Parable of a Political Pathogen

No one was exactly sure where the Trumpvid virus came from. The media reported a zoological origin, claiming it jumped from badgers to humans at a Christkindlmarket in Germany. The fact that there was also a powerful AfD think tank doing gain-of-faction research in the same city was a coincidence, and you were an anti-racist for even mentioning it.

Physical symptoms included an orange pall over the skin, thinning hair and weight gain, but the psychological symptoms caused the greatest concern. Infected individuals became narcissistic, capricious, impulsive and even delusional, with a Machiavellian desire for power.

The weirdest aspect of the virus was that it only seemed to pose a real risk to government officials and candidates for office. Anyone could get infected, of course. Many schools were closed at the first sign of blond highlights in a student, despite children proving particularly resilient against the virus, protected by their natural immaturity. Adults who were able to work remotely tried to do so, but as soon as anyone in the C-suite got infected, a return-to-office mandate would be vigorously enforced. In most cases, though, people recovered within a few weeks. Only those with political power would get what came to be known as Long Trumpvid.

The initial impact on society was disastrous. Important government offices were suddenly defunded by their own leadership. Many an infected government employee fired themselves. Long-standing interstate compacts were abandoned. The governor of New York deployed the National Guard to protect the New Jersey border. The Portland City Council imposed a 25% tariff on all goods imported from Seattle. The Mayor of Chicago severed ties with the Bears and began to cozy up with Green Bay. The San Francisco Sanitation and Streets Commission halted garbage collection until the tech leaders of Silicon Valley promised to build a golf course that they had been planning to build anyway. The Kansas Unified School District 301 Board of Directors passed a resolution to add their own faces to Mount Rushmore, redirecting funds from their SEL and school lunch programs to do so. A tragic riot in Keokuk, Iowa resulted in the deaths of two police officers after the losing candidate refused to concede the race for Dog Catcher. The stock market plummeted, chaos ensued, and many believed we were finally witnessing the end of democracy as we knew it.

The first glimmer of hope appeared when the virus spread to the majority party of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Now mind you, the minority party had been infected almost right away after attending a protest to demand the release of a homeless transgender Ukrainian bobsledder who had defaced Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans to stop global warming—but of course, the minority party was irrelevant.

Representatives from the majority party had managed to dodge the first wave of the virus completely by quarantining themselves and conducting their business remotely via X (formerly Twitter.) But by that summer, they inevitably grew restless, and one night a handful of them slipped their security details and met at a topless tapas bar to have some fun.

At the time, the President was pushing a bill to rename New Mexico to New Manhattan, and since his party controlled both chambers of Congress, everyone expected it would pass easily. But the recently infected legislators, with their newly discovered wills-to-power, were having none of it. Oh, they all agreed that the state needed to be renamed, that much was obvious. But they strongly disagreed over what the new name should be.

An infected legislator from Texas wanted to call it New Dallas. The representative from Georgia preferred New Atlanta, but the one from Nevada thought it would be a good idea to name it New Vegas. One of them was actually from New Mexico herself and insisted the name be changed to Big Beautiful New Great America. The one from Florida thought it should be named Liam. They were at an impasse. The President had lost his majority, and the bill floundered in committee.

Furious, the President demanded that Congress gather for him to give an in-person speech at the Capitol, oblivious to the risk of exposure he was inviting. During his speech, he called out the dissident legislators by name.

"You should be thankful!" he shouted. "You owe everything to me! You should be more thankful!"

Much to his surprise, one of the infected legislators jumped up and shouted, "No, YOU should be thankful!"

"No, YOU should be thankful!" the President retorted.

"Nooooo, YOU should be thankful!" the legislator spat right back. Then he turned to his buddies and said, "All right, I think we've seen enough," and they all got up and left.

It did make for great television, but the damage was done. The entire federal government was now infected with Trumpvid.

