Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why

by Alexandra Petri

  “Pop, I wrote a poem this week.”

  “A poem?”

  “Do you have the poem with you, son?” Trump asks. “Let’s hear it.”

  Eric reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded sheet of lined paper with “Daddy” written on the top in uneven large block letters.

  Don Jr. hits his head against the table. “Dad,” he says, “Dad, please, you have to divest.”

  “What?” Trump looks wildly at him.

  “If you divest, you can end this, and we’ll never have to do this, ever again.”

  “Oh,” Trump says. “Thank God.”

  Eric slowly folds the poem and puts it back into his pocket.

  January 12, 2017

  The True, Correct Story of What Happened at Donald Trump’s Inauguration

  Finally, Approved News! Here is the fair and unbiased story about the inauguration written in compliance with the Trump style guidelines that we should have been obeying all along.

  NOTHING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED or will ever happen was as great as Donald Trump’s inauguration.

  The crowd was magnificent and huge, bigger than any crowd had ever been before! It stretched all the way to the moon. The Pope, who was there, confirmed it.

  “Thanks for being here, Pope,” Donald Trump told him.

  “Are you kidding? You’re my best friend,” the Pope said. “I wouldn’t miss your big day for anything!” He gave Donald Trump a big high-five.

  Everyone in the world had come there at great expense. They sold all their possessions—their homes, their Hamilton tickets, which were worthless to them—to raise money to come and see this great sight. They could not believe that a perfect being such as Donald Trump even existed. They thought that he was a myth or a legend or a decades-long series of fabrications.

  But then they saw him, and their doubts fell away.

  The media was there, too, and they were very sorry. “Donald,” the newscasters said, “we were mean to you. We used to laugh and call you names. We were no better than all of the other reindeer. How can you ever forgive us?”

  “Forgive you?” Donald Trump asked. “I’ve already forgotten.” He smiled a big, beautiful smile. That was just who Donald Trump was: forgiving, like Jesus, but blond.

  It was a wonderful start to the day.

  Everyone liked Donald Trump’s speech and the words that he used. They liked even more the part where he rolled up his sleeve and showed off his bicep. It was a great bicep. It made the Rock so upset to see it that he threw something down on the ground and said “darn.”

  Donald Trump pulled out a violin and played a solo, and then he pulled out a guitar and played an even sicker solo. The whole ground was soon covered with women’s undergarments. (Millions of women were there to support Donald Trump, and they were all AT LEAST sevens.) Also, every woman that Donald Trump had ever dated was there, and they were not upset with him, just ashamed that they had not lived up to his required standard.

  “Trump! Trump! Trump!” the crowd cheered.

  Donald Trump touched many people in the crowd in a way that they all thought was welcome and appropriate, and he cured their ailments, from cancer to autism.

  “If only we could bottle your touch,” someone said, “children could stop getting vaccinated altogether.”

  Donald Trump winked. “Don’t worry!” he said. “I’m on it!”

  Then Donald Trump served loaves and fishes to everyone there. There were enough loaves and fishes for everyone, and they all were Made in America and said “TRUMP” on them. It was like the Oscars, but also like Woodstock, but also like the Super Bowl, but also like the Sermon on the Mount. If you were not there, you should just go home and die, because nothing in your life will have purpose or meaning by comparison, not even holding your newborn child in your arms or having health insurance. This specific experience is what FOMO was always worried about.

  Bono, and Bruce Springsteen, and Elton John, and the Rolling Stones, and Beyoncé, and all the top artists were there. They fought hard over who would be allowed to sing. Finally Bruce Springsteen won. Bono cried and cried, and the other artists had to console him. When Bruce Springsteen had finished singing, he walked over to Donald Trump, extended his hand, and said, “You are the only real hero left in the world.”

  The people were so excited that they built a very special stone pyramid just for Donald Trump so that he would not have to wait until he died to see what his monument would look like. But they were silly to be concerned. Donald Trump will never die!

