If You're An Authoritarian Peckerhead Who Keeps An Enemies List.....
......Then put me on it
Editor’s Note: Have a question about whether Matt, if tapped to serve in Trump’s cabinet, will say “yes”? He won’t. His conscience, such as it is, forbids it. Unless he was put in charge of fisheries as Secretary of the Interior, so he could privatize all streams for his exclusive use to catch-and-release trout until his arms grow sore, with no outside interference from killjoys or over-pressure from PowerBaiters, who should not be allowed to fish, period. (PowerBait is a crime against nature/good taste.) But alas, the president-elect has already awarded that post to North Dakota Governor/apple-polisher Doug Burgum, likely so that he can turn our national parks into fracking sites and/or luxury condo developments. If you have any other questions about Matt’s dashed hopes and dreams, send them to askmattlabash@gmail.com.
Dear Matt,
I fear you are now on Trump’s enemies list. How far down this list do you think you are? Behind Drudge and ahead of Jim Swift? I need to know, to decide if I should renew my subscription.
Tom G.
Of course you should renew your subscription, as an act of philanthropy, if for no other reason. (Good lawyers don’t pay for themselves.) And besides, even if I get sent to journo internment camp, I expect they’ll have serviceable WiFi (they’re not total savages, and Trumpsters are a very online people). So I’ll be filing one whale of a prison diary: Food reviews on how they make us eat overcooked beef pucks slathered in ketchup, in the Mar-a-Lago culinary tradition. Gruesome descriptions of how they wear us down with psychological torture. (Making us watch future Defense Secretary/serial philanderer Pete Hegseth’s deepest thoughts from Fox & Friends Weekend on a continuous loop.) Instructionals on how to fashion a prison shiv from a toothbrush, in case I need to stick Trump’s co-president, Elon, when he inevitably falls out of favor for being too much of a narcissist (there’s only room for one at the top), then gets assigned as my cellie, coming at me with lust’s impure light in his eye after having not impregnated anyone in at least three months. (In fairness to Elon, I will be fairly desirable/shredded from consistent workouts with my prison-yard trainer, Mad Dog Mattis.)
If I sound unserious, it’s only fitting when writing about the unserious people now poised to staff the Trump administration (unless Republican Senators stand up to Trump — though you have a better chance of winning Powerball than that happening): from the anti-vaxxer brain-worm guy who thinks the Jews might’ve been in on COVID, to the Putin-puppet who is now trading in her religious cult for a secular one, to the hydrocephalic-looking human skid-mark who has been accused of everything from having sex’n’drug orgies to conducting “voter outreach” with a 17-year-old girl (he denies it, a purported eyewitness’s attorney doesn’t) – a man who has pulled off the once-impossible feat of being too scummy even for the House of Representatives, but not too scummy to helm Trump’s Revenge Machine as Attorney General.
Trump and his prospective cabinet of misfit toys have made lots of noise about keeping an enemies list. Which, fine, if you’re an authoritarian-wannabe, I suppose. I shouldn’t say this, in the interest of not getting audited (my wife and accountant will hate me), but if Trump or his goons are keeping an enemies list, as they’ve indicated, go ahead and put me on it. Because if you’re the kind of un-American peckerhead who thinks the machinery of government should be used to punish people solely for having dissenting opinions and/or to carry out your revenge fantasies, then count me in as your enemy for life.