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 29. Begin Transcript:
“Good evening, sir! How’s your Monday?”
“Oh. It’s a Monday? Hmmm… Like a Monday, I guess.”
“Well, then, you’ll be happy to know we have soup, sir!”
“Oh, goodie.”
“Monday Soup, she called it. Just a simple vegetable soup… looks pretty hearty. I haven’t tried it yet, sir… onion and celery and green beans and zucchini and potatoes… I brought down two bowls because I’m having some too, sir!”
“Oh that’s fine… that’s fine… Hmm… where’s a spoon?”
“Right there, sir, next to your napkins, sir.”
“Mmm… Crackers?”
“Right there, sir, where they always are, sir…”
“Oh, right. Hmm… Let’s try this… Mmm… not bad… not bad… Mmm…”
“So, what’s the news of the day, sir? Anything interesting happening at the pinnacles of power, sir?”
“No, nothing much…. the only big news of the week was in the middle east somewhere, and didn’t involve us, for once. Everybody was happy about that today.”
“The big news of the day didn’t involve us, sir? How is the big news of the day defined, sir?”
“Huh?”
“Well, you know, sir… China threatening Taiwan again by flying military aircraft into Taiwanese airspace last night… that affects us, doesn’t it, sir?”
“Oh, wasn’t talking about that.”
“The reports on the border over the weekend, sir, about the massive growth in illegal border crossings by people reported to be carrying communicable diseases, sir? Big story on that this weekend, it sure involves us, sir…”
“Oh, I wasn’t talking about that.”
“Umm.. The trial that started today in Minneapolis, sir? The case about the policeman who called an ambulance for George Floyd when he was dying of a drug overdose, and the activists had the poor policeman arrested for murder when all he did was restrain the old druggie while he was whackked out on fentanyl… that’s been all over the news today, and it sure involves us, sir…”
“No, I wasn’t talking about that.”
“Well, what huge story are you talking about, sir? What’s bigger than those?”
“That ship. You know, that Asian ship. The sideways ship. That’s the good news. We were out of it. Didn’t have anything to do with us. We dodged a bullet there. Nothing to do with us.”
“Oh, I see what you mean, sir. Don’t know if I agree, sir, but i see what you mean.”
“Huh? Why don’t you agree? It DOESN’T have anything to do with us. I asked the team. They all nodded, sure, it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
“You mean, I suppose, because it was a Japanese-built ship being operated by a Taiwanese carrier, sir?”
“Right. In Egypt. Nothing to do with us at all.”
“Hmm… That’s interesting, sir. Your team all agreed that what happened in the Suez Canal last week didn’t affect us, sir?”
“Nope. Isn’t that great? Everybody was so nervous last week… they all checked to see if it was an American company, or an American insurance company, or if it was built in America … and everybody’s just been so happy that it didn’t have anything to do with us, the whole team’s been walking on a cloud all week. No matter how bad it got, it couldn’t be blamed on us. Cool, huh?”
“Well, sir, umm, that’s a new one on me, sir.”
“How’s that?”
“Schadenfreude, sir. Never expected to encounter schadenfreude at that level, sir.”
“Huh?”
“You know… schadenfreude. Joy at another’s misfortune, and all that.”
“That’s a big word.”
“Schadenfreude, sir? Pretty common word, sir. I think everybody uses it, sir.”
“When I was growing up in Scranton… I’m from Scranton, don’t know if you knew that…”
“Scranton, huh? Fancy that.”
“Yup, Scranton. Well, when I was in school in Scranton, we learned this one word… anti-disestablishmentarianism. They said it was the biggest word in English. At the time, anyway. And we all learned it.”
“So… you all knew what it meant, sir?”
“Huh? No…. we learned how to say it. I don’t think anybody on earth knows what it means, son. It’s just a crazy long word, that’s all. We’d use it to show off.”
“You’d show off to each other by intentionally using a word that , um, none of you knew what it meant?”
“Yup! Fun word. I still say it sometimes before a speech, you know, just to remind myself that I can. Anti-disestablishmentarianism. There. Neat, huh?”
