Empire! Manifest Destiny! We were slavers! Exterminators of Natives! We outgrew that. Long ago. Today we are civilized. But not Texas! And not the other outlaw regions of this country and world – China! – where all those miserable lowdown wretches conspire against me! The fact is that the state of Texas was and remains a legal fiction! The existence of Texas is a monstrosity of the law! Texas is no more a legal part of the USA than the USA is a legal part of China! Tell me no!

I will not tell you no, Sir. No, Sir.

You’re goddamned right you won’t! I am the President of the USA. I am the law. I am Sovereign. I make the law by who I am and by how I act. I know what legal is. It’s what I am. I am nothing if not totally goddamned legal!

You are totally goddamned legal, Sir. And Texas?

Texas is illegal!

Mr. President, can Texas possibly be a threat to the USA?

In what state is there no serious challenge to the right of the One Percent to rule, Dineh?

Sir?

Do I stutter, Dineh?

I only mean to suggest, Mr. President, that you do not want to use that kind of language on the campaign trail. “One Percent” et cetera. The One Percent do not like being talked about the way you talk about them. At all. They do not want to be known to exist.

The election is over, Dineh. I won. I beat Billary. The One Percent will do what I say, because I am the One Percent of the One Percent. I am the mouth and the muscle and the means. Don’t doubt me.

Of course, Sir. However, is Texas truly outlaw enough to warrant an invasion? People like Texas. Texas likes Texas. Remember, Mr. President, people in Texas voted for you.

Only the Whites, Dineh. Loyal to their blood, I suppose. Hellfire and Damnation! People in Texas voted against me too! No matter. People would have voted for me, if they could have, in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Syria and Yemen and Yoohaw and Yoohee and everywhere we’ve been invading, conquering, bombing, and blessing with the rush of the Almighty Dollar. People around the globe would love to vote for me! Some of them. They support me. Texas supports me. The owners of this country will cheer for every invasion I announce, Dineh. Don’t deny it.

Mr. President, polls show that people think you were elected in a totally shameless manner. Calls for impeachment, complaints of ‘Shameless!’ are everywhere.

The impeachers are a bunch of rotten fruits, Dineh. So what if I embrace and extol my inner Shamelessness? That’s what great leaders do! Shamelessness runs for President from both parties every time. You know that. I know that. Who actually gets elected? Saints or sinners? Angels or Evil? The wise or the warmongers? We all know the answer: The Bankers! The Owners! The Financial Fearsome! The One Percent. The source of stupendous shamelessness! I merely made it more fun than before. That’s what they fear: My kind of fun! I’m funny! The One Percent of the One Percent knows no bounds!

A lot people don’t find you very funny, Sir. My apologies.

A lot of people are very stupid, Dineh. Oh, I know the One Percent are scared. They are scared of me and the debtors both. The One Percent Banker Owners – the Bowners! – they pretend to democratically manage their empires, you know, the manipulation of populism by elitism. The control and hoodwinking of debtors by bankers. The great con. I don’t know who it’s fooling, really. The Bowners manage the electoral system to select One Percent Bowner fronts for their interests rather than for the interests of the Ninety-Nine. This does not happen by accident, Dineh. Only one political party is allowed real power – the One Percent Bowner Party – which has two wings, the Republican Bowners and the Democrat Bowners. Two wings of the same firebreathing dragon! What a staggering illusion of choice!

People are afraid of dragons, Mr. President.

Oh, cheer up, Dineh. It’s carnival! I know you think I’m crazy. Admit it. You think that beneath the spectacle lies something akin to insanity.
Think? No, Sir. I don’t think you are crazy. I –

It’s no matter, Dineh. You can think whatever you want, as long as you do what you must. You know how it works.

I suppose so, Sir.

I’ll tell you anyway: the Republican Bowners pump up the true believers like militant toy balloons. They use white male supremacist pathologies as hot air, while the Democrat Bowners blow hard upon the rest: pathetic women and angry minorities and desperate children flapping pathetically for whatever uplift they can get. Worker white males! Women and children and people of color! All indebted and owned by the Bowners! Next election, I’m tempted to switch parties and run as a Democrat Bowner – wouldn’t that blow their minds! Why not?! The voters are not the point! It’s the Bowners’ election! The Bowners project shameless glorious images of themselves above the carnival crowd, like marvelous brand name drones! I am the greatest Bowner brand of them all! Tyrumpton! For the voters it’s all carnival all the time, miserable phony carnival that it is. Hail Tyrumpton! Vote Tyrumpton! The Bowners? What are they to me? They cannot afford to be too stupid.

