There’s no doubt, Christmas is a special time of year.
One of the things that makes Christmas special is the newness of it all. Every year is different, even if the lifelong traditions that the faithful observe don’t change much from decade to decade. We might add a few ornaments to the family Christmas tree with each passing season, but the freshness of last year’s contributions is just as pleasing.
One holiday tradition that’s fun to relive each year is to view Charles Dickens’ classic, “A Christmas Carol” in its various cinematic forms. The story doesn’t evolve but it’s still worthwhile to revisit Ebenezer Scrooge’s overnight journey through his past, present and possible future in order to make a moral jump and become a better man -- and thus, save his life.
In 2020 I put together a parody of the famous tale with then president elect Joe Biden being visited by the ghosts of his campaign past. This year, in the same “spirit” (pardon the pun), the president is about to receive more ghostly visitations to offer their take on the man’s life and first year as president. Senile Joe has a lot to make up for. Will the spirits get through to him in 2021? You decide.
--
At the White House, a little holiday turmoil is brewing:
“Kicked out again,” senile president Joe Biden grumbled to himself in the stagnant space that is the White House family quarters’ guestroom, reserved solely for visiting kin and/or Hunter’s latest notch in the bedpost.
“I’m the president, not her.”
It was Christmas Eve and the first family was spending its first such holiday in the executive mansion, yet First Lady Dr. Jill Biden quickly grew impatient with her husband’s alternating periods of dozing off coupled with his daily nonsensical complaining, criticizing and babbling. So, upon the couple’s retiring upstairs to settle down for a long winter’s nap, the much younger faux doctor told her hubby to make like a tree -- and leave their room.
Joe was conditioned to the treatment by now, to the extent that the guest quarters almost felt like his second home. Upon closing the solid oak door, he changed into his comfy jammies already laid out for him on the bed, whispered a few brief appeals to the lord above for passage of his spending packages and lay on the bare mattress, staring at the ceiling and wondering what tomorrow -- and next year -- would bring.
The peaceful calm was shattered by reverberations Joe swore he’d heard before, a combination of chains rattling, coughing, belching and retching that was all too familiar and unpleasant, the remembrance still crisp from a year ago tonight in Delaware, when Biden was denied sleep by an odd assemblage of ghosts who’d had the nerve to insinuate that he needed to improve himself.
The door then unlocked itself, swung open wide and bared the figure of a man with a face Joe had known for half his life, even if the distorted thing’s tongue was hanging out and its eyes were lifeless, bloodshot and hostile with pupils dilated and almost black. As much as the sight of the phantom seemed easy to recollect, it was the creature’s stench that jarred a sensory reaction from the living Democrat.
How rancid was it? Imagine an overflowing porta john next to an open sewer pipe in summer positioned adjacent to a cattle feed lot and its rendering plant -- and the fragrance was even more pungent than that.
“Oh no, not again,” Joe spit out instinctively. Squinting to recognize the repulsive intruder, Joe said, “Hey there, Teddy. I thought we were finished with these unwanted nor solicited visitations last year. I’m done, remember? I’m a changed man. I’ve gone completely left, all the way off the proverbial ideological diving board, just like I said I would. I don’t need no stinking hauntings, man. How did you get in here? And even more, why are you here?”
Taking a seat on the chair in the corner without it being offered, the ghost of Teddy Kennedy was in no mood to quibble or dawdle.
After drawing several deep and measured breaths, Teddy ghost explained, “I looked down at the little slip of used toilet tissue the bosses handed me this afternoon and the address read ‘1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC’. I couldn’t believe my decaying eyes, Joe. I visited you last year in Delaware and we here in the spirit world put on that big three-ghost-plus-me production for you so you could change your ways. That’s a lot of heavenly simoleons to pay the players, bub. It didn’t work, apparently. You have the distinction of being the only guy I’ve ever needed to visit twice in eternity, and I’ll tell ya, I don’t relish having to be here.
“It’s hard enough dragging these chains and balls and empty booze containers all over the place. You think I enjoy this crap? After having spent my living years chasing babes and doing my best big bro JFK-in-the-White House pool impression, I don’t like working -- at all. Whenever I fail to get the message across to a client, the afterlife powers-that-be tack on a couple pounds of ballast to my already lengthy burden. You see those things there? They’re attached because of you. If you add more weight to this ponderous thing tonight, I’m gonna start stopping by here every day just so you get the picture before next Christmas.