“Neat, sir.”
“So, umm, what’s that word you used again?”
“Schadenfreude, sir?”
“Yeah. Sounds German or something.”
“It’s usually described as a feeling where, in your opinion, it’s not enough to succeed yourself, you specifically want others to fail, sir.”
“Huh?”
“The idea is, it’s an unhealthy thing… compared to where you win a game and you’re proud of your own accomplishment, which is normal… this is a feeling where the person is actually even happier about the other person’s loss, really, than about his own win, sir.”
“Shot and frighten ya, huh?”
“No, Schadenfreude, sir.”
“Oh, I’ll never get that one. Too weird. How’d we get on that again?”
“I was just surprised, sir, that your staff thought the Suez Canal blockage didn’t affect us, sir.”
“Well, I dunno about affect, it wasn’t our fault, that’s the main thing. That’s the important thing. We can’t be blamed. For once, something went wrong in the world, and there was no way anybody could blame us for it. One of the gals brought cookies on Friday just for that!”
“I see sir.”
“You’re making a big deal about it, kid. Why? You Taiwanese or something?”
“Ummm… no, sir, but I was talking to my Dad about it, and I guess I’m looking at big picture, you know, sir?”
“Oh.”
“For example, sir, this ship – the Ever Given – has blocked the Suez Canal for a week.”
“Yup. Not our fault.”
“Yes sir, but it carries 20,000 TEUs of cargo, sir.”
“I don’t even know what the hell that means, boy.”
“Didn’t they talk about it at the meetings, sir?”
“Hell no! We were too busy cheering that it wasn’t our fault!”
“Umm, well, sir, a TEU is a twenty foot equivalent unit, sir. So 20,000 TEUs means it carries 20,000 twenty foot shipping containers, like a small truck. Or, 10,000 forty foot containers, which are more common. Picture a ship with 10,000 truckloads of cargo on it, going from Asia to Europe, sir. 10,000 truckloads, held up for a week, sir.”
“Yup. None of ’em ours!”
“Well, sir, some of them probably are. Maybe 10 or 20 or 30 percent are either for the US directly, or are for the manufacture of goods that will soon be sold to the USA, goods that we’re expecting, and which will now be late. So that’s one of the ways it could affect us.”
“Oh.”
“More important, though, sir, is the fact that Europe is a major trading partner of ours, sir. After this past year, sir, all the economies are fragile, right? A thing like this can throw yet another monkey wrench into the recovery, sir.”
“Oh.”
“But even more important than that, sir, is that this wasn’t the only ship held up, sir. There were around four or five hundred ships in line, half of them eastbound, half of them westbound, headed through the canal, all held up by this, sir.. They were held up too, sir.”
“But not our fault!”
“So? Who cares whose fault it is, sir? Hundreds of ships, lots of them carrying our exports, lots of them carrying our imports, lots of them owned by US companies or carrying US cargo… all held up because of this one accident, sir. Didn’t your team pause, to think about how fragile everything is, if one accident could hold up so much cargo, so much volume, so much commerce, sir?”
“No… we were, umm, pretty much concentrating on the good news, you know… about, umm…”
“Yes, sir, about it not being our fault, sir.”
“You know, this is really good soup. You should eat yours.”
“Yes sir. Thank you, sir. Umm, didn’t your, umm, didn’t your military advisors comment on this issue sir?”
“What for? This was a commercial ship. A business boat. Just cargo. What does the military care about that?”
“Well, sir, haven’t we always conducted diplomacy by moving our fleets around the world, sir?”
“Huh?”
“You know, sir, we say something, or our ambassador says something, and to help make the point, we move our fleet somewhere, sir. Hasn’t that been a key part of our foreign policy for over a hundred years, sir?”
“Umm, i guess. Dunno. Never really thought about it.”
“Well, sir, how do we get our navy around the world so fast, sir?”
“I dunno. I’ve, umm, really been paying more attention to the soup, lately, umm…”
“Well, sir, we use the Suez Canal a lot, sir.”
