Ah, it’s autumn — beautiful fall colors all around, the air crisp with bright blue skies above. But despite all the beauty around me, my head seems filled with thoughts of dread. And no doubt, that’s because the former loser guy might return to the White House next year and then unleash all that he’s threatened to do.
He continues to push the big lie that he won the 2020 presidential election and posted on social media that “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” That’s a threat to terminate the Constitution, our Constitution!
If reelected, he has promised to replace the federal government’s nonpartisan employees with his loyalists. He has also said that he will appoint prosecutors to go after his political opponents. And he even threatened his own Chairman of the Joint Chiefs with death. All while promising to make America great again.
Of course, his retribution will be aimed at anyone trying to bring his lawlessness to account, the prosecutors who have brought federal and state indictments and fraud cases against him, and the judges and witnesses involved. In other words, he’s promising to finish the job he began and to destroy our democracy should he become president again.
So, recently as I sat trying to appreciate those fall colors I mentioned before, but lost in thoughts of doom and gloom, my phone rang. It was my good friend, Rod Serling of “Twilight Zone” fame. Hi Rod, I said, so good to hear from you. What’s up? What’s up, he said? My brain has been flooded with ideas for new episodes that could not have come from anybody else but you!
So, what’s wrong with that, I asked? He paused before responding and then said, I know that I’ve come to you in the past to ask for ideas and I’ve even used some of them to make new episodes. But lately, your ideas are so over the top, so crazy that I can’t imagine using them.
But, Rod, what’s been going on in my head isn’t about your show. My thoughts reflect what’s actually happening in my world.
Let’s see if I’ve got this right, he said,: In your world, there is a former extremely incompetent and very dangerous sociopathic leader who has already been found liable for sexual abuse and who is somehow running for reelection while at the same time being indicted in multiple cases. He has been accused of fraud in his business dealings, to the point where a judge has already ruled that he can no longer do business in his home state.
Yes, Rod, all true. And hard as this is to believe, he is running far, far ahead in the race to be his party’s candidate in the coming presidential election.
Rod thought a minute and said, some of that might be a cool idea for a show, but there is so much more I’m getting from your head that no TV viewer would ever believe, not even on “The Twilight Zone.” Such as, that judge has issued a gag order on this guy who is running to be president. How can that be?
Well, Rod, he keeps making threatening, insane and extremely untrue statements about the judge, his staff, and the prosecution. In my head he should be in jail by now, but you know that already since you seem to be reading my mind.
I could picture Rod throwing up his hands as he said, but any other person charged with a crime and doing that would be stopped from making public statements that might influence if not terrorize witnesses and jurors.
I know, I told him, it’s crazy isn’t it? It seems that no matter what this guy does, he gets away with it. But with all these court cases, that might be about to change. You see, Rod, he tried to overturn the last presidential election, incited an insurrection that luckily did not succeed, and then kept classified documents in his bathroom, refusing to return them to the government when asked.
Then Rod asked me about social media. Your brain is always thinking about that, he said. I can’t imagine I’d ever put that into one of my episodes, it’s just too diabolical. People would stop watching if I told a story where characters are fed a continuous stream of lies, misinformation and conspiracy theories. And then those characters actually believe the lies to the point where they will put that dangerous authoritarian wannabe former guy back into office? Nope, not happening.
Yes, I hear you, Rod. It’s not a good situation inside my brain or outside it. But I didn’t call you, you called me. So, now that we’re discussing such a thing, maybe we could come up with something with a very happy ending. What do you think?
Oh, Rod said at that, I think I see where you’re going with this. Yes, a scary story, but with an ending that makes everyone feel safe and secure in the knowledge that the country and its democracy will hold firm against this frightening attempt to destroy it.
And Rod, don’t forget to put in the part about how the people of the country join together to make that happen; how they work tirelessly to ensure safe and free elections for all, ending up with the largest voter turnout in history. And, best of all, the crooked loser guy finally faces the music and spends the rest of his life in jail, far from social media.
Karen Gardner of Haydenville can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.