“How ignorant I was! I thought, once I’d crossed over, I’d be living the life of Hugh Heffner, not making yearly house calls to broken down old goats like you, Joe,” Teddy ghost whimpered sadly.
The possibility of being perpetually plagued by this grotesque soul made Joe shudder. Biden gave the smelly Kennedy his best quizzical look as though he didn’t understand what the apparition was telling him. Even though ol’ Teddy had died well over a decade ago -- and looked as though he hadn’t been properly embalmed -- he’d presumably had opportunity to sober up in the years since. But the chubby ghoul still slurred his speech to the point of being barely comprehensible.
‘If I play dumb, maybe he’ll just get frustrated and sprint out of the room. It happens all the time when I meet with advisors, only then, I’m not playing dumb. I really just don’t understand this government stuff. Kennedy is so (rhymes with twit)-faced he can’t think straight anyway,’ the president surmised.
“Yeah, I’ll take that into account, Teddy. You always were a good friend. Anyways, what do you want now? Last year it was something about Christmas and glimpsing the campaign past, present and future. I had a great time that night, and I’ve been every bit as liberal as I promised I would be afterwards. Right now, I think every Democrat in Congress absolutely loves me, even Joe Manchin! They’re singing my praises, not plotting my removal. What gives with your people?”
Joe went on. “And I’m still here, not dead like you. And Hunter’s not in prison, either. On the contrary, he’s a successful artist who’s sold his paintings for lots of dough, man. That ghost of the future or whatever you called her -- she was stupid and air-brained. And mistaken. If that really was Kamala in the long hoodie coat, well, she got what was coming to her this year. She’s better off as a bony-fingered fortune telling ghost than as my veep any day.”
“Congress!” Kennedy thundered, more than a little perturbed. “What is Congress but an institution that wastes money on things people don’t need? If I had my way, every idiot who goes about with ‘Congress loves me’ on his lips would be boiled in his own pudding!
“I’m talking about the sheep! The deplorables, the bitter clingers, whatever us out-of-touch liberal elite slimeballs label them. Your presidency sucks, pal…” Upon drawing out the last word Teddy ghost leaned over, lifted a leg and broke wind enthusiastically while muttering “Fire in the hole!”. Remembering Joe’s fondness for flatulence, the old spook bellowed, “I know how you like a good fart, Joe, so there ya go! There are some things that death can’t rob from you! I’m still as gassy as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia!” For added emphasis, he farted again, just as Biden had done in front of the Duchess of Cornwall during COP 26. This time it was louder, longer and smelled worse than the first one.
“Sheesh! I nearly crapped my celestial drawers, Joe! Ever done that before, like in front of the Pope???” Teddy doubled over laughing, just as he did during his “Lion of the Senate” days when making a joke at some poor constituent’s expense.
Biden grinned, wishing he could return the gesture, but had nothing gastronomic to give his vaporous visitor. “So, what’s the deal?”
Teddy ghost’s jovial demeanor instantly vanished. “The bosses decided to give it another shot, Joe. They’re sending three more spirits to haunt you tonight. Expect the first at the stoke of one, the second at the stoke of two and the third, more mercurial, will arrive when he can spare it in his busy, productive schedule.”
Nearly panicking now, Joe fumbled for an excuse to try and get out of the dreadful visitations. “Uh… have the ghosts all been vaccinated and boosted? Perhaps they’d better stop in at the press office and have a little chat with Jen Psaki before they bother me up here. I’ve ordered everyone in the building to get stabbed in the behind, just to make sure it makes a lasting impression. Do you even have a butt to prick anymore, Teddy?”
“Enough! Your fate is sealed! Time for me to withdraw. I got a tongue-lashing for staying too long last Christmas Eve. Tell Chris Dodd I said hello again!”
Instead of opening a window and leaping out as he’d done previously (only to fall 15-feet to the snow-covered Biden lawn below), the semi-transparent Kennedy specter simply faded into the bedchamber’s door, pausing momentarily to yank the last of the very solid alcohol containers through the unyielding wooden barrier. Upon succeeding -- and it wasn’t clear how -- the acerbic visitor surged forward unexpectedly, tripped and rolled down the spiral staircase, making a deafening clatter, which drew the attention of the Secret Service agents on night duty.