“We do?”
“Yes, sir, we do. And this little accident has just shown the world how our fleets – and our allies’ navies too – can be cut off from their destinations, on one side or the other, by something as simple as a single shipping accident.”
“Is that so odd?”
“Well, certainly, sir…. if a ship sinks in an ocean or sea, other ships can go around it. But when you need a canal, and that canal is blocked, you’re stuck. We’d have to go all the way around Africa, sir, if we needed to get a fleet to the other side of Suez when it’s blocked. That could take over a week, sir, with a lot of ships, sir.”
“Oh, well, wars last years, a week is a drop in the bucket in wartime, son.”
“Ever hear of the Six Day War, sir?”
“Oh.”
“Countries win or lose wars because of navies being tied up, sir. It’s an incredibly important issue, sir.”
“Oh, there you go, exaggerating again.”
“The United States only exists because of such an incident, sir.”
“Huh?”
“You know the Battle of Yorktown, sir?”
“Um, I think so… That’s where we won the Civil War, right?”
“Close, sir. The War of Independence, sir.”
“But that wasn’t a naval battle! That was an army battle. Wasn’t it?”
“Right, sir. But Cornwallis was only there because he was stuck. His troops were traveling by ship, and his ship was in the river… and a French fleet had him hemmed in, sir. Just like the Ever Given last week, sir… Cornwallis and his troops couldn’t back out of the river because the mouth of the river at Chesapeake Bay was blocked, by Admiral De Grasse, sir. ”
“Oh.”
“Not a perfect analogy, sir, but close enough, I think, sir.”
“Oh.”
“So that’s what I’ve been wondering, sir, surely the military side, the army and navy secretaries and such, have been in marathon sessions all week, worrying and talking about how to deal with this kind of an issue, right, sir?”
“Oh. I don’t know. Don’t really talk with them much.”
“But sir, wasn’t this a wake-up call for everybody, sir?”
“Oh, I don’t leave wake-up calls anymore. Don’t need to. They let me sleep in as much as I want, most days.”
“I see, sir.”
“If they need me, they lay out my clothes the night before, and send somebody in to wake me up.”
“Yes sir. I see, sir.”
“Sleep is important. Want to do a lot of it.”
“Sounds like your advisors are doing plenty of sleeping too, sir.”
“Oh, I hope so. Sleep is good.”
“Yes sir. I see sir. But, umm.. just one more thought, sir…”
“Oh?”
“Well, sir, in all your meetings over the past week, did anyone, anyone at all, mention that now that this has happened by accident, it’s now known exactly how to do it on purpose, sir? Did anyone talk about that, sir?”
“No…. why? Should they have?”
“Well, sir, let’s say some of our important ships, maybe a fleet, maybe just some, are transiting the Suez Canal, sir. What if an enemy arranged that exact kind of accident at each end, sir?”
“Who would do a thing like that?”
“Umm… an enemy, sir.”
“Oh.”
“Well, sir, now that everyone knows how to do this, our military has to make sure they have a plan to deal with it, if it happens… or we need to do something to ensure that it doesn’t happen, sir, right? That makes sense, sir, right?”
“Gee, kid, maybe you shouldn’t talk about things like that. Could give people ideas.”
“Sir, I think I can safely assure you that every enemy on earth thought this through long before it occurred to me, sir. I guess I was just hoping, sir, that your advisors thought of it too, and are dealing with the risk, sir.”
“Oh.”
“The American people look to their government at a time like this to be reassured, you know, sir… to stay confident that their government is dealing with the threats, and the risks, appropriately, you know, sir?”
“Oh, well, I wouldn’t worry about things like that.”
“Gee, sir, I would’ve thought it was the main thing you’d worry about, sir.”
“Me? No. I’m paying attention to the important things, son. We spend all our meetings on much more important things than that.”
“What’s more important than national security, sir?”
“Oh, this is big. This is the big stuff. We got some new poll results today, son!”
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, II, and III), are available in either eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.
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