They need you.

Who doesn’t? Wishful thinking gets you nowhere. The electoral extravaganza never ends! Shameless debates and shameless elections and all that chest thumping about gender and race and guns and God and who is more militaristic and more devout than thou, and forget who owns your sorry ass! When the people are pitted one against another, the rule of the Banker Owners goes unchallenged! Democracy has no chance in this system, Dineh. I can’t take credit for the setup. The shameless fix was in long before I one-upped the vote. This country was founded upon extermination and slavery in conquest for empire, do not forget it, Dineh. How could you, right? The Empire never sleeps! Hell, it never puts its guns down. Why do you think the National Security Agency spies on everyone all the time? Ours is a system of checks and imbalances against the debtors. A dollar democracy for the One Percent, of the One Percent, by the One Percent. Drones and debts for the rest.

People see your blunt talk as shameless, Mr. President. It’s upsetting. You are losing approval of the One Percent.

Sue me! Everyone else has. I don’t want approval, I want power! Guess what? I got it! The more fun I have the less the Bowners can predict what I’ll do. Who knows how I might be most shameless next?! Maybe I’ll go crazy on behalf of the poor rather than on behalf of the rich. Fat chance, but the Bowners can’t know that because they don’t own me like they own all the other politicians. Buy and sell, bought and sold, silver and gold! The One Percent care only about their bank accounts! They want me to do what is good for their rule. They want me to promote and protect their shameless asses, by shameless debates, shameless elections, shameless divides. It’s a farce run by the Bowners, hyped by the Bowner media, lapped up by true believers and by those who have had their eyes put out. Me, shameless? I’m like the purest driven snow compared to these One Percent tarpits from Hell.

Sir, the One Percent –

To Hell with them! I am their Lord, the One Percent of the One Percent, I tell you! Of course I’m shameless! And smarter too. I kill the killers! I outshark the sharks! I smash the smashers! It’s in my blood! What can I say, I’m a big owner. A Bowner! From way back. The best! Tyrumpton! As President I might as well be God. Go USA! I call the shots. What I say damn well goes. If I say we invade Texas, then we damn well invade Texas. You had better goddamn believe we do! Don’t tell me who supports me and who is a goddamned fool. There is no shame in power. I outshamed my opponents. I won, fair by foul. I am fully endowed by this official Office to act as I see fit!

Even in invasion, Sir? Of Texas? I think our favored lawyers may balk at this one. The legal right to invade is not so clear.

What total crap! ‘Invasion’ and ‘legal right’ do not belong in the same sentence. Who cares what lawyers say? We will buy extra legal opinions to satisfy the Petty Bettys. If I say the invasion goes, the invasion goes!

Texas might object.

Over my dead body. Don’t doubt me. The One Percent are mad for more money! For control! For greatness! What good is immense power, if you don’t fokkking well use it!!!

Dineh put a sweaty palm to his forehead. He placed his other hand over his heart. The power of the President poured through him, that disembodied adrenal surge coursing in boardrooms and offices, swirling around conference tables, flooding airports, rushing across the wilderness, shrieking through the internet, screaming into enormous vaults of money, filling chambers of guns and bombs, up, down, around, power, power, power, pulsing from one broker to another, exploding over every realm of rule. Debtors scattered everywhere like shards after a great blast. Glancing around, Dineh recognized every shard for what it once had been. He listened more closely.

He saw skeletons. Disembodied flesh. He saw blood. Brains from skull.

And then he recognized his own skeleton walking into the room. Walking toward him.

The skeleton grinned. Its bones glowed.

We need serious action, said Dineh finally.

Our greatness depends on it! cried Tyrumpton. Let America be my America again! Action! I cannot agree more fully, Dineh.

Dineh stared past the President.

Mr. President, I know exactly what you mean. I know what must be done.

Don’t think, Dineh. Act! Thinking never gets anyone anywhere. Thinking is for losers. Do not be a loser!

Your logic, Sir, it is unimpeachable. Your words are absolute, no matter Congress.

Now you’re talking, Dineh! Outstanding! The President smacked the map of Texas once again with his fist. Call the Generals!

The President did not have long to wait. The Generals were already in the know. They awkwardly confronted the President. They brandished handcuffs.

President Tyrumpton grabbed the handcuffs and threw them across the room.