“Oh (rhymes with zit)! Here come the dogs!”
Glancing out a window, the last Biden saw of Teddy ghost was a half dozen men in suits -- and Biden’s canine Major -- hurrying across the White House front lawn chasing the levitating other-worldly caller who bobbed and weaved as though being pursued by an angry mama grizzly bear, darting left, then right, then left and left and left again, finally reaching the iron gate and disappearing into the night.
A small gathering of Christmas-hating atheist Black Lives Matter and Antifa “protesters” were preparing themselves for a store robbery but instead took notice of what appeared to them to be a ghostly white homeless man toting a lengthy collection of metal valuables and his considerable stash of hooch, so they took off after the ghost and kept up the chase with Molotov cocktails at the ready.
“Poor Teddy,” Joe said to the silent empty room. “The man did so much good for people in life and yet he’s doomed to stagger his way through the eons, unable to drink his precious spirits or consume his favorite fat-face inducing cuisine, canoodle with women or vote on big bills like my Build Back (More) Better program. I’ll make a mental note to name a brothel or escort service business after him or something.
“But it can wait until morning, can’t it? Maybe if I just lay back and sing loudly to myself that I won’t hear the ghosts as they trespass on my space like illegal aliens jumping the border without documentation.”
Joe began singing Jingle Bells and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen but couldn’t remember all the words, so he changed to “99 bottles of beer on the wall in the Christmas hall” instead, a song that could continue for days if need be.
As the clock moved past the twelve o’clock hour Joe couldn’t sustain his caroling -- it was more and more difficult for the old coot to prolong anything these days without some sort of medication. He nodded off and entered a deep, dreamless sleep.
At one o’clock sharp the large grandfather clock in the hallway tolled the hour. Joe awoke briefly to notice the digital number on his POTUS smart phone blinking. Nothing. ‘Ah, what a relief! Perhaps I scared the spook off with my awesome singing!’ Biden didn’t even realize he’d been asleep for almost a half hour already.
At that moment a bright light appeared in the middle of the room revealing the figure of a woman. Joe raised his hand to shield the light from his eyes. As the picture cleared, he saw that the spirit Kennedy mentioned was someone he well recognized.
Joe was dumbfounded. “Liz…that you? What the heck are you doing in here? Dr. Jill will go ape-(rhymes with zit) if she finds you in this bedchambers with me tonight. Know what I’m sayin’? She grew suspicious last year when I tried to cook the primary poll numbers so that you and I would always be next to each other on the debate stage. She figured -- correctly -- that there was no way any sane person who’d picked up a newspaper in the past decade could vote for a whacked out fake Native American political hack like you.
“All that consumer stuff? And you drinking a beer to make yourself seem relatable? Seriously? You look more like a bug-eyed granny who misplaced her dentures on the way back from a care facility field trip to a Viagra factory than someone who’s going to help me be a better man. Didn’t Elon Musk just say you were like ‘his friend’s angry mom’ a couple weeks ago? He was right.
“Is it too late to demand they send someone else? Aren’t you America’s Dumbest Person in Public Life? … Or is that me?”
After being so savagely and effectively insulted, Warren couldn’t help herself. Appreciating that it was a violation of the spirit world’s rules to rat on a coworker, she did so anyway, replying, “The bosses tried getting Michael Dukakis to show you stuff from your past again but they couldn’t locate him. Maybe it’s because they were looking in the wrong spot. They needed to search the losers’ museums and night clubs playing disco music rather than presidential libraries and Smithsonian exhibits. I got the job tonight because me n’ Mike are from the same state and we could easily pass for a spirit because we’re both pale as a zombie and moan and groan a lot. We might just as well be dead. We act like it.” Warren quipped.
Joe crinkled his brow to make it look like he tacitly approved. “Sounds reasonable to me, Pocahontas -- I mean Liz. That devil Donald Trump’s gotten in my head again. Lead me where you will.”
Taking Warren’s arm as instructed the two traveled through time, back to 1975 and a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting room in the capitol building, where the then-32-year-old Delaware senator engaged in a heated tête-à-tête with President Gerald Ford about how to end the Vietnam War.
“I don’t want to say anything, Liz. They might hear me and it would suck to have them see me as I am now, a faltering old fool with no hair. Besides, almost all of ‘em are dead now, and they might get after me like Teddy’s done two years in a row.” Warren assured Biden that they would neither be seen nor heard, and thus to feel unrestrained to speak freely.
