I wish to place on record the proceedings in heaven on the Ides of November, in the year when the polls were counted twice and believed once, of the new year which begins this auspicious age. It shall be done without malice or favor. This is the truth. Ask if you like how I know it? To begin with, I am not bound to please you with my answer. Who will compel me? I know the same day made me free, which was the last day for him who made the proverb true—one must be born either a billionaire or a fool. If I choose to answer, I will say whatever trips off my tongue. Who has ever made the satirist produce witnesses to swear for him? But if an authority must be produced, ask of the man who saw Reagan translated to heaven: the same man will aver he saw Trump on the road, dot-and-carry-one. What he told me I report plain and clear, as I hope for his health and happiness.
Now had the sun drawn in his slender arc of light,
And, measure matched, grew longer every night;
Victorious Cynthia held a wider space,
Grim winter drove rich autumn from his place.
I shall make myself better understood, if I say the month was November, the day was the ninth. What hour it was I cannot certainly tell; cable news networks will agree more often than clocks; but it was between one Big Mac and the next. "Clumsy creature!" you say. "Will you thus neglect so good an hour for a tweet?"
Now Phoebus' chariot, past the halfway of his day,
Shook out his reins and let the slanting light give way;
The road ran down to night; the tweets were on delay.
Trump began to breathe his last, and could not make an end of the matter. Then Mercury, who had never been particularly pleased with his tweets, drew aside one of the three Fates, and said:
"Cruel beldame, why do you let the poor world be tormented? After all this torture cannot it have a rest? Seventy and some years it is now since he began to pant for breath. What grudge is this you bear against the whole nation? Do let the pollsters tell the truth, for once. Do what has to be done: Remove him, and let a better person rule in empty court."
Clotho replied: "Upon my word, I did wish to give him another hour or two, until he should wall off the few immigrants who are still outsiders. But since it is your pleasure to leave a few foreigners for seed, and since you command me, so be it."
She opened her box and out came three spindles. One was for Giuliani, one for Bannon, one for Trump. "These three I will cause to fade within one year. Think of all the thousands of yes-men he was wont to see following after him, thousands crowding about him at rallies—it would never do to leave him alone. These boon companions will satisfy him for the nonce."
This said, she twists the thread around his ugly spindle once,
Snaps off the last bit of the life of that Imperial dunce.
But Lachesis, her hair adorned, her tresses neatly bound,
Democratic laurel on her locks, her brows with garlands crowned,
Plucks me from out the snowy wool new threads as white as snow,
Which handled with a happy touch change color as they go,
Not common wool, but thread of tempered gold;
The Sisters marvel, watching, as it rolls—
A line that promises competent, honest days.
World without end they spin away, the happy fleeces pull;
What joy they take to fill their hands with that delightful wool!
Then Apollo says:
"O sister Fates, I pray you: let this new leader's span be long, who'll bid the laws at length speak out that have been dumb, will give unto the weary world years prosperous and bright, will restore honor to the office, science to policy, and truth to the briefing room."
Thus Apollo. But Lachesis, quite ready to cast a favorable eye on competence, spins away by the handful. As for Trump, they tell everybody to speed him on his way with cries of joy and solemn litany.
At once he bubbled up the ghost, and there was an end to that shadow of a life. He was listening to Fox News when he died, so you see I have reason to fear those gentry. The last words he was heard to speak in this world were these: "It was a perfect call! No collusion! WITCH HUNT!" Whether it was or no, I cannot say, but certain it is he always did make a mess of everything.
What happened next on earth it is mere waste of time to tell, for you know it all well enough. No one forgets their own happiness. What happened in heaven you shall hear:
Word comes to Jupiter that a stranger had arrived, a man oddly set up, peculiarly orange; he seemed to be threatening something, for he pointed his finger ceaselessly. They asked him what nation he was of; he answered something in confused mumbling—word salad with croutons. His language they did not understand. It was English, yet not English, but some kind of Queens-accented stream of consciousness.
