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…
Note: We are sharing approximately every other story from Evening Soup with Basement Joe, and are now sampling Volume Three’s ninety chapters. In today’s episode from the first year of his regime, his soup aide talks to him about Founders, Framers, and the French.
Constitution Day, Our First Alliance, and French Country Soup
Dateline: September 17. Begin Transcript:
“Good evening, sir!”
“It is?”
“Well, yes, sir, I think so… we’re safe indoors, we have power and air conditioning, and there’s fresh soup! Nothing to complain about there, sir!”
“Oh. Yeah. Right. Soup. Good.”
“So for Constitution Day, sir, the cook made something special, sir. French Country Soup, sir.”
“What does that have to do with the Constitution?”
“Oh, lots of things, sir! Let’s see now… one of the principle leaders in the process of organizing the Constitutional Convention, and then of getting it ratified, was Alexander Hamilton, sir.”
“What does that have to do with French soup?”
“Well, he was half French, after all, sir.”
“He was?”
“Sure, sir! You know Hamilton’s backstory, right, sir? Raised in the Caribbean… His French mother raised him and his brother alone for several years because his Scottish dad disappeared, then his mom died of a fever when the boys were young, and they got apprenticed into very different careers, sir…”
“So what is this soup again?”
“French Country Soup, sir. It’s a pork soup, with shallots and onions and celery and potatoes. Looks good, sir. So let’s see here, soup, crackers, napkins, and your soupspoons, sir.”
“Mmm… Thanks.”
“France, our first major ally.”
“Huh? France? Why’s that?”
“Well, sir, you know we were allied with France in our War of Independence, right, sir?”
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
“Of course, the King primarily supported us as a way to get back at England, after France lost so much in the Seven Years War, sir.”
“They did?”
“Well, sure. King Louis wasn’t a libertarian, sir. It’s not like he put the full faith and credit of monarchical France into an alliance with the United States because he stood for republican ideals, sir.”
“He didn’t?”
“No, sir, he didn’t. Just an alliance of convenience, sir. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good and important alliance, sir. French funding and military support, especially naval, made the difference a few times, sir.”
“I wouldn’t know. Never went in for studying that sort of thing.”
“But there were some terrific patriots in the mix, too, sir. The Marquis de Lafayette, for example, came over on his own, before the king even agreed to an alliance, sir. Lafayette even brought his own platoon of volunteers and outfitted them out of his own money, sir! And he really was a true believer in the American small government philosophy, sir.”
“I don’t really need a history lesson; I’ll just sit here and eat my soup.”
“Then there’s Alexis de Tocqueville, of course… he didn’t come over until the 1800s… he was a generation later, after the founding, but he was a huge fan of the founding, sir. One of the great writers about the American experiment, sir. Quite a guy, sir.”
“Is there a point here, young man? What’s your name again?”
“Rocky, sir. It’s still Rocky, sir. A week now.”
“Your name’s only been Rocky for a week?”
“No, sir, my name’s been Rocky my whole life, sir. I just mean that I’ve been bringing your soup, sir. I’ve been your soup aide for a week, sir.”
“So what’s French about this soup?”
“The recipe, I suppose, sir. And the name. They call it French Country Soup, sir, so I assume it’s from somewhere in France, sir.”
“I was supposed to get a nice French dinner tonight, but I had to cancel. Had to get back up here for the weekend.”
“Sir, the way I heard it on the news, the French government closed the embassy, recalled their ambassador, and cancelled the event, sir.”
“Oh. So it got out, huh?”
“The whole country is talking about it, sir. Probably the whole world, sir.”
“Darn it. We thought we could keep it quiet.”
“A thing like this, sir? Mr. Macron is furious, sir. Cutting France out of that mutual defense thing… probably wasn’t the brightest idea, sir. Who’s the dim bulb on your staff who dreamed this up, sir?”
“Now, let’s not get hasty….”
“No, really, sir, you must have some kind of a crazy Francophobe on your staff, sir, to manage to ruffle those feathers this badly, huh, sir?”
“Well, now, I don’t know…”
“I mean, for a liberal Democrat administration to come up with a way to offend the French this badly must really take work, sir. A thing like this doesn’t happen by mistake; you have to really be trying, to drive a wedge between such natural allies, you know, sir?”
“Well, umm, I think we’re still good friends…”
“We all hope so, sir, but the way their government reacted to this, it sure sounds like they didn’t even get a heads up! No wonder they’re furious, sir!”
“Cut it out. I like the French. Heck, I love the French. They’re wonderful people. Wish they bathed…”
“Well, sir, on the bright side, at least they’re not taking the Statue of liberty back, huh?!
“What… does THAT old thing have a connection to France too???”
Copyright 2021-2024 John F Di Leo
Excerpted from “Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume Three: How Is This Not Over Yet?”, available in paperback or eBook, exclusively on Amazon.
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. President of the Ethnic American Council in the 1980s and Chairman of the Milwaukee County Republican Party in the 1990s, 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.
His newest nonfiction book, “Current Events and the Issues of Our Age,” was just released on July 1, and is also available, in both paperback and Kindle eBook, exclusively on Amazon.
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