“There was no easy way to do it,” Joe said wistfully. “We’d been battling those God-forsaken gooks for all those years. JFK and then LBJ and Tricky Dick Nixon each said the war could be won and the public wasn’t buying it. I was correct to support getting the troops out, just as I was right to cut n’ run from Afghanistan this year, too.”
Warren sighed sarcastically. “Yeah, but what about the people left behind? Didn’t you care about them?” The two watched as the inherently decent President Ford made a plea to ensure that no one would be stranded in the ravaged country, which included providing passage for Vietnamese partisans who’d helped the U.S. fight the communists.
With no concern whatsoever written on his face, the young Biden smirked and replied smugly, “I do not believe the United States has an obligation, moral or otherwise, to evacuate foreign nationals. The United States has no obligation to evacuate one, or 100,001, South Vietnamese.”
“What do you think now, Joe? After you botched Afghanistan so badly that it’s bringing down your presidency and our party, have you rethought your position? Got any compassion for those suffering under the Taliban?” Warren asked inquisitively while reading from a card of pre-approved questions, trying to expose Biden as the hypocrite that he is.
“Heck no!” Joe shot back defensively. “I was ready to give Ford and the generals and State Department people all the coin they could carry to get our boys out, but not a red cent for the Asians. They’d just take over our 7-Elevens from the Indians, wouldn’t they? I didn’t fight the war and we couldn’t afford to make idle, rice harvesting people happy. We negotiated a treaty with the North Vietnam-ers. If the left-behinds were bad off, they should’ve flocked to Vietnam’s welfare institutions. Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons? Jane Fonda was treated well, right? Ho Chi Minh… was a good dude. So was John McCain. And simply misunderstood!”
Not even Liz Warren could believe what she was hearing. ‘Joe Biden has no soul, no heart,’ she thought to herself. ‘Not even the tragic death of his wife and daughter at Christmastime in 1972 made him care about anything but his career and himself. The idiot swims naked in front of female Secret Service agents, for gosh sakes. No wonder he left the Afghanis stranded.’
Realizing the hopelessness of getting the old geezer to garner anything from her effort, Liz ordered him to take her arm again. They vaulted forward to a tidy but sterile room at Walter Reed Hospital in 1988, where the gravely ill Biden was recovering from surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, a serious complication. After a second aneurysm was surgically repaired in May, Biden's recuperation kept him away from the Senate for seven months.
“Why do you show me this now?” Biden asked. “I was really sick, man. I could’ve died. To this day, people question my dedication to public service. But they should’ve seen me back then. I wanted back in politics so bad that no brain surgery was going to stop me. I never abandoned my dream of being president, either.”
Again, Warren couldn’t fathom why this guy was so unfeeling. “What did you take from the experience, Joe? You were a halfway decent man once. By the time you ran for president and survived the health scare in the late eighties, you were already a swamp creature. You took out your wrath on Robert Bork and then Clarence Thomas a couple years later. You didn’t care about working with anyone but people you agreed with. You became a selfish creature subject to nothing but getting reelected and sponging off the public dole. You’re just like Mitt Romney today.
“Even worse, you corrupted your family. Your son Hunter is one of the biggest national disgraces of all time. In her diary, your daughter hinted she was molested by you in the shower. Your scumbag brother and… ‘plausible deniability?’ Scary.”
Not realizing what the Liz specter wanted from him -- since she’s just as repulsive as the stuff she was accusing him of -- president senile Joe began to get angry. “Who are you to lecture me, Warren? You never had to struggle for anything. I had to fight for every inch of political real estate that I got. I should’ve won back in 2008, but I had to suck up my pride and agree to be Barack Obama’s errand boy instead. You know what that’s like? Both of us had to bow to the crooked-er than heck Clintons to get them to help us. Who needs compassion? I’ll take votes and power and the Deep State any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
“Take me back to my room. Spare me your pity. Now be gone! I’ve had enough of your lessons from the past! Get the frack out of here, phony! I knew it was the right choice to choose Kamala for my veep! If I’d listened to you, I would’ve lost to Trump! You don’t know your rear from a hole in the wall, you 1/1024 Cherokee! Get oooouuuutttt!”