On this Jupiter bids Hercules go and find out what country he comes from. But Hercules, the first glimpse he got, was really much taken aback; when he saw this new kind of object, with its extraordinary gait, the strange hair configuration, and the voice of no terrestrial beast but such as you might hear at a used-car dealership, he thought his thirteenth labor had come upon him.
Up goes Hercules, then, and says: "Who art thou, and what thy people? Who thy parents, where thy home?"
Trump was delighted to find someone to talk at: "I come from the greatest country, the best country, believe me. My father gave me a small loan—"
But Our Lady of COVID interrupted (she had traveled with him): "The fellow's tale is nothing but lies. I have lived with him all these years, and I tell you: he was born in Queens, son of a Klansman. In Queens he was born, where his father was landlord so many years."
At this point Trump flared up and ordered Lady COVID to be taken away, making that sign with his tiny hand by which he used to fire people on reality TV. For all the notice the others took of him, they might have been his own Cabinet members.
Then Hercules said: "You just listen to me. You have come to the place where the mice nibble iron. Out with the truth!"
To make himself all the more awful, he strikes an attitude and proceeds in his most tragic vein:
"Declare with speed the soil that gave you birth,
Or meet this club, and hasten down to earth!
This club has oft made haughty princes bow—
Why mumble nonsense? Speak the truth, and now!
What land, what tribe produced that orange head?
Confess it—Queens the cradle of your dread?"
Trump, seeing a mighty man before him, understood that here he had not quite the same pre-eminence as in America, where his base thought him infallible. So this is what he was thought to say: "I did hope, Hercules, that you would take my part. Do but call it to mind, how it was I used to sit at my desk during Executive Time. You know what miseries I endured there, watching cable news day and night…"
(Some pages have fallen out, containing rambling stories about crowd sizes and ratings.)
Jupiter eventually spoke: "No wonder you have forced your way in. Only do say what species of god you want the fellow to be made. He cannot be a god of wisdom, for he has none. A god of war? He dodged the draft. A god of love? Well, Stormy Daniels might have something to say. Is it not enough that he has a tower in New York, that tourists photograph it and vendors sell knockoff hats outside, so that they may find a fool to buy their wares?"
At last it came into Jupiter's head that it was time to vote. "My lords and gentlemen," said he, "what will this person think of us?"
Father Janus was asked his opinion first, being a shrewd observer who could see before and behind. He said: "Once it was a great thing to become a god; now you have made it a farce. I propose that from this day forward the godhead be given to none of those who eat only well-done steaks with ketchup, or who spray-tan themselves orange. Whosoever is made, said, or portrayed to be god, I vote he be delivered over to the fact-checkers, and at the next public show be confronted with his own tweets."
Then arose Augustus Washington, Father and First—Republic's prince without the purple—and spoke with much eloquence.
"I call you to witness, my lords and gentlemen, that since the day I was made the Father of the Country, I have tried to set a good example. I cannot tell a lie. Is it for this I warned against foreign entanglements? For this have I set the precedent of peaceful transition of power? This man, my lords, who looks as though he's just come from a tanning bed, used to fire people as easily as a dog wags its tail.
"This man who for so many years has been masquerading under my nation's flag has mocked a Gold Star family, called veterans 'suckers and losers,' pardoned war criminals. He fired Sally Yates for doing her job, dismissed Christopher Krebs for telling the truth, persecuted Anthony Fauci for believing in science. He was impeached twice!
"Look at his body, born under a tanning lamp! Let him say three words quickly without lying, and I'll eat my powdered wig. A god so made makes very godhead cheap. While you make gods of such as he, no one will believe you to be gods yourselves.
"This is my motion: Inasmuch as the blessed Trump incited insurrection, obstructed justice, profited from the presidency, colluded with enemies, separated children from families, denied science, spread plague through negligence, and was mean to people on Twitter; I propose that immediate sentence of banishment be passed on him, that he be deported from heaven within thirty days, and from Olympus within thirty hours, and that all his properties be subject to investigation by the State of New York."