  A little child was in the audience, and he started to cry because the emperor was wearing so many clothes. Also, he could tell that he was not and never had been racist.

  Donald Trump’s beautiful big family was there. His favorite childhood dog was there, too, back from the farm where he still lives to this day.

  Donald Trump can talk to the animals, and his eyes are lasers. When the floor is lava, Donald Trump can walk on it, but only Donald Trump. When Donald Trump points his finger at you, you have to lie down. But when other people point their fingers at Donald Trump, he does not have to. Donald Trump’s block tower is the biggest. He does not need a nap or a snack. He has the longest, biggest attention span. Everyone loves Donald Trump, and what he has to say interests them.

  Donald Trump is the star. People love him.

  He won the popular vote, too.

  January 24, 2017

  Trump’s Budget Makes Perfect Sense and Will Fix America, and I Will Tell You Why

  From govinfo.gov:

  Issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Budget of the United States Government is a collection of documents that contains the budget message of the President:

  Title: A New Foundation for American Greatness

  SOME PEOPLE ARE COMPLAINING THAT the budget proffered by the Trump administration, despite its wonderful macho-sounding name, is too vague and makes all sorts of cuts to needed programs in favor of increasing military spending by leaps and bounds. These people are wimps. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney has called it a “hard power budget,” which is, I think, the name of an exercise program where you eat only what you can catch, pump up your guns, and then punch the impoverished in the face. This, conveniently, is also what the budget does.

  This budget will make America a lean, mean fighting machine with bulging, rippling muscles and not an ounce of fat. America has been weak and soft for too long. BUT HOW WILL I SURVIVE ON THIS BUDGET? you may be wondering. I AM A HUMAN CHILD, NOT A COSTLY FIGHTER JET. You may not survive, but that is because you are SOFT and WEAK, something this budget is designed to eliminate.

  What are we cutting?

  The State Department, by 29 percent: Right now, all the State Department’s many qualified employees do is sit around being sad that they are never consulted about anything. This is, frankly, depressing, and it is best to put them out of their misery. Besides, they are only trained in Soft Diplomacy, like a woman would do, and NOBODY wants that. Only HARD POWER. With the money we will save on these sad public servants, we will be able to buy lots of GUNS and F-35s and other cool things that go BOOM and POW and PEW PEW PEW.

  Environmental Protection Agency: We absolutely do not need this. Clean rivers and breathable air are making us SOFT and letting the Chinese and the Russians get the jump on us. We must go back to the America that was great, when the air was full of coal and danger and the way you could tell if the air was breathable was by carrying a canary around with you at all times, perched on your leathery, coal-dust-covered finger. Furthermore, we will cut funding to Superfund cleanup in the EPA because the only thing manlier than clean water is DIRTY water.

  Agriculture Department: NO MORE OF THIS NAMBY-PAMBY “GATHERING” NONSENSE. We will be HUNTERS again. This is also why we are cutting the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children: Let them FIGHT for their meat or have NONE.

  Commerce Department: This will lose its funding to prepare
people for coastal disasters, because in the future we will all be so strong that we can stare down the sea and make it recede by flexing our bulging muscles.

  Labor Department: There will be no LABOR in the future. Labor is what women do, I think. All fetuses will burst out of wombs brandishing an Uzi on each arm. (Also, we will cut the funding to the people who would have explained that this is not how birth or labor works.)

  National Institutes of Health: We are decreasing funding because in the future we will cure disease by punching it, or, if that fails, sending drones after it. Also, we will buy more planes and guns to shoot airborne viruses out of the sky.

  Affordable housing is a luxury and we are going to get rid of it. Donald Trump does not live in affordable housing and neither should you.

  Historic sites: We don’t need to fund them. Those parks have sassed the administration enough, and they must get what is coming to them.

  A few other things we are cutting:

  Chemical Safety Board: Give us CHEMICAL DANGER, which sounds way more metal.