“Truth lives! Truth lives!” Warren’s shrill laughter could still be heard as she disappeared through the worn dusty carpet in the bedchamber, mocking the man Democrat voters had chosen over her and Bernie in 2020. Idiots!
Alone once again in the solitary room, Biden wondered how many more of these visitations he could tolerate. ‘If they’re sending Elizabeth Warren to haunt me, how much worse could it possibly get? Not only are the ghosts getting nastier and more antagonistic, they’re starting to question my integrity, too. What would Corn Pop and my used car salesman dad think about that?’
Joe didn’t have long to ponder as the clock bonged twice, signaling the start of another other-worldly therapy session. Just like last year, a blindingly bright light shown under the door and Biden wished he’d anticipated the whole thing and brought his sunglasses up to bed with him. Or one of those pitch black face covering masks that he never wore except to shield his eyes from the gawkers and pretend to care about COVID in front of the media.
“Sleepy Joe, get your ass out here!” the anonymous but familiar voice commanded to the commander in chief.
Only one person could be that rude, Joe thought. Cracking open the door, Joe spotted what had to be his worst nightmare, former president Donald Trump standing tall perched on top of a “Trump 2024” pedestal holding a torch that was fashioned after that of the Statue of Liberty. The orange haired New Yorker was surrounded by bright lights like those you’d find in a news studio.
“That’s right, Joe. The bosses chose me to represent the Ghost of Christmas Present and I was glad to do it. I don’t need sleep, remember? I know you haven’t hung out with any of my predecessors. And don’t talk about Bernie Sanders, last year. He's a delirious lunatic. I’m here to show you how people really feel about you today. I was right about everything last year. Americans think you suck. It’s gonna be a fun hour for me, pal, that’s for sure.”
“Shut up, man. I ain’t goin’ nowhere with you. I’m president now. I’ll call in Pete Buttigieg to kick your behind. He was in the military, so he’s one tough hombre, you know, even if he’s partial to hombres himself,” Biden said assuredly.
Trump was in no mood to equivocate. “Like you have a choice, Joe. Take my sleeve and we’ll get going. You don’t have long in the White House whether you change your ways or not. 2024 couldn’t get here fast enough. I have to show you the reasons why your political days are numbered since you don’t pay attention to anything but your nap schedule.”
“I’m gonna win another term” Joe shot back. “I’ll show you. I’ll prove it. Show me what you came to show and then get the frick out of here. By the way, where’s your mask?”
“I already had COVID and I got the shots, too,” Trump replied. “Those masks are stupid and they don’t help anyone. Maybe you’ll realize it tonight.”
Biden marveled at what seemed to be a very patient Donald Trump, one that he wouldn’t expect in a million campaigns. Joe closed his eyes and they were transported to a Border Patrol outpost on the southern line with Mexico. A half dozen federal agents were watching as a smuggler towed a raft full of presumed illegal aliens -- about 50 in all -- and pulled up to the American side of the Rio Grande River.
“As with Pocahontas Warren last hour, we will be unseen and unheard, Joe. If only America could be so lucky all the rest of the time when it comes to you. You mumble so much no one understands you,” Trump said matter of factly.
The border patrol agents were communicating with each other through radios and were in touch with a central command post. This situation was a daily -- if not hourly -- occurrence, so the personnel was conditioned to the onslaught. Catch as many of ‘em as you can. Try to process ‘em. Don’t worry about what diseases they’re carrying, COVID the least concerning among them. And try to ignore the fact that the people who are helping them break American laws are armed to the hilt and wouldn’t hesitate to kill if anyone gets too close to them.
“I’m thinking about getting out, bud” one of them said to a close by colleague. “I’m not getting the vaccine. Don’t need it. I’ve already had COVID… probably more than once. The powers-that-be in Washington aren’t going to tell me what to do. The vaccine thing might be a good excuse to just leave. Ever since that idiot Biden took over, the flow of aliens has been relentless. We’re understaffed and overwhelmed. Nobody at the top cares about us.”
His buddy replied, “Good for you. I don’t blame you. This job is hopeless. State governors are willing to help but the feds won’t let ‘em. Then they accused us of ‘whipping’ those Haitians. Maybe we should all get out. Let senile Joe and his chief of staff -- and Kamala -- do this for a day.”