Things fell apart for the President after that. His entire legislative agenda was scuttled. Desperate, he turned to his proverbial pen and phone. No longer obsequious, the legislature quickly passed bills reclaiming all the powers that Congress had yielded to the President in the preceding decades. Gone was his ability to impose tariffs, direct spending and conduct military operations outside of wartime. He was briefly pleased when they properly dismantled the administrative state via legislation, until he realized that without it, he had very little leverage over state governments. This pleased the Trumpvid-infected governors, until their own legislatures did similarly to them.

But beyond undermining each other's power, no consensus could be achieved. Congressional leadership tried whipping their party members into shape, but each legislator condemned all the others as part of The Swamp. "This is MY party now!" they cried out in unison.

Eventually, they started getting complaints from their constituents that vital government services were being neglected. In the past, they might not have cared or even noticed, so long as their donors were happy. But the Trumpvid virus gave them an uncontrollable urge to stand on stage in front of the people they represented, and even engage with those citizens and hear out their concerns, in order to better lap up their admiration. No longer willing or even physically able to follow marching orders from their party leadership, legislators were forced to work directly with one another to find the compromises that best satisfied the particular needs of their districts, and hence their own egos.

During this time, the minority party had similarly crumbled, and every politician found themselves willing to work with any other politician, so long as it served their own self-centered interests. Each wanted to be dictator, of course, but since they couldn't all be dictator, they eventually agreed to just vote on things. As coalitions shifted depending on the topic, omnibus spending bills became a thing of the past; laws now needed to be narrowly tailored to muster an ever-changing majority of the mercurial lawmakers.

Sometimes an executive would try to make up a new rule, or a legislator would try to arrest someone, but luckily the entire Supreme Court had also been infected with Trumpvid. On one particularly noteworthy occasion, the Chief Justice publicly castigated the other branches for over an hour, using variations of the word "fuck" no fewer than 119 times. Of course, every judge in the nation was more than happy to make up brand new laws on the fly, but constantly overruling each other proved exhausting. After awhile, they decided to just base their judgments on the text of the laws the legislature passed so they could get back to spending quality time with their yachts.

Census year rolled around, and shortly after that came reapportionment of representatives, but by this point the parties had completely dissolved. Rather than carefully gerrymandering for the greater good of a party, each representative haggled to ensure their own district was as safe as they could possibly make it. Nobody wanted to take on voters that didn't adore them, so district maps drifted to reflect the boundaries of cohesive political communities with enough in common to overwhelmingly support the incumbent. Those incumbents who did not keep their constituents happy found themselves challenged by an opponent who would also immediately contract Trumpvid.

Overall, though every politician in the country was now openly and abjectly an obvious and unrepentant asshole, the system adapted to accommodate this reality. Each tangerine-faced politician's ambition kept the others in check, the distribution of power balanced out, and the country seemed to be running better than it had in a long time.

Then came the vaccine.

At the time, I had an uncle who happened to be County Auditor. He had been insufferable at family gatherings since the start of the political pandemic, so initially I was excited to hear he'd be one of the first to receive the vaccine. The evening after he got the jab, I went over to his house to check in.

He was sitting in his recliner when I got there, and the effects of the vaccine were already noticeable. His hair had grown thicker and darkened, his skin was restored to a naturally occurring tone, and you could see the edge of his jawline again. Yet I knew this wasn't what really mattered.

"Hey Unc, how are you feeling?" I asked.

I'd gotten used to him responding to this kind of question with a powerful chest thump and a "Never better!" So it was jarring to see him slowly look up at me, then hold up one finger to ask for my patience. He reached for a binder on his end table labeled Talking Points. Opening it, he cleared his throat, lifted his glasses and began to read.

"In our collective pursuit of a healthier future, this vaccine stands as a monumental testament to scientific progress. This remarkable achievement unites us in our shared commitment to safeguarding public health, ensuring that individuals from all walks of life are empowered to protect themselves and their communities. As we embrace this groundbreaking solution, we reaffirm our dedication to equity, accessibility, and the unwavering belief that together, we can overcome any challenge, unburdened by what has been."

I started to ask something else, but he said, "Please, no more questions today, thank you." Then he leaned back his head, closed his eyes and began to snore.

Oh well, I thought. It was nice while it lasted.

---