Political Satire: Having trouble surviving these times? You’re not alone. Join us in columnist John F. Di Leo’s exploration of an alternate universe, where we imagine the impossible:
Joe Buckstop, an aging, corrupt old fool, somehow becomes president in his basement, and every night, an aide has to bring him his soup and discuss the events of the day as he prepares to receive his nightly meds…
Dateline, March 4. Begin Transcript:
“Hello, Boss! How’s your Thursday treating you, sir?”
“Thursday? Is it Thursday already?”
“Yes indeed, sir! Almost the weekend!”
“I don’t get weekends.”
“Oh, right, sorry, sir. But you get soup!”
“Oh, goody. What is it tonight?”
“Five Snake Soup, sir.”
“Come on, Man!”
“No, seriously, sir, it is! Five Snake Soup!”
“What kind of food is that?”
“It’s a Cantonese soup, sir. All the Chinese restaurants have it, sir. It’s supposed to be five different snakes in a Chinese broth.”
“I don’t believe you, boy.”
“Well, sir, in China they don’t have a problem getting the ingredients, but here, you know, there aren’t that many snakes that are legal to sell. So I’m assuming there are only a couple different kinds of snake in this one, sir.”
“You’re serious.”
“Oh, yes sir. Five Snake Soup. It’s really good, sir, I tried it upstairs in the kitchen.”
“Snake. You’re feeding me snake.”
“Don’t worry, sir, no need to feel like a cannibal or anything.”
“What’s that?”
“Umm, just asking, you fell like a can of beer or anything, sir?
“Oh, no, I’m fine with my water here. Thanks. Snake, huh?”
“Yes sir.”
“Well, here goes nothing…. Hmm… not bad. It does taste a lot like chicken. Fancy that.”
“So what’s the news from the Hill, sir? Anything interesting going on?”
“Just HR 1. But it’ll die in the Senate, unless they can get it switched to 50/50. But that’s unlikely..”
“What’s that one, sir?”
“Voting reform.”
“Oh, is that the one where you have to give a ballot to anybody who shows up; they can’t be asked to show an ID, sir?”
“Yup.”
“Even if the same guy goes into every polling place in town and says he’s on the roster, they have to let him vote, sir?”
“Yup.”
“So the same guy could vote a hundred times in the same election, and there’s no way to stop him, because he can’t be made to show an ID, sir?”
“Yup.”
“Do they really think anyone will support a bill like that, sir?”
“Our Democrats will!”
“Well, yeah, but what about the Republicans? That can’t pass the Senate, where you need 60 votes, can it, sir?”
“Well, we just have to play the race card. Say if you vote against it, you’re a racist trying to stop blacks from voting in elections. Half the Republicans always collapse like gelatin at that, son.”
“That’s true. And then if it passes the Senate, you’ll sign it, sir?”
“Hell, I sign whatever they give me. I don’t even read it anymore.”
“I had heard that, sir…”
“Half the time they just hand me a blank piece of paper, heh heh. I’m probably signing people’s mortgages half the time, I don’t know. Heh Heh.”
“Be that as it may, sir, umm… do you think the bill will have a problem in the Supreme Court, sir?”
“Why?”
“Well, it’s sort of, umm… well, sir, you know… the Constitution says that the state legislatures run their own elections, right? The Constitution doesn’t let us run them from Washington, you know, sir?”
“So?”
“I mean, well, sir, we’re not exactly allowed to set those rules, sir. Right, sir?”
“So?”
“I mean, there’s no federal role, you know, sir?”
“So?”
“Don’t you think they could throw it out, sir?”
“Oh, I don’t care if they do. We’ll just do it another way.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Well, it’s not like we’re going to change the way we run elections. We’ve been doing it this way for generations, we’re not gonna change now.”
“Generations, sir?”
“Let me tell you something, boy. When I was a boy in Scranton. I grew up in Scranton, did you know I’m from Scranton?”
“Yes sir, I had heard, sir.”
“Well, we had this great Indian outreach program, son. The party would have all the Indians apply for absentee ballots and then we’d have them come into headquarters and drop them off for the party to file on their behalf.”
“You mean, the party would have them fill them out and then file it while they watched, sir? I didn’t think that was allowed!”
“Heh heh, of course it’s not allowed, but no, that’s not what we did.”
“Oh, that’s a relief, sir.”
“They’d drop off their absentee ballots unopened at headquarters, and then we’d send them home. We’d fill them in and mail them later. That way you could be sure the right candidates got the right votes… and the candidates would know who to credit for it!”
“Oh my.”
“Yup, Scranton Indians were always good for a few of them.”
“Wait a minute, sir, this was, like 60 or 70 years ago though, right? We don’t do that sort of thing anymore, right?”
“Come on, Man! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
“You mean, they still do this in Scranton, sir?”
“Sure!”
“Without getting caught, sir?”
“Sure, we get caught.”
“So what happens then, sir?”
“We say ‘Whoops!’ and keep doing it!”
“But why, sir?”
“Don’t you listen, boy? You don’t change what works, son. Once you’ve got a winning formula, you stick with it!”
“I can’t believe this, sir. You’re pulling my leg, right? You’re kidding. You’re playing with me. You’re just telling old stories, right, sir?”
“Heh heh. Look it up. We got in trouble for it again in Scranton in 2016. It was all over the papers. Caught us dead to rights. Didn’t stop us from doing it again next time. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
“But sir, Won’t we run out of luck, eventually? I mean, won’t the authorities eventually stop us from committing vote fraud, sir? You know, someday, aren’t they bound to have had enough?”
“Hmm… speaking of having enough… I actually really liked this soup. Never thought I would. But I haven’t had enough yet. Tastes just like chicken. Could you get me some more?”
“Certainly sir. Crackers too, sir?”
“Oh yes. Lots of crackers. Can’t have soup without crackers.”
“Yes sir. On my way, sir.”
“Five Snake Soup. Heh heh. Man, who’d have thought it. Five snakes in my bowl, right here in the basement. Hmmm… Wonder if they’re registered to vote… hmm… let’s see now, where’s my stack of registration forms… and my old registrar stamp… oh, here it is. Hmm… now I just need a pen… Let’s see now, what’s a good name for a snake… Hmm… Skinny K Slitherer sounds good. Okay now, Skinny… how do you spell that… S.K.I.N.N.Y……”
Copyright 2021 John F Di Leo
Excerpted with permission from “Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume One,” from Free State West Publishing, available in paperback or eBook exclusively on Amazon.
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. A onetime Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I and II) are available only on Amazon
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