Trump couldn’t help himself. “You Democrats are all so self-righteous. You don’t come down and see for yourself what happens every day here. Instead, you blame me for being inhumane or for enforcing the law and putting kids in cages, when it really was you and Obama who did it. What about the millions of Americans who are impacted by this crap? A wall is the least of what should be done.
“If anyone’s being coldhearted, it’s you and Nancy Pelosi and Chucky Schumer,” Trump continued. “We should turn you loose in a bar full of Border Patrol agents. How long would you stay off the floor? You said you wanted to take me behind the gym and beat me up. You can barely handle walking up the stairs to Air Force One.”
“In my own defense,” Joe answered nervously, “I appointed Kamala to take care of this issue. She was supposed to find a way to let all these migrants in and make the American people feel great about it. They’re future Democrat voters, aren’t they? I also told her to get the voting system federalized so we can count their votes before they even qualify for citizenship. You know how slow and frustrating Congress can be.”
“Pfft.” Trump retorted. “Is that all you see, Joe? Come, let us go to another place to demonstrate how people feel about you in our precious America.”
Water dripped from the ceiling as the two entered what looked to be a dreary prison block, the sound of silence punctuating the mood of utter desperation. The visitors slowly strolled past a number of small cells containing a single prisoner, the site obviously reserved for the most heinous of convicted criminals.
“Trump, why are we here?” Joe asked inquisitively. “This seems like death row. I remember visiting a prison cell last year, but it was a kinda happy occasion since Hunter was there. I don’t see anyone I recognize in this place. These scums must’ve done something awful bad to be put in here. I’m all for granting amnesty for wrongdoing, but I’m guessing these people are getting what they deserve.”
Trump scoffed at the president again. “It figures you don’t know this place. It’s the DC prison where the January 6 detainees are being confined. You and your justice department have held most of them for almost this entire year, where they’re denied proper food, sanitation, medical attention, access to their attorneys and loved ones and treated little better than pathetic, sad looking animals you’d see shivering in those pet abuse fundraising commercials.
“This is all because of you, Joe. You demonized citizens for protesting the government, which is our most sacred First Amendment right as Americans. These weren’t insurrectionists or criminals. Most of them weren’t violent. There’s another side to their story that isn’t being told, and you won’t let it be told. If and when I get to be president again, these people will be heard.”
“Huh?” Biden replied, stupefied. “These Trump supporters were armed insurrectionists, like that baby faced Kyle Rittenhouse white supremacist killer kid in the land of cheese. Justice involves giving them the death penalty, if not life in prison. And deny them any food! Or if you’re gonna give ‘em something to eat -- bring in one of Dr. Jill’s tuna casseroles! Her cooking SUCKS! It’ll make ‘em so sick they’ll barf out their guts! It’d be a riot!
“Or maybe make ‘em watch Michelle Obama read children’s books as a punishment. Nobody gets out of this place with their sanity! I’m president now!”
“Figures, Joe,” Trump said satisfied. “You’re the same unrepentant moron you’ve always been. I’m leaving you here. The prisoners are hidden from your view, but they live. Oh, how they live. (The inmates’ singing the national anthem is heard in the background.) You can treat them worse than Al Qaeda rejects in an Iraqi jail, but their spirit continues on. You can’t trample on their love of country no matter how many prosecutors and crooked federal cops you send at them. And there are tens of millions more like them, all across America. Good luck, Joe, you’ll need it!”
“TTTrrrruuuuuummmmppp!!!!” Joe screamed to the night. “Don’t leave me here! This place reeks worse than Teddy Kennedy’s ghost! It’s dark and it’s cold and there are mean people in here! You really do hate the establishment, don’t you? Please! I’m begging you! Don’t leave me here!
“Why couldn’t you have left me with Dick Blumenthal and the communists in Connecticut instead? They’re my homies! These Tea Party cretins are insurrectionist dregs! Oh my gosh. I think I see a shadow moving. Is that a Trump flag over there? Am I seeing things? Heeelllpppp!”
The grinning Trump disappeared as quickly as he’d appeared and Joe was left to contemplate what he’d seen and heard. The Democrat president found a small bench and sat down, shivering against the cold, dank surroundings. “What have I done to deserve this?” Joe queried to no one in particular. He prayed sometimes but his actions didn’t add up to much religious faith. How to get out of this?