This motion was passed without further debate. Not a moment was lost: Mercury screwed his neck and haled him to the lower regions, to that bourne from which they say no golfer returns.
As they passed downwards, Mercury asked what was that great noise? It was the sound of celebration: dancing in the streets, champagne popping, people checking, and rechecking the certified results. Joy and rejoicing on every side, Americans walking about like free people again. A few MAGA supporters were weeping for grief, still claiming the election was stolen. The lawyers were crawling back to their offices, Rudy's hair dye still dripping, having lost threescore suits and then some.
When Trump saw his own political funeral, he understood that he had lost. For they were chanting in celebration:
Pour forth your joy, your laughter declare,
Let the sounds of relief rise high in the air:
For he that is gone had a wit most small,
Knew nothing of science, of truth, or law.
His fingers typed tweets at the speed of spite:
He rage-posted conspiracies all through the night;
He challenged Gold Star families to their face;
He mocked the disabled in public place;
And the pandemic he called a hoax from a foe,
While hundreds of thousands had to go.
He gassed protesters for a photo-op show,
With an upside-down Bible he did not know.
O weep not for him! This world can now see
One less likely to bring democracy to its knee.
Who'll now rage-tweet the whole day through?
Now Georgia calls, and New York tallies due;
At last he answers—under oath, not "Q."
Trump was perturbed to hear mockery instead of praise. But Mercury led him down to the lower regions. His fixer Cohen had gone down before him by a short cut (via federal prison), but wasn't exactly ready to welcome him.
Here were found all those he'd thrown under the bus: Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, and many others. In the midst of this company was Sean Spicer, whom Trump had made a fool of in the briefing room.
When Trump saw them, he exclaimed, "Haters and losers, all of you! I fired you because you were terrible!"
To this James Comey answered: "What, cruel man? How came we here? Who but you fired us, you, the destroyer of all competent governance! To court with you! I'll show you where their lordships sit—and I have memos!"
Comey brings him before the judgment seat of Lady Justice, who was holding court to try cases of corruption and obstruction. Comey produces a summons with this charge: Counts of obstruction, 10; campaign finance violations, several; emoluments clause violations, countless; impeachable offenses, 2 (so far); lies told, over 30,000; tax fraud allegations, numerous; sexual assault allegations, 26+; others as the tweets in the archive for multitude.
Trump finds no counsel (Rudy was busy with Four Seasons Total Landscaping). At length out steps Alan Dershowitz and claims the president can do whatever he wants. Not granted.
Comey prosecutes with loud outcry, backed by binders full of documentation. Lady Justice hears the case against Trump, refuses to hear the usual deflections, and passes sentence against him, quoting: "As he did, so be he done by—this is justice undefiled."
A great silence fell. Accountability had never been applied to him before.
There was a long discussion as to the punishment he ought to endure. Then Lady Justice decreed he should be bound to the Wheel of Ratings—each turn a rating, each rating a correction—while the Chorus of Librarians reads without end, fact-checking all his statements, one by one, for all eternity. He shall sit unable to interrupt, unable to tweet, unable to change the subject, with his phone taken away.
At once the poor wretch began his terrible task:
For when he tried to interrupt and thought he'd get away,
The fact-checkers would simply note another lie that day.
Then he would try to dodge and weave, change topics if he could:
But still they read the truth to him, documented, understood.
So still he squirms, and still he fails; still sitting there he lingers;
With no phone, no Twitter feed, no spray tan for his fingers.
All on a sudden who should turn up but Nixon, and claims the man for an accomplice in disgrace. He is handed over to Nixon, and Nixon makes him forever write "I will respect the peaceful transfer of power" on a cosmic chalkboard, while Nixon watches and says, "And I thought I had it bad."
CHORUS (Reprise)
Mark now the book where every falsehood lies;
The pen outlasts the shout that amplifies.
FINIS