  Corporation for Public Broadcasting: Instead, anyone who turns on the radio will be able to hear audio footage of a Trump son shooting a rare land mammal.

  National Endowment for the Arts: The NEA will be destroyed and replaced with an armored helicopter with a shark painted on it.

  National Endowment for the Humanities: The NEH will be replaced with half a fighter jet and a bunch of drones. This is the only art America needs.

  U.S. Institute of Peace: Wimpy.

  U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness: We will all live outdoors in the new Hard Power America, and we will pump steel together and shout “GRRR,” and there will be no mental illness because it is only in your mind.

  Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: This is counterintuitive given Wilson’s track record of racism, which is no longer the handicap that it once was, but you must remember that he also tried to start the League of Nations, which was like the United Nations but more so.

  There is a $2.6 billion line in the budget to pay for the wall until Mexico pays for the wall. I think? Sounds right. The education budget is also cut so I can’t tell if this logic makes sense.

  All schoolchildren will be taught by an F-35 wearing a Make America Great Again hat. They will also have new school choice options including the choice not to afford any school at all, because at school you are taught things like grammar and pronouns and spelling and history, and these are all potentially inimical to the future we are trying to build. We will also be cutting Meals on Wheels, as well as after-school programs to feed children, because they are not improving performance as we would like. Feed children just to feed them? What are we, SOFT? No. No we are not.

  AMERICA WILL BE STRONGER THAN IT HAS EVER BEEN! Anyone who survives will be a gun covered in the fur of a rare mammal, capable of fighting disease with a single muscular flex. RAW POWER! HARD RAW POWER GRRRRRR HISSS POW!

  It will be great.

  Author’s Note: This story was so accurate and true that the Trump White House sent it out in its 1600 Daily email of Good, True, Accurate News! This goes to show that we can all be Real News if we set our minds to it.*

  March 16, 2017

  * This is 100 percent not a parody. They actually did this. This is one of exactly thirty-five sincere sentences in this book! Write your best guesses about the others on a postcard and send them to Mike Pence, One Observatory Drive, and he will tell you if you were right!

  Every Story I Have Read About Trump Supporters in the Past Week

  Many so-called Journalists have gone to so-called Real so-called America in order to describe the thoughts and sentiments of Trump supporters as his agenda progresses across the land, ravaging everything in its path. It is important that we hear this story again and again, as many times as possible! I will tell it to you now, but better.

  IN THE SHADOW of the old flag factory, Craig Slabornik sits whittling away on a rusty nail, his only hobby since the plant shut down. He is an American like millions of Americans, and he has no regrets about pulling the lever for Donald Trump in November—twice, in fact, which Craig says is just more evidence of the voter fraud plaguing the country. Craig is a contradiction, but he does not know it.

  Each morning he arrives at the Blue Plate Diner and tries to make sense of it all. The regulars are already there. Lydia Borkle lives in an old shoe in the tiny town of Tempe Work Only, Arizona, where the factory has just rusted away into a pile of gears and dust. The jobs were replaced by robots, not shipped overseas, but try telling Lydia that. (I did, very slowly and patiently, I thought, but she still became quite brusque.) Her one lifeline was an Obama-era jobs training program, but she says that she does not regret her vote for Trump and likes what he says about business. She makes a point of telling me that she is not racist, but I think she probably is, a little.

  Next to her sits Linda Blarnik. Like the rusty hubcaps hanging on the wall behind her, she was made in America fifty years ago, back when this town made things, a time she still remembers fondly. She says she has had just enough of the “coastal elitist media who keep showing up to write mean things about my town and my life, like that thing just now where you said I was like a hubcap, yes you, stop writing I can see over your shoulder.” Mournfully a whistle blows behind her, the whistle of a train that does not stop in this America any longer.