Joe sat for a few moments with his back to a wall trying hard not to draw attention from the detainees or the corrupted and sadistic prison guards. He’d heard stories from Jeffrey Epstein -- who didn’t kill himself -- and son Hunter about what goes on in these places He wanted no part of it. Why would such an outstanding citizen need to visit this crappy joint?
Just then a door with an “EXIT” sign above it opened wide and Biden spotted a mystical cloud forming in the distance with what looked like the Grim Reaper standing in the midst of it. Joe had a flashback to last year when his then running mate, now vice president, Kamala Harris, acted the part of showing him what might happen to him if he didn’t get his rear in line with the leftist kooks in Congress.
This time the specter wasn’t female, and it wasn’t Harris. Few clues betrayed the spook’s cloaked identity, though the thing’s light attire suggested it was from a warm weather climate -- like Florida -- and the straightness of its spine gave the impression of a man with great integrity. Looking closer, Joe noticed a “Stop Woke Act” button on the otherwise innocuous clothing next to the letters “CRT” with a line through them, like a null sign.
“Nah, it can’t be! There’s no way they’d send Ron DeSantis as the ghost of Christmas yet to come! That dude’s a bozo who endangered little kids and old people in his state by banning mask and vaccine mandates. He’s also taken it upon himself to fight Big Tech and just about every cause we liberals believe in. But if he gets me the heck out of this pathetic prison, I’ll walk through the gates of hell with him, if need be,” Joe blubbered to the stagnant air.
“Are you who I think you are?” The ghost bent slowly at the waist, answering in the affirmative. “Swell, let’s go.” Joe said.
The DeSantis ghost then pointed a bony finger through his sleeve towards the morning’s first destination, just like Kamala ghost had done the year before. Only this time it wasn’t a exuberant rendezvous with Hunter’s probable future in the pokey, it was a living room of a family celebrating Christmas in Anytown, U.S.A. Like the Whos down in Whoville, they seemed joyous and upbeat despite a complete lack of presents or visible evidence of holiday cheer other than a depleted artificial Christmas tree with a token few ornaments hanging off of it.
A middle aged man spoke to his family gathered around him. “I think it’s important that we celebrate Christmas the way we did when I was a poor kid growing up in Appalachia. We didn’t have many things, but we had the love in our hearts and a devotion to God. That’s all anyone truly needs.”
His wife enthusiastically agreed. “It’s not your fault that you lost your life’s savings during the lockdowns, Sam. When the money from all the government giveaways ran out, a lot of companies shut down. We don’t need material things. In Joe Biden’s America, everyone has to get used to dealing with less. Shortages. Rampant inflation. Our investment account isn’t worth anything anymore. Trump warned us. Some people didn’t listen. And all the vote fraud. Mail-in ballots. The fix was on.
“But there’s hope for the future. The election was encouraging. Good policies will be on their way back soon. Congress can be made great again. In just a few weeks. I can’t wait.”
“What’s this?” Joe asked incredulous to the speechless and unsympathetic ghost. “Where are these people’s gifts? Didn’t we pass a COVID relief bill that was supposed to make everybody disgustingly rich? Not a single Republican voted for it. Who cares! We Democrats knew all the answers about how to get the economy going.”
Joe rambled on, “And didn’t this woman say something about an election? What election? I don’t care what all the polls say. We’re gonna win big in 2022 and even bigger in 2024 when I’m up for reelection. These people are stupid! We just haven’t done a good enough job of telling them how great my administration is doing! The consultants and the media will get us out of this. You watch!”
DeSantis ghost couldn’t exactly say it, but Joe was barking up the wrong tree. Florida did things differently from the beginning of the pandemic, and one of the lessons learned was that activist government always does more harm than good. The only solution that truly endures is freedom and liberty. The cards will fall where they will.
The spirit then raised his arm and pointed his bony finger to a different scene, this one chock full of happy people clearly celebrating something. The large schmaltzy house looked like it was located in Georgetown (Washington, DC), not far from the White House. In the home’s brightly lit main room were a gaggle of prominent Democrats laughing and toasting and dancing without social distancing or wearing masks, defying a mandate.
“We did it, Barry,” Kamala Harris giggled to former president Obama, spittle forming at both ends of her mouth as it always does when she cackles uncontrollably. Harris used the name The Big O preferred to be called by his best of friends (which did not include Joe Biden). “We deliberately sabotaged his presidency -- you from the outside, me from the inside -- and now the dolt is on the brink of being turned out of office. We can use the 25th Amendment or just order Nancy P to start impeachment proceedings introduced by Maxine Waters. One way or another, the ancient white blowhard is history. Cheers!”
