Friday, March 29, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor

Imagining a Commencement Address From Senator Charles E. Schumer: In Defense of Affirmative Authoritarianism

June 5, 2017 --

Good morning. Permit me to begin my remarks by asking for a show of hands: how many of you believe Donald J. Trump is not fit to be president? [All hands go up.] Marvelous. Marvelous. In that case, I know that I can be honest because I am indeed among friends. [Thunderous applause.]

I can tell you that we are well on our way to our goal. [Huge ovation.] Thank you, thank you. Let me make one request. I don’t want to detain you a moment longer than necessary so that you can leave here for your mission: helping us end mean-spirited, incompetent government in the USA – and so I must ask that you not interrupt until I have completed these remarks – although I appreciate your approval.

At this point, we – the Oust Trump Coalition – have not decided whether to indict Trump on a charge of daring to impersonate a president, or to impeach the charlatan. Until 2019, we likely will not have a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and so, if we are to remove the troglodyte ASAP, we must persuade the hidebound Republicans to support impeachment. My sources tell me that we should be able to obtain an indictment against the son-of-a-gun – once we remove from Federalist Paper No. 69 this sentence: “The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached , tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.” Fortunately, no law professor quoted in The New York Times, recently, by Times legal reporter Adam Liptak, cited those words from Alexander Hamilton, which suggest a president must be kicked out of office before we can put him in jail. I am confident we can get those words expunged from editions of The Federalist Papers, or, if not, we can tar Hamilton as an associate of slaveholders, if he was not actually a slaveholder himself. What will this impostor be indicted for? Does it matter? [More thunderous applause.] Didn’t I ask you not to interrupt? [Nervous laughter.]

Let me tell you about our mission. We are going to complete the work of transforming our nation to align it with the global system. There is no room for narrow nationalistic impulses deriving from an individualistic, capitalistic mindset in the New Order. And yes, to achieve our noble aims, we must be ruthless. I am going to be frank, and brutally honest. Whatever accusations we hurl our enemies describe our own conduct. We, not conservatives, are intent on undermining democracy – to insure that we never lose political power again. We, not conservatives, are dangerous -- to our enemies, because we, unlike conservatives, couldn’t care less about the Constitution and consider free speech to be an obstacle to our perennial rule.

For us, no one is above the law – but we are the people who make the rules for the deplorable masses to obey. Yes, the law is what We say it is. As to the so-called right of dissent -- when someone disagrees with me, I get very, very upset. And so should we all. Who, after all, knows better than us what is good for the people – starting, of course, with ourselves. It is no accident that Obamacare never applied to the members of Congress.

Do you know who we really are? Think of the corrupt lawyers who tried to send Longfellow Deeds into the madhouse, in Frank Capra’s “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.” Or think of the corrupt senators who tried to kick Jefferson Smith out of the U.S. Senate in Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. “ In that movie, the conspiracy against Smith was undone only because one of the members of the cabal suddenly was afflicted by his conscience. Trust me, graduating class, I am proud to declare: No one in the Oust Trust Coalition has a conscience.

And how about the plutocrats – corporate leaders and union bosses -- who maligned John Doe in Capra’s “Meet John Doe.” And don’t forget the wonderfully greedy and nasty banker, Henry F. Potter, in Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” who bore false witness against the populist businessman George Bailey, to get him jailed for Potter’s crime. What a wonderful example for us in our aim to end Trump‘s presidency and have him thrown into prison, thereafter – for the rest of his life. To the Oust Trump Coalition, the vicious lawyers, and senators and plutocrats of the Capra populist movies, plus of course, Henry F. Potter, are role models! As those forces persecuted Doe, and Smith and Doe and Bailey, so will we persecute and crush anyone one who stands in our way! Once we regain power, the Wisconsin midnight raids on dissenters, of a few years ago, will be child’s play. And consider the vast power we shall have keeping dissenters under surveillance. Conservatives ain’t seen nothing yet! Tea Party malconents, you better flee while you have the chance.

Once we reverse the results of the 2016 presidential election – in all its aspects – yes, Pence must go, too – we shall devote our efforts to bringing the benefits of a true people’s democracy to our great nation. In this regard, Raul Castro’s Cuba – if not the Supreme Leaders’ Iran, shall be our guide: one political party for one people, where Truth with a capital T will be whatever the single Party says it is. Yes, my friends, we shall have not only a single payer health system, but a single party political system.

It is my expectation that we shall achieve our goal of bringing affirmative authoritarianism to these shores well before the next presidential election, which, following the example of Palestinian Authority chief Mahmous Abbas, called with fondness Abu Mazen, may not occur for another ten years or more, once the Oust Trump Coalition succeeds in overthrowing the Trump-Pence regime. [Cries of “Down with Trump and also Pence, we demand leadership with common sense” are heard. Schumer quiets the throng.] Okay, continuing my pledge to honesty, that interruption was pre-arranged by “anonymous sources.” {More laughter and applause.} After all, of what purpose are elections, once we get the right leadership in power? Where elections begin, confusion among the people takes over.

And once we take power, , we shall immediately act to bring Communism to Russia. Our problem with Putin, of course, was that he turned his back on Communism.

History has proven that only an elite class is fit to lead. Abraham Lincoln was terribly misguided in thinking that government of the people, by the people and for the people should not perish from this earth. And how wrong Lincoln was to believe that all the people could not be fooled all the time. The passivity of the Republicans, faced with torrents of abuse from the monolithic media, demonstrates that all the people – at least all the Republicans – can not only be fooled, but cowed, all the time.

And so, graduating seniors, I urge you: Follow me into the elitedom. May you enjoy what Madison, in Federalist No. 57 called, the “ambitious sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of the few” – and the sooner, for purpose of settling your student loan debts, the better. [Deafening applause]