Have you no shame?! bellowed President Tyrumpton. Who will save the White men?!

The White House, you mean! Who will save the White House?! I side with you, my President! declared the Commandant of the Marine Corps. He punched the Chief of Staff of the Army.

Teeth flew. The ensuing brawl left all the Generals lying on the floor.

At that point, the Chief Executing Officer of Goldun Sichos Investment Bank entered the room flanked by the Secretary of the Treasury (a former Goldun Sichos officer) and the Director of the National Security Agency. Numerous other Banker Owners from the government and private sector crowded into the Oval Office.

Boys, said the CEO of Goldun Sichos to the Generals on the floor. Get up.

The Generals stood and saluted the CEO of Goldun Sichos who did not return their salute.

Mr. President, said Goldun Sichos CEO, Pittanx Viper. Proceed. You call the shots as you see fit, as we selected you to do. These good men – he inspected the Generals with a flat flick of his eyes – will bother you no more. They will do as you say. You have the support of this entire country and indeed of the world. He nodded to the officials in suits and ties.

A prominent Pastor stepped forth and blessed the proceedings.

The Army Chief picked up his teeth and put them in a pocket.

We good folks need to stick together, said President Tyrumpton.

Finance must be feared, declared the CEO of Goldun Sichos. The debtors will fall in line. Now go talk to them once more. Do your little song and dance. Go boast to the good debtors about power and … what’s that other thing? … freedom! or whatever you might call it. Remind them of the needs of power. We know that you will say the Right Thing, Mr. President.

Let’s go kill some Texans! shouted the President.

Wait, what? said the Marine Commandant.

Too late.

Get moving! grunted the Commander of the Air Force pushing the Marine Commandant.

The Invasion of Texas was on.

Dineh had gone missing. A report filtered back to the National Security Agency of his being glimpsed in the desert Southwest riding a horse into Mexico. At the border, the observer lost sight of him among a sea of women, children, people of color, and others fleeing for their lives. Amid the excitement of The Invasion of Texas, no one gave the inexplicable disappearance of the President’s would-be top advisor a further thought.

Except for the President.

President Tyrumpton was pissed. He ordered the entire northern border of Mexico carpet bombed. He considered, not for the first time, bombing all of Central and South America so that there be no refuge for anyone anywhere.

What Wall Street’s economic hit men had not yet destroyed, Washington DC’s bombs and bullets would finish off. There would be crisis and then there would be capitalism to reap the whirlwind. Millions would suffer, millions would die, a relative few would profit. The way of the world.

The President of the USA punched the air.

I am who I am! President Tyrumpton called to reporters upon touching down in his helicopter near a slaughterfield. I make America great again. This is everything we ever wanted. We own the world. We own all. God bless the USA! Where else can a person rise from mere billions to go out and conquer the planet?!

Thus did fall once again the exploding hammer called American Exceptionalism on Mexico and on the Americas, Central and South, as it continued to fall on all the world, including Texas, Appalachia, the Deep South, and the Native Southwest.

A series of hurricanes raged from the Atlantic and the Gulf, killing many refugees, climate change with a vengeance, regime change nowhere to be seen.

I cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war! screamed President Tyrumpton to the media. The Banker Owners demand plunder, profit, power, and so do I, President Tyrumpton! My patriotic religious supporters long for Rapture, and so I preach: If all goes nuclear we will ascend to Heaven and laugh at our enemies in their Hell on Earth! The killers will drown in their own blood! Is that shameless? It is Rapturous! It is the way of Power. The Right Way. I once heard somewhere, I forget where, that the Navajos have the Beauty Way, but we Bowners have the Supremacist way: the War Way, the Military Way, the Capitalist Way. He who lives by the Sword, prospers by the Sword! In War we are most alive, in War we are most free, in War we are most powerful, in War we are most rich, in War we are most –

At that moment, a giant hand swooped from the sky and grabbed the President. The hand swiped him off the podium, popped him up to the clouds, and then launched him into literal orbit around Earth.

The President’s flight path intersected with a US military satellite guiding missiles and drones in deadly endeavors. The President’s body exploded upon the satellite. The space weapon malfunctioned. Missiles and drones were re-directed from the targets to their original sources.

A multitude of other weapons were similarly unleashed.

Thus ended The Invasion of Texas.

Thus ended the rule of Donillary Tyrumpton.

Thus did the eternal results of the most recent shameless election come in.

There was nothing left to do but to pick up the pieces.