Flipping his lit cigarette callously through an opened window, The Big O raised his own goblet full of strong alcohol. “Let this be a teaching moment to the dumbest vice president -- and now president -- of all time. We succeeded in finding someone who would be ranked worse than me in the list of worst presidents. With the election debacle us Democrats endured last month, the agenda is dead, and so is his presidency. He might as well dedicate himself to issuing pardons and commuting sentences from here on out. He’s finished! And we were behind all of it!”
The partisan party attendees roared with unhinged delight as they took turns patting each other on the backside, not bothering to maneuver their hands above the waistline. This was a Democrat affair, after all, so why hide the debauchery?
Seeing this, Biden doubled over in pain as though experiencing an intense affliction of stomach cramps without a relief commode in sight. What betrayal! “They can’t be talking about me” he said aloud, disbelieving. “What happened to all the nice things they said about me at the party convention in summer, 2020? Or asking Lady Gaga to sing the Star Spangled Banner at my inauguration? I didn’t even comment about Kamala’s hideous purple outfit that day! Dang, where’d she get that thing anyway, a costume reject from the Barney the Dinosaur show?”
Joe kept up his annoying wailing. “And this is the thanks I get? They’re celebrating me being removed from office and putting my political career six feet under? It can’t be! Say it isn’t so, spirit! You may be a Republican, but have some compassion, DeSantis! Say I may sponge away the writing on my presidency’s gravestone!
“I’ll be a changed man! I’ll care about what the people think -- all of them, even the Border Patrol and the deplorables! I’ll stop powwowing with Kamala and Obama and the Chinese! I’ll let the police go after Hunter! I’ll re-adopt Trump’s policies, every one, to the letter! Good times will return! Democrats will disappear from the earth, but I’ll still be around!
“Tell me!” Joe cried hysterically. “Tell me I can change! Let me live in the past, present and future! It’s not too late! Not too late! Not too late!!!!!!”
A bolt of lightning shot through the sky bringing Joe back to his bedchambers at the White House again. He was sprawled out face down on the bare mattress and the surface was damp as though he’d been crying for hours.
Joe was giddy at his apparent second -- or third -- or fourth -- or whatever -- chance he was on now. “Hark the Herald Angels Sing, I’m still president!” he bawled, his pajama bottoms torn and ripped from anguish and untrimmed fingernails. “I’ll do exactly as I promised, I’ll go downstairs right now and start writing out executive orders to restore this government to the state it was in when Trump was president.
“Inflation will magically go away. Gas prices will come down. People will feel like they’ll need to work again. I’ll tell NATO to go pound sand if they won’t pony up more dough for their own defense. I’ll order the military to stop with all the ‘woke’ crap. I’ll call up every state that enacted elections integrity laws and tell ‘em I’m with ‘em. I’ll reverse my position on abortion and the sanctity of life. I’ll admit that the ‘systemic racism’ rhetoric was all nonsense! I’ll spring all the January 6 prisoners and put Merrick Garland and Jim Comey -- and Anthony Fauci -- in their place!
“I need to get busy! I’ll send Dr. Jill up to Capitol Hill this instant to tell Chucky and Nancy that I’m switching parties like Joe Manchin is about to do. I’ll be better than my word!”
Joe bolted from the room, not bothering with dressing appropriately for the new day.
In the days to come, for the first time in his life, Joe Biden tried to govern as a liberty loving, Constitution-respecting conservative. But his party members didn’t take him seriously. They kept trying to shove through “voting rights” legislation and didn’t give up “Build Back (More) Better” no matter how hard Biden begged and pleaded for them to get some common sense.
The 2022 midterms came and went. Democrats lost a hundred House seats and a dozen senate races, giving Republicans a near veto-proof majority in both chambers. The drubbing motivated Donald Trump to announce he’s running for president in 2024.
Joe Biden’s presidency was ruined. Such is history.
Merry Christmas!
Joe Biden economy
Democrat welfare bill
Build Back Better
13 House Republicans Infrastructure bill
Kyrsten Sinema
Joe Manchin
RINOs
Marjorie Taylor Green
Kevin McCarthy
Mitch McConnell
2022 elections
Donald Trump
2024 presidential election