  Linda’s sister, Carla Blarnik, is married to an undocumented immigrant yet voted for Trump, who has vowed an increase in deportations. Asked to explain this contradiction, she shrugs. “Do not tell Bert this,” she says, “but I have been trying to find an unobtrusive way to break up the marriage for years and this seemed like just the loophole I was waiting for.” Huh. Okay.

  Their waiter is David Mattress, a sentient robot who will be shut down if Trump’s budget is put into practice. He loves Trump, insofar as love is possible for him. When asked, “Don’t you realize the contradiction of this position?” the other regulars leap up and shout at me because the last time this question was posed to him, David short-circuited and emitted large quantities of smoke. “First that magazine writer,” Linda scolds me, gesturing to a table in the corner where six other journalists sit writing versions of this same article, “now you.”

  Mark Hooglats lives inside Obamacare, don’t ask him how. He voted for Trump. He will vote for Trump again, maybe up to ten times if he does the thing with the economy. He is excited that Trump has said “God” out loud for what he believes is the first time in the past eight years. (It isn’t.)

  In the corner, under a picture of George Washington that is cracked and broken and stained with tobacco juice, lies Herm Slabornik. Herm is encased in a cryogenic tube that will be unplugged if Trump gets his way. According to a note on his cryotube, he knows what Trump said about unplugging tubes but he does not think Trump would unplug him personally. He will vote for Trump again in 2020, provided he is not unplugged. Also, he hates Obamacare.

  Glom Pfeffernitz lives in a rusty kettle. Trump’s plan will definitely repossess his kettle, but he does not believe me when I tell him this. “I just don’t think he’d do that,” Glom repeats. Glom’s priority is filling the lakes with waste because he remembers when he was a kid and the lakes used to glow, and he wants to get back to those great days. He says his number one priority is keeping telephones away from the undeserving poor.

  Claudia Barknappen, the owner of the diner, wipes her hands on her faded God Bless America apron. She is taken aback to see that Trump’s budget would replace her home with a sinkhole, but she says that she is reserving judgment and likes how much he hates immigrants. “We’ve got to give him a chance,” she observes. She says that one time Trump showed up at her home and hit her dog with a broom, but in her mind this amounts to no more than one strike. She knows that she can change Trump with love, not that he needs to change at all. Behind her, an eagle falls out of a tree and dies.

  April 4, 2017

  This Is Not a Crisis, Republic
ans Say, as a Large Spider Slowly Devours Them

  I WOULD RECOGNIZE A CRISIS if it were happening.

  When the president seized me, stunned me with his venom, and covered me with digestive fluid from his chelicerae, I was initially taken aback, but I reassured myself with this thought: President Richard Nixon never did that.

  I know history.

  This is clearly not the end of the world. That would be more clearly labeled and would be brought about by the other party. And the weather would be more ominous. Ravens would squawk, and the sky would turn red. It would not occur on a Tuesday when I had made other plans.

  Okay, the firing of FBI Director James Comey looked bad. And when the president stunned him, pierced him with his fangs, wrapped him in a thick cocoon of impenetrable webbing, and left him to hang there for days, that timing was also poor. It doesn’t seem as though it was what the FBI wanted or what the deputy attorney general wanted, either. But the American people voted for change! And the president is not Nixon. Nixon fired people on a Saturday, whereas this happened on a Tuesday.

  He does not sweat and look pale on TV, which Nixon always did. Also, history plainly states that Nixon was born in 1913, one of several siblings, whereas the president was born in 1946, one of 3,000 eggs. Already we are seeing huge discrepancies! Nixon had only two legs.

  Nixon was married to a woman named Pat who wore Republican cloth coats. I think we can agree that we are talking about someone different. Come back when our leader has adopted a small dog named Checkers, and then we will see where we stand.

  This has none of the historical signs of a crisis. We still believe in small government, and that doesn’t have to change because the person or entity presiding over it happens to be a giant spider.

  I think of the many norms that are still going strong as the digestive acid begins to eat its